As the mounds and other remains to be referred to are located in the northwest part of North Carolina and the northern part of East Tennessee, the first point to be established is that the Cherokees did actually, at some time, occupy this region. In the first place, it is well known that they claimed all that portion of the country east of Clinch River to and including the northwest part of North Carolina, at least to the Yadkin, a claim which was conceded by the whites and acted on officially by State and national authority and denied by no Indian tribe. Haywood expressly states that[55]-- the Cherokees were firmly established on the Tennessee River or Hogohega [the Holston] before the year 1650, and had dominion over all the country on the east side of the Alleghany Mountains, which includes the headwaters of the Yadkin, Catawba, Broad River, and the headwaters of the Savannah-- a statement borne out by the fact that, as late as 1756, when the English built Fort Dobbs on the Yadkin, not far from Salisbury, they first obtained the privilege of doing so by treaty with Attacullaculla, the Cherokee chief.[56] Haywood asserts,[57] upon what authority is not known, that-- before the year 1690 the Cherokees, who were once settled on the Appomattox River, in the neighborhood of Monticello, left their former abodes and came to the west. The Powhatans are said by their descendants to have been once a part of this nation. The probability is that migration took place about, or soon after, the year 1632, when the Virginians suddenly and unexpectedly fell upon the Indians, killing all they could find, cutting up and destroying their crops, and causing great numbers to perish by famine. They came to New River and made a temporary settlement, and also on the head of the Holston.