Prior to the survey and marking of the boundary line near Currahee
Mountain in Georgia, provided for by the Cherokee treaty of 1785 and
the Creek treaty of 1790, which survey did not occur until 1798, one
Colonel Wafford, in company with sundry other persons, had formed a
settlement in that vicinity, which proved to be within the limits of
the Indian country.
Inasmuch as it was supposed these parties had ignorantly placed
themselves within the Indian line and had made considerable and
valuable improvements, the Government was indisposed to use harsh or
forcible means for their ejection, but rather approved of the urgent
appeals from Colonel Wafford and his neighbors to make an effort to
secure the relinquishment from the Indians of a tract sufficient to
embrace their settlement.
The Government had been laboring under the impression that these lands
belonged to the Creeks, but the delegation of the Cherokees, headed
by "The Glass," who visited Washington in the summer of 1801, claimed
them as Cherokee territory, and asked for the removal of the settlers.
Commissioners Wilkinson, Hawkins, and Pickens had been instructed[133]
to negotiate with the Creeks for the purchase of this tract, but they
having reported, upon examination, that the title was undoubtedly in
the Cherokees, were directed[134] to report upon the expediency of
applying to the Cherokees for a cession of the same.
Such an application having at this time been unfavorably received
by the Cherokees, nothing further was done in the matter until the
winter of 1803,[135] when the Secretary of War directed a conference
to be held with them for the double purpose of securing a cession or
a lease for seven years of the "Wafford Settlement" tract and the
Indian consent to a right of way for a road through their country
from Southwest Point or Tellico Factory to Athens, Ga., with the
establishment of the necessary houses of entertainment for travelers
along such route. For this latter concession he was authorized to
offer them the sum of $500. The Cherokees having refused both these
propositions, Agent Meigs was directed[136] to secure the granting
of the road privilege, if possible, by offering Vann[137] and other
men of influence among them a proper inducement to enlist their
active co-operation in the matter. This latter method seems to have
been effective, for later in the season[138] the Secretary of War
transmitted to the governors of Georgia and Tennessee an extract from
an agreement entered into with the Cherokees providing for an opening
of the desired road, stating that, as the United States had no funds
applicable to the laying out and construction of such a road, it would
be proper for the legislatures of those States to make the necessary
provision therefor.
The clamor for more land by the constant tide of immigration that was
flowing into Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia from the North and East
became more and more importunate. The desire to settle on Indian land
was as potent and insatiable with the average border settler then as it
is now.