In the Atlantic cities, accounts had been
received from French and Spanish traders, of the unparalleled beauty and
fertility of the western interior. These reports, highly colored and
amplified, were soon received and known upon the frontier. Besides,
persons engaged in the interior traffic with the south-western Indian
tribes had, in times of peace, penetrated their territories--traded
with and resided amongst the natives--and upon their return to the white
settlements, confirmed what had been previously reported in favor of the
distant countries they had seen. As early as 1690, Doherty, a trader
from Virginia, had visited the Cherokees and afterward lived among them
a number of years. In 1730, Adair, from South Carolina, had traveled,
not only through the towns of this tribe, but had extended his tour
to most of the nations south and west of them. He was not only an
enterprising trader but an intelligent tourist. To his observations upon
the several tribes which he visited, we are indebted for most that is
known of their earlier history. They were published in London in 1775.

"In 1740 other traders went among the Cherokees from Virginia. They
employed Mr Vaughan as a packman, to transport their goods. West of
Amelia County, the country was then thinly inhabited; the last hunter's
cabin that he saw was on Otter River, a branch of the Staunton, now in
Bedford County, Va. The route pursued was along the Great Path to the
centre of the Cherokee nation. The traders and pack-men generally
confined themselves to this path till it crossed the Little Tennessee
River, then spreading themselves out among the several Cherokee villages
west of the mountain, continued their traffic as low down the Great
Tennessee as the Indian settlements upon Occochappo or Bear Creek, below
the Muscle Shoals, and there encountered the competition of other
traders, who were supplied from New Orleans and Mobile. They returned
heavily laden with peltries, to Charleston, or the more northern
markets, where they were sold at highly remunerating prices. A hatchet,
a pocket looking-glass, a piece of scarlet cloth, a trinket, and other
articles of little value, which at Williamsburg could be bought for a
few shillings, would command from an Indian hunter on the Hiwasse or
Tennessee peltries amounting in value to double the number of pounds
sterling. Exchanges were necessarily slow, but the profits realized from
the operation were immensely large. In times