Encouraged by the
treaty of Lord Dunmore with the Indians in 1774, and knowing the Indian
titles to the lands they were occupying to have been extinguished, they
naturally counted on an unmolested possession of the region they were
settling. But in this expectation they were sorely disappointed. The
English officers and agents in the northwest were indefatigable in
stimulating the Indians to attack the American colonists in every
quarter. They supplied them with arms and ammunition, bribed them with
money, and aided and encouraged them to attack the feeble settlements in
Kentucky and Tennessee. But Providence overruled these circumstances for
the benefit of the Western country. "The settlement of Kentucky led to
the conquest of the British posts in Illinois and Indiana, in 1778, and
eventually threw the wide valleys of the West under control of the
American Union."[25]

The settlers in Kentucky in 1775, were still acting under the belief
that the claims purchased by Henderson and Company from the Cherokees
were valid, and that "the Proprietors of the Colony of Transylvania"
were really founding a political State. Under this impression they
took leases from the Company, and in the course of the year, eighteen
delegates assembled in convention at Boonesborough, and acknowledged the
Company as lawful proprietors, "established courts of justice, and rules
for proceeding therein; also a militia law, a law for the preservation
of game, and for appointing civil and militia officers."[26] This was
the first political convention ever held in the Western Valley for the
formation of a free government.[27]

The winter and spring of 1776[28] were passed by the little colony
of Boonesborough in hunting, fishing, clearing the lands immediately
contiguous to the station, and putting in a crop of corn. The colonists
were molested but once by their enemies during the winter, when one man
was killed by a small band of marauding Indians, who suddenly appeared
in the vicinity, and as suddenly departed.

In the middle summer month, an incident of a thrilling character
occurred, which cast a deep but only momentary shadow upon the little
society of Boonesborough. This was the capture, by some skulking Indians
belonging to a numerous band who were now prowling through the woods and
brakes of Kentucky, and occasionally approaching the settlements for the
purpose of plunder, of three young females, members of the families of
Boone and Callawa