The Transylvania Purchase

Land speculation has a bad name. If you think of someone as a speculator it brings out many negative images. While there are reasons that we see this pastime as exploitive, the frontier would never have developed without it. Much of the land we think of as the frontier was acquired all at one time. The largest real estate transaction, corporate or private, in the United States was the Transylvania Purchase.

A man named Richard Henderson was prominent in the politics of North Carolina. Like many politicos of the time he thought the best way to get rich was to buy western lands, and develop them. There were legal obstacles to obtaining these lands. The biggest obstacle was the Proclamation of 1763. Henderson went to the Royal Attorney General and got a decree that the Proclamation did not forbid him from buying up the lands he desired. The King disagreed, but Henderson decided to ignore him.

While Henderson wanted to buy large tracts of land he needed someone to search out what lands would be best. In 1763 he met a young man named Daniel Boone. Boone was just back from Braddock's ill fated campaign and looking for another adventure. They were a perfect match. Boone made many exploratory trips into the wilderness. In 1769 he made an extended trip into the area we now call Kentucky. In 1773 when Boone attempted to take his and other families back to Kentucky the Natives attacked and killed six, including his oldest son.

Henderson remained interested in purchasing western lands, but he was elected as a judge which precluded any active role in a land company. In 1774 he, no longer a judge, formed the Louisa Land Company. In January of 1775 this was reorganized into the Transylvania Company. It was then that his partner Nathaniel Hart and Daniel Boone went to the Overhill Cherokee towns to begin negotiations. Boone had suggested the purchase of the Kentucky lands at that time because he knew that the Cherokee were daunted by the defeat of the Shawnee in 1774. He felt that by selling these lands the Cherokee could form a buffer between them and the North. He also suggested that by selling these lands the Cherokee could reroute the advance of White settlement. Clinch Mountain would provide a natural barrier.

In preparation for the purchase Henderson had assembled a houseful of trade goods and invited the Cherokee to come to North Carolina to see them. Chief Attakullakulla took many tribesmen with him and viewed the goods. Boone then set the date of March first 1775 for talks. The place for them was set at Sycamore Shoals in the Watauga settlement.

As early as January Cherokees began to gather at the Shoals. Henderson made arrangements with the Wataugans to feed them. By the time the negotiations began over twelve hundred Cherokee and six hundred settlers had gathered. Also present were six wagons full of goods. Festivities began on March first as scheduled, but the negotiations did not begin for another two weeks.

After much bargaining a deal was struck. For two thousand pounds sterling and another eight thousand pounds in goods the Cherokee deeded over more than twenty million acres. The purchase included about two thirds of present day Kentucky and much of Middle Tennessee. It was made up of all of the Cumberland River watershed and over half of the Kentucky River watershed. With John Sevier acting as their attorney Chiefs Attakullakulla, Ocanastota and Savanook signed the deed on March 19th.

Not all of the Cherokee were pleased with the deal. Attakullakulla's nephew, Dragging Canoe had spoken out forcefully against the sale. When the sale was consummated anyway he rose up, pointed north and told the settlers they would find that "a dark and bloody ground". He then left. This was the beginning of the tribe that became known as the Chickamauga.

While still at the bargaining table Henderson also purchased a "path deed" which gave him access to his lands via the Cumberland Gap. This cost him an additional two thousand pounds worth of goods. The Cherokee also sold the Wataugans much of the land that they were already occupying.

The Transylvania Purchase was just the opening chapter in much of the history of the frontier. It was the forerunner of the Wilderness Trail, Boonesborough, Nashborough and many other significant facets of American History.