ts, under penalty of seeing the loss of their last
hunting-grounds, by which alone their children could live. When he had
finished his speech he abruptly left the ring of speakers, and the
council broke up in confusion. The Indian onlookers were much impressed
by what he said; and for some hours the whites were in dismay lest all
further negotiations should prove fruitless. It was proposed to get the
deed privately; but to this the treaty-makers would not consent,
answering that they cared nothing for the treaty unless it was concluded
in open council, with the full assent of all the Indians. By much
exertion Dragging Canoe was finally persuaded to come back; the council
was resumed next day, and finally the grant was made without further
opposition. The Indians chose their own interpreter; and the treaty was
read aloud and translated, sentence by sentence, before it was signed,
on the fourth day of the formal talking.

The chiefs undoubtedly knew that they could transfer only a very
imperfect title to the land they thus deeded away. Both Oconostota and
Dragging Canoe told the white treaty-makers that the land beyond the
mountains, whither they were going, was a "dark ground," a "bloody
ground"; and warned them that they must go at their own risk, and not
hold the Cherokees responsible, for the latter could no longer hold them
by the hand. Dragging Canoe especially told Henderson that there was a
black cloud hanging over the land, for it lay in the path of the
northwestern Indians--who were already at war with the Cherokees, and
would surely show as little mercy to the white men as to the red.
Another old chief said to Boon: "Brother, we have given you a fine land,
but I believe you will have much trouble in settling it." What he said
was true, and the whites were taught by years of long warfare that
Kentucky was indeed what the Cherokees called it, a dark and bloody
ground.[2]

After Henderson's main treaty was concluded, the Watauga Association
entered into another, by which they secured from the Cherokees, for
2,000 pounds sterling, the lands they had already leased.

As soon as it became evident that the Indians would consent to the
treaty, Henderson sent Boon ahead with a company of thirty men to clear
a trail from the Holston to the Kentucky.[3] This, the first regular
path opened into the wilderness, was long called Boon's trace, and
became forever famous in Kentucky history as the Wilderness Road, the
track a