The Conquest of the Old Southwest; the romantic story of the early pioneers into Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Kentucky, 1740-1790Henderson, Archibald
History
The Conquest of the Old Southwest; the romantic story of the early pioneers into Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Kentucky, 1740-1790
Henderson, Archibald
Frontier and pioneer life -- Southwest, Old; Kentucky -- History -- To 1792; Southwest, Old -- History; Tennessee -- History
That they had likewise viewed the State of Fort Dobbs, and found it to
be a good and Substantial Building of the Dimentions following (that is
to say) The Oblong Square fifty three feet by forty, the opposite Angles
Twenty four feet and Twenty-Two In Height Twenty four and a half feet as
by the Plan annexed Appears, The Thickness of the Walls which are made
of Oak Logs regularly Diminished from sixteen Inches to Six, it contains
three floors and there may be discharged from each floor at one and the
same time about one hundred Musketts the same is beautifully scituated
in the fork of Fourth Creek a Branch of the Yadkin River. And that they
also found under Command of Capt Hugh Waddel Forty six Effective men
Officers and Soldiers ... the said Officers and Soldiers Appearing well
and in good Spirits. [41]
As to the erection of a fort on the Tennessee, promised the Cherokees by
South Carolina, difficulties between the governor of that province and
of Virginia in regard to matters of policy and the proportionate share
of expenses made effective coöperation between the two colonies
well-nigh impossible. Glen, as we have seen, had resented Dinwiddie's
efforts to win the South Carolina Indians over to Virginia's interest.
And Dinwiddie had been very indignant when the force promised him by the
Indians to aid General Braddock did not arrive, attributing this
defection in part to Glen's negotiations for a meeting with the
chieftains and in part to the influence of the South Carolina traders,
who kept the Indians away by hiring them to go on long hunts for furs
and skins. But there was no such contention between Virginia and North
Carolina. Dinwiddie and Dobbs arranged (November 6, 1755) to send a
commission from these colonies to treat with the Cherokees and the
Catawbas. Virginia sent two commissioners, Colonel William Byrd, third
of that name, and Colonel Peter Randolph; while North Carolina sent one,
Captain Hugh Waddell. Salisbury, North Carolina, was the place of
rendezvous. The treaty with the Catawbas was made at the Catawba Town,
presumably the village opposite the mouth of Sugaw Creek, in York
County, South Carolina, on February 20-21, 1756; that with the Cherokees
on Broad River, North Carolina, March 13-17. As a result of the
negotiations and after the receipt of a present of goods, the Catawbas
agreed to send forty warriors to aid Virginia within forty days; and the
Cherokees, in return for presents and Virginia's promise to contribute
her proportion toward the erection of a strong fort, undertook to send
four hundred warriors within forty days, "as soon as the said fort shall
be built." Virginia and North Carolina thus wisely coöperated to
"straighten the path" and "brighten the chain" between the white and the
red men, in important treaties which have largely escaped the attention
of historians. [42]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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