the Wautauga settlement did not survive.
The British agents among the Southern Indians—the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws and Chickasaws—precipitated a quick and early struggle along this historic pathway by goading the Indians into a murderous attack upon the Watauga settlement. The Cherokees who had sold the Transylvania Company its lands, were the most easily incited to war, and fifty pack-horse loads of ammunition scattered through their towns in those deep mountain valleys where the two Carolinas and Georgia meet, determined an outburst in July, 1776. Straight north from them lay the rude beginnings of civilization on the headwaters of the Tennessee, and further "in" was the frontier line of Virginia. The headquarters of the Watauga settlement may be said to have been Fort Watauga, commanded by the heroes Robertson and Sevier; here Boone had made the treaty with the Cherokees for Richard Henderson, a trifle over a year ago. Eaton's, Evan Shelby's, John Shelby's, Campbell's, and the Wommack forts were the important way stations on this path from Virginia to
