It should be understood that the Cherokees had no better title to the territory in question than had the Choctaws, Shawnees, or Iroquois. In fact, the last named had some few years previous transferred to the British Crown all the lands lying between the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers. However, the Company felt that its position would be strengthened by securing some title, however shadowy, from an Indian tribe, and the Cherokees were selected because they commanded the path that would be followed by the settlers from the South in going to the new country. As usual, Boone accomplished his errand and in March brought twelve hundred Cherokees to the Sycamore Shoals, on the Watauga River, where the promoters met them and after considerable bickering struck a bargain. It was agreed that in consideration of the payment of fifty thousand dollars, the tribe should cede to Henderson and his partners in the Transylvania Company all the land lying between the Kentucky and Cumberland Rivers, and should allow them a free road to the region through Powell’s Valley and the Cumberland Gap. According to the general practice of the time, the purchase price was paid in merchandise, consisting of cloth, clothing, guns, ammunition, cooking utensils, hatchets, and ornaments. The goods filled a large cabin but when it came to distributing them, each warrior’s share proved to be small. One brave, to whom was allotted a deerskin hunting-shirt, expressed his disgust in no uncertain terms. What a fool he had been, he said, to sell for such an article his hunting-grounds, where in a single day he could kill deer enough to make half a dozen such garments. Thus, at the outset, the arrangement met with the dissatisfaction of the Indians. Indeed, before the meeting broke up one of the chiefs warned Boone that he must not expect to effect the settlement of the region without trouble. He pointed out, truthfully enough, that the Indian chiefs could no more control their young men than the frontier leaders could the hot-heads among themselves. The Cherokees as a nation might, he said, be at peace with the Virginians--they called all frontiersmen “Virginians”--and a few individuals on either side wantonly commit some act that would bring on war. The chiefs could not, he declared, guarantee the safety of emigrants upon the promised path, much less of settlers in Kentucky itself. This was not very promising, but it did not daunt the promoters, for they had expected nothing better. All they had looked for from the agreement was something that would give them a moral right to fight for the possession of the land and entitle them to the countenance of the Crown authorities. In this hope they were, however, immediately disappointed; for the Governors of North Carolina and Virginia denounced the transaction as soon as knowledge of it reached them.