sans rather than as warriors. Such conquests are always vital to the region affected. A military army scars the land that feels its presence, but after a time it either retreats, or, ceasing to be an army, is absorbed by the country it has reached, and its visit becomes a paragraph in text-books. But when in earlier times white men of Anglo-Saxon stock resolved on an expedition from which there could be no retreat, and to whose success there must be no alternative, they did not begin it with guns and food alone. Instead, they burdened themselves down with their women and children, dogs, pots, pans and cattle, and started into the unknown. The eras of such spectacles are past, and considering them from these later days it can be understood how needless were the fears with which more timid souls sometimes looked on such hegiras. The multitudinous details of human, inanimate, and four-legged baggage that paralyzed speed and seemed to presage failure were the elements that made success inevitable. Without them the men could have returned.

The first symptom of the permanent invasion of the region beyond the mountains was seen in 1771 and 1772, when a little stream of people drifted down toward the southwest from Pennsylvania and northern Virginia into the broad valley that is bounded on the west by the Cumberland Mountains and on the east by the Unaka or Great Smoky range.

Through it ran the various branches of the Clinch and Holston Rivers, that empty into the Tennessee.' The men travelled under the trees on foot, while the women and household goods were loaded on the horses, and the elder children drove the cows and pigs. It was a journey that,

'Heretofore referred to in these pages as the Cherokee River.

save in its greater length, was in many respects a repetition of the march of Pastor Hooker and his congregation through the wilds of Massachusetts a hundred and thirtyfive years before. The political boundaries of the colonies were rather vague in those times, and the people of these little bands, knowing that the upper part of the valley was a part of Virginia, thought the region where they stopped to build their cabins and make clearings in the

31.-Usual type of a cabin dweller's home. The method of building such a house is described in this chapter. Habitations like this were the abodes of nearly all Americans, except town-people, for a century and a half.

forest was also in that colony. It was not, but was theoretically under the jurisdiction of North Carolina, and was later to become the extreme eastern part of the present state of Tennessee. They were so far removed from any other civilization, and so much out of the reach of any government that they soon proceeded with all deliberation

to set up in their valley a little republic of their own. It was called Wautaga,' from a small stream that empties into the Holston River, and it had a formal written constitution, which was the first instrument of the sort drawn up by Americans west of the mountains. The affairs of the state were administered by a legislature of thirteen men. Five of these were appointed to carry on the executive and judicial business of the republic. Courts were organized with stated sittings, and an instance of their authority and methods lies in the case of a horse thief who was arrested on a Monday, tried on Wednesday and hanged on Friday.

Wautaga negotiated formal treaties with surrounding nations of Indians, and for six years its machinery of government successfully administered all its affairs, while the people themselves built their cabins and blockhouses, felled the forest, raised crops and fought against the Indians whenever war with the natives occurred."

On one occasion hostilities between the red men and Wautaga broke out with such suddenness that the settlers had to run pell-mell to a fort without thought of saving any of their possessions. When finally behind shelter with whole skins they began to consider what they had left in the cabins, and somebody cried out that they had forgotten the Bibles in the church. Forthwith a sally-party was organized and left the stockade to secure the volumes, while the rest of the population awaited in suspense the result of the attempt. Shots were heard at intervals, and at last

1 Also spelled Watauga and Wataga.

The phraseology of the document unfortunately has not survived.

3 The principal Indians of the South were the five Appalachian confederacies called the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks and Seminoles. They lived principally in permanent settlements, and were not nomadic in the sense that many other tribes were. Their number is believed to have reached about 70,000. The tribe with which the early white invaders of the South had the most trouble was the Cherokees, who lived in the mountains of Tennessee, the Carolinas, Alabama and Georgia. In all its essential features and underlying causes the border warfare in the South between the two races resembled the troubles in the North that have been described.

the men were seen to be on their way back with every appearance of triumph. A jubilation attended their return and the demonstration of joy was soon discovered to be justified. For the party had not only rescued the Bibles, but had stopped on the way back and scalped eleven Indians. This was in 1776. Two years afterward North Carolina took charge of things and the sovereignty of the little backwoods republic disappeared for all time.

Shortly before the incident of Wautaga there had entered into this history one of its two commanding human figures. His name was Daniel Boone, and in his personality and exploits were centered the beginning of the events with which we have now to deal.

CHAPTER VIII

POPULAR IGNORANCE OF THE COUNTRY BEYOND THE ALLEDANIEL BOONE COMES ON THE SCENE

GHANIES

HOW HE GOT HIS LOVE OF FORESTS AND SOLITUDE
EIGHT GO AWAY AND TWO COME BACK THE RESOLVE
OF THE CABIN DWELLERS BEGINNING OF THE

MARCH A TEMPORARY CHECK THE SCHEME OF
THE TRANSYLVANIA COMPANY

TH

HERE were three principal reasons that impelled thirty thousand people of the South to turn their backs on established homes within the space of a few years and "wander through the wilderness of America in quest of the country of Kentucke.'

991

One cause was the comparative congestion of the population immediately to the eastward of the unseen land; a second was strong popular protest against illegal taxes and the display of luxury based on oppression; the third was an interest suddenly born of tales that described the character of the West. A few other minor elements contributed toward the impulse, but these three factors in the life of the cabin dwellers, all coming simultaneously into operation, started the travel through the forests.

It is hard to realize that an almost complete ignorance of the region west of the Alleghany Mountains continued among the English speaking population until such a little

1 Boone's quaint description of the movement.

For an extended understanding of the domestic troubles of the North Carolina people see "Historical Sketches of North Carolina," by John H. Wheeler.