Pontiac's war there was no
expedition of importance undertaken by Virginians against the Indians
until 1774, and of Pontiac's war itself we have full knowledge. Sevier
was neither leader nor participant in any such marvellous feats as Mr.
Gilmore describes, on the contrary, the skirmishes in which he may have
been engaged were of such small importance that no record remains
concerning them. Had Sevier done any such deeds all the colonies would
have rung with his exploits, instead of their remaining utterly unknown
for a hundred and twenty-five years. It is extraordinary that any author
should be willing to put his name to such reckless misstatements, in
what purports to be a history and not a book of fiction.

24. The Watauga settlers and those of Carter's Valley were the first to
organize; the Nolichucky people came in later.

25. Putnam, 30.

26. The original articles of the Watauga Association have been lost, and
no copies are extant. All we know of the matter is derived from Haywood,
Ramsey, and Putnam, three historians to whose praiseworthy industry
Tennessee owes as much as Kentucky does to Marshall, Butler, and
Collins. Ramsey, by the way, chooses rather inappropriate adjectives
when he calls the government "paternal and patriarchal."

27. A very good account of this government is given in Allison's
Address, pp. 5-8, and from it the following examples are taken.

28. A right the exercise of which is of course susceptible to great
abuse, but, nevertheless, is often absolutely necessary to the
well-being of a frontier community. In almost every case where I have
personally known it exercised, the character of the individual ordered
off justified the act.

29. Allison's Address.

30. Ramsey, log. Putnam says 36 degrees 35'.

31. Alexander Cameron.

32. Haywood, 43.

33. Meanwhile Carter's Valley, then believed to lie in Virginia, had
been settled by Virginians; the Indians robbed a trader's store, and
indemnified the owners by giving them land, at the treaty of Sycamore
Shoals. This land was leased in job lots to settlers, who, however, kept
possession without paying when they found it lay in North Carolina.

34. A similar but separate lease was made by the settlers on the
Nolichucky, who acquired a beautiful and fertile valley in exchange for
the merchandize carried on the back of a single pack-horse. Among the
whites themselves transfers of land were made in very simple forms, and
conveyed not the fe