n. "After the defeat of
the Regulators," says the historian of the Sandy Creek
Association, "thousands of the oppressed, seeing no hope of
redress for their grievances, moved into and settled east
Tennessee. A large proportion of these were of the Baptist
population. Sandy Creek Church which some time previous to 1771,
numbered 606, was afterward reduced to fourteen members!" This
movement exerted powerful influence in stimulating westward
expansion. Indeed, it was from men of Regulating principles--Boone,
Robertson, and the Searcys--who vehemently condemned the
anarchy and incendiarism of 1770, that Judge Henderson received
powerful cooperation in the opening up of Kentucky and Tennessee.

The several treaties concerning the western boundary of white
settlement, concluded in close succession by North Carolina,
Virginia, and the Crown with the Southern and Northern Indians,
had an important bearing upon the settlement of Watauga. The
Cherokee boundary line, as fixed by Governor Tryon (1767) and by
John Stuart (1768), ran from Reedy River to Tryon Mountain,
thence straight to Chiswell's Mine, and thence direct to the
mouth of the Great Kanawha River. By the treaty at Fort Stanwix
(November 5, 1768), in the negotiation of which Virginia was
represented by Dr. Thomas Walker and Major Andrew Lewis, the Six
Nations sold to the Crown their shadowy claim to a vast tract of
western country, including in particular all the land between the
Ohio and the Tennessee Rivers. The news of the cession resulted
in a strong southwestward thrust of population, from the
neighborhood of Abingdon, in the direction of the Holston Valley.
Recognizing that hundreds of these settlers were beyond the line
negotiated by Stuart, but on lands not yet surveyed, Governor
Botetourt instructed the Virginia commissioners to press for
further negotiations, through Stuart, with the Cherokees.
Accordingly, on October 18, 1770, a new treaty was made at
Lochaber, South Carolina, by which a new line back of Virginia
was established, beginning at the intersection of the North
Carolina-Cherokee line (a point some seventy odd miles east of
Long Island), running thence in a west course to a point six
miles east of Long Island, and thence in a direct course to the
confluence of the Great Kanawha and Ohio Rivers. At the time of
the treaty, it was agreed that the Holston River, from its
intersection with the North Carolina-Virginia line, and down the
course of the