e many of
the buckskin-clad leaders of the border--James Robertson, John
Sevier, Isaac Shelby, William Bailey Smith, and their
compeers--as well as his Carolina friends John Williams, Thomas
and Nathaniel Hart, Nathaniel Henderson, Jesse Benton, and
Valentine Searcy.

Little was accomplished on the first day of the treaty (March
14th); but on the next day, the Cherokees offered to sell the
section bargained for by Donelson acting as agent for Virginia in
1771. Although the Indians pointed out that Virginia had never
paid the promised compensation of five hundred pounds and had
therefore forfeited her rights, Henderson flatly refused to
entertain the idea of purchasing territory to which Virginia had
the prior claim. Angered by Henderson's refusal, The Dragging
Canoe, leaping into the circle of the seated savages, made an
impassioned speech touched with the romantic imagination peculiar
to the American Indian. With pathetic eloquence he dwelt upon the
insatiable land-greed of the white men, and predicted the
extinction of his race if they committed the insensate folly of
selling their beloved hunting-grounds. Roused to a high pitch of
oratorical fervor, the savage with uplifted arm fiercely exhorted
his people to resist further encroachments at all hazards--and
left the treaty ground. This incident brought the conference to a
startling and abrupt conclusion. On the following day, however,
the savages proved more tractable, agreeing to sell the land as
far as the Cumberland River. In order to secure the additional
territory watered by the tributaries of the Cumberland, Henderson
agreed to pay an additional sum of two thousand pounds. Upon this
day there originated the ominous phrase descriptive of Kentucky
when The Dragging Canoe, dramatically pointing toward the west,
declared that a DARK Cloud hung over that land, which was known
as the BLOODY GROUND.

On the last day, March 17th, the negotiations were opened with
the signing of the "Great Grant." The area purchased, some twenty
millions of acres, included almost all the present state of
Kentucky, and an immense tract in Tennessee, comprising all the
territory watered by the Cumberland River and all its
tributaries. For "two thousand weight of leather in goods"
Henderson purchased "the lands lying down Holston and between the
Watauga lease, Colonel Donelson's line and Powell's Mountain" as
a pathway to Kentucky--the deed for which was known as the "Path
Deed." By