Southwest Territory - Background

Background

During the colonial period, land that would become the Southwest Territory was part of North Carolina's land patent. The Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains hindered North Carolina from pursuing any lasting interest in the territory; so initially trade, political interest, and settlement came mostly from Virginia and South Carolina; and only after the Regulator War, North Carolina.

The Watauga Association (sometimes referred to as the "Republic of Watauga") was a semi-autonomous government created in 1772 by frontier settlers living along the Watauga River in what is present day Elizabethton, Tennessee. The colony was established on Cherokee-owned land in which the Watauga and Nolichucky settlers had negotiated a 10-year lease directly with the Indians. Fort Watauga was established on the Watauga River at Sycamore Shoals as a trade center of the settlements.

In March 1775, land speculator and North Carolina judge, Richard Henderson, met with more than 1,200 Cherokees at the shoals. Included at the gathering were Cherokee leaders such as Attacullaculla, Oconostota, and Dragging Canoe. In the "Treaty of Sycamore Shoals" (also known as the "Treaty of Watauga"), Henderson purchased from the Cherokee all the land situated south of the Ohio River and lying between the Cumberland River; the Cumberland Mountains; and the Kentucky River. The land thus delineated—20 million acres (80,000 km²)—encompassed an area half as large as the present state of Kentucky; and became known as the Transylvania Purchase. However, Henderson's land deal was found to be in violation of North Carolina and Virginia law, as well as the Royal Proclamation Act of 1763, which had prohibited the private purchase of American Indian land. (Henderson may have believed that a recent British legal ruling, the "Camden-Yorke Opinion", had made such purchases legal.)