Story: Much of Tennessee’s early history happened here. There is a place called the Sycamore Shoals State Park in Carter County. It was here, in 1775, that a man named Richard Henderson called a big meeting with leaders of the Cherokee tribe and “bought” much of what is now Middle Tennessee in exchange for lots of free things. (This deal is today referred to as the Transylvania Purchase, and it is now considered the largest private real estate transaction in American history.) Most of the Cherokee leaders agreed. But one of them – whose name was Dragging Canoe – was angry and stormed away from the meeting.

 
Click here to read the speech Dragging Canoe made on that day.

By this time, the settlers had constructed a fort at Sycamore Shoals called Fort Watauga. A year after the Transylvania Purchase, Cherokees laid siege to the fort but later retreated.

In 1779, Henderson sent 167 people – men, women and children – in two groups across the wilderness to settle a place on the Cumberland River known as French Lick. Many of the people came by boat down river, and there were battles along the way with Cherokees led by Dragging Canoe. But eventually most of them made their way to French Lick. They were the first settlers in the place now known as Nashville.

Click here to read more about that trip.