[4] Among Dr. Draper's manuscripts I find this succinct review of the aboriginal claims to Kentucky: "There is some reason to suppose that the Catawbas may once have dwelt upon the Kentucky River; that stream, on some of the ancient maps published a hundred years ago, was called the 'Cuttawa or Cawtaba River.' But that tribe of Indians, so far as we know, never laid any claim to the territory. "It would appear from the historical evidences extant, that the Shawanoes were the earliest occupants of Kentucky of whom we have any certain knowledge. Colden, the primitive historian of the Iroquois Confederacy, informs us, that when the French commenced the first settlement of Canada in 1603, the Five Nations, who then resided near the present locality of Montreal, were at war with the powerful Adirondacks, who at that time lived three hundred miles above the Three Rivers, in Canada. The Iroquois found it difficult to withstand the vigorous attacks of their enemies, whose superior hardihood was to be attributed to their constant devotion to the chase, while the Iroquois had been chiefly engaged in the more peaceful occupation of planting corn. Compelled to give way before their haughty foes, the confederates had recourse to the exercise of arms, in order, if possible, to retrieve their martial character and prowess. To raise the spirits of their people, the Iroquois leaders turned their warriors against the Satanas or Shawanoes, 'who then,' says Colden, 'lived on the banks of the lakes,'--or, as other historians assert, in Western New York, and south of Lake Erie,--and soon subdued and drove them out of the country. The Shawanoes then retired to the Ohio, along which and its tributaries they planted numerous settlements. Some of them, however, when driven from Western New York, seem to have located somewhere on the Delaware, for De Laet, in 1624, speaks of _Sawanoos_ residing on that river.