marked out, but the danger from Indian attacks was too In 1784, when North Carolina ceded her western land to Congress and Congress delayed acceptance, the State of Franklin was formed. Congress refused to recognize the group struggling for independent statehood, and 29 in 1786 North Carolina resumed control over the region. When North Carolina made her second offer in 1789, Congress accepted. By this time (1790), there were seven counties in what is now the state of Tennessee, Sullivan, Hawkins, Washington, and Greene in the Eastern part, and Tennessee, Davidson, and Sumner in the Central part, with a total 30 population of 35,691. In regard to the Indian land, the United States followed the English precedent, that the Indians held possessory title, involving the right of occupancy and enjoyment until the land should be purchased from 31 them. The United States held political sovereignty which deprived the native of any power to alienate the 28. Weeks, p. 252. 29. Paxson, p. 31. 30. A Century of Population Growth (Washington, 1909), p. 9. 31. Charles C. Royce, "Cessions of Land by Indian Tribes to the United States: Illustrated by Those in the State of Indiana". in First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, POPULATION IN TENNESSEE COUNTY LINES IN TENNESSEE 1990 STATISTICAL ATLAS OF THE UNITED STATES. 1900, # AUTHORITY: A CENTURY OF POPULATION GROWTH. p. 70. land to another sovereign. Washington followed the principle that the Indians possessed the right to the soil until it was ceded to the United States, or was 32 secured by right of conquest in the case of war. The first general claim to land in Tennessee was ceded by the Six Nations in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768 when they ceded whatever title they held to lands in that The Treaty of Lochabar in 1770 33 part of the country. conveyed lands in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.34 Then in 1772, the Watauga Association leased lands on the Watauga River for a period of ten 35 years. The The Transylvania purchase followed. In the same year (1775), the leased lands in the Watauga were bought. Avery's Treaty of July 20, 1777, confirmed the 36 Watauga cessions and extended their boundaries. Treaty of Nashborough with the Chickasaws and Cherokees followed, but was not officially recognized until in 1785. The most important treaty affecting Tennessee was negotiated with the Cherokees at Hopewell, South Carolina, and 32. Royce, p. 250. 33. Hale and Merritt, I, p. 22. 34. Max Farrand, "The Indian Boundary Line", in American Historical Review, X (1905), p. 788. 35. Hale and Merritt, 1, p. 23. |