The ordinary results of such a treaty
followed. The Indians who had not signed promptly repudiated as
unauthorized and ineffective the action of the few who had; and the
latter asserted that they had been tricked into signing, and were not
aware of the true nature of the document to which they had affixed their
marks. [Footnote: Talk of Old Tassel, September 19, 1785, Ramsey, 319.]
The whites heeded these protests not at all, but kept the land they had
settled.
In fact the attitude of the Franklin people towards the Cherokees was
one of mere piracy. In the August session of their legislature they
passed a law to encourage an expedition to go down the Tennessee on the
west side and take possession of the country in the great bend of that
river under titles derived from the State of Georgia. The eighty or
ninety men composing this expedition actually descended the river, and
made a settlement by the Muscle Shoals, in what the Georgians called the
county of Houston. They opened a land office, organized a county
government, and elected John Sevier's brother, Valentine, to represent
them in the Georgia Legislature; but that body refused to allow him a
seat.
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