Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area

Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area. . Sycamore Shoals and its adjoining Flats is one of the most significant areas in the history of Tennessee. It was the center of the Watauga Settlement, the first permanent settlement west of the thirteen original colonies. During the struggle for American independence, this ground witnessed the organization of the Watauga Association in 1772, the Transylvania Purchase in 1775, the Siege of Fort Watauga in 1776 (Stop 2), and the Overmountain Muster in 1780 (Stop 4). , Established near the Shoals (Stop 3) in 1772, the Watauga Association was for all practical purposes independent of the British Crown - more than four years before the Declaration of Independence. When the settlers, who thought they had settled within Virginia, learned they were living under the authority of the royal government of North Carolina and beyond the Indian treaty line, they formed their own government. In May a meeting of all adult freemen approved the "Watauga Compact," the first constitution west of the Appalachians, one of the most democratic documents ever drafted in America, and a model for similar frontier associations., The Transylvania Purchase, provided for in the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals, signed on March 17, 1775, was the largest private real estate deal in American history. Judge Richard Henderson, a North Carolinian, formed a stock company in 1774 to found a new colony, Transylvania. Henderson persuaded the Cherokee chiefs, led by Little Carpenter, to sell his company 20,000,000 acres. This Purchase included all of the land between the Kentucky River and the Highlands south of the Cumberland, which the Cherokee did not own, and a "Path Deed" between the Holston River and the Cumberland Mountains. Though illegal under British and colonial law, the Purchase opened most of Kentucky `to settlement. Over 1,000 Indians and at least 600 Wataugans attended this conference. , (Map captions) , Developed by the State of Tennessee and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1975, the Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area is administered by the Tennessee Department of Conservation. , "A cloud hangs over the land you buy. You will turn Kaintuckee into a dark and bloody ground." Dragging Canoe, a leader of the younger Cherokee, "We have... a set of people on the back part of this colony bordering on the Cherokee country, who, finding that they could not obtain titles to the land they fancied under any of the neighboring governments, have settled upon it without, and... have appointed Magistrates,... framed laws,... and... erected themselves into... a separate State; the consequences of which may prove hereafter detrimental to the peace and security of the other colonies; it at least sets a dangerous example to the people of America, of forming governments distinct from and independent of his Majesty's Authority." Lord Thomas Dunmore, Royal Governor of Virginia, 1774, Exhibits designed and fabricated, copy researched and written, and maps drawn by SenSyne Graphics, Johnson City, Tennessee (423-232-1455)