AbstractsLaw & Legal Studies

This thesis follows the growth of settlement in Kentucky from the time of her birth as a state in seventeen hundred and ninety-two, to the year eighteen hundred and thirty-seven, a period during which all of the land within her borders was opened for settlement. It does not pretend to relate a complete story of the march across Kentucky, but only to tell the important stages as revealed by the laws governing appropriating of land. There were no Indian towns or villages within the boundaries of what is now Kentucky, but certain tribes had definite hunting grounds. The Cherokees were one of these tribes. "On the borders of Virginia and North Carolina the ancient limits of the Cherokees seem to be shrouded in •••• doubt and confusion •••• After following Catawba river to its source in the Blue Ridge, the course of the mountains is pursued to the Great Iron Mountain range near Floyd Court House, Virginia, thence to Kanawha •••• down that stream to Ohio. Later they claimed down Ohio to the ridge dividing Cumberland and Tennessee." At the treaty of Hopewell in 1785, Chief Tassel presented a rude map on which a line was drawn marking the bounds of the Cherokees.