Transylvania Colony

The Transylvania Colony was a short-lived, extra-legal colony founded during 1775 by land speculator Richard Henderson, who controlled the North Carolina-based Transylvania Company. Henderson and his investors had reached an agreement to purchase a vast tract of Cherokee lands west of the southern and central Appalachian Mountains through the acceptance of Treaty of Sycamore Shoals with most leading Cherokee chieftains then controlling these lands. To further complicate matters, this early American frontier land was also claimed at the same time by both the Province of Virginia (particularly following Lord Dunmore's War) and the North Carolina colony.

The Transylvania Colony was primarily located in what is now the central and eastern parts of Kentucky. The American pioneer and frontier explorer Daniel Boone was hired by Henderson to establish the Wilderness Road going through the Cumberland Gap and into southeastern Kentucky. Transylvania officially ceased to exist as a government entity in 1776 when the Virginia General Assembly invalidated the Transylvania Purchase.

In the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the Iroquois ceded their claims on lands south of the Ohio River to the Kingdom of Great Britain. Although they claimed sovereignty over much of what is now Kentucky, the Iroquois did not actually reside there, as did their nominal vassal, the Shawnee. In addition, the Cherokee to the south and east used much of the area as their historical hunting grounds. Neither of these peoples had been consulted regarding the Stanwix treaty, although a series of borders was worked out with the Cherokee at the Treaty of Hard Labour (1768), the Treaty of Lochaber (1770), and once more in 1771 when they agreed to extend the Lochaber cession into present-day northeast Kentucky. The Shawnee, however, had not conducted a boundary agreement with the colonies since 1758 at the Treaty of Easton, giving them a claim to everything west of the Alleghenies. Consequently, they began to attack frontier settlers moving into the region. This led to Lord Dunmore's War, fought in 1774, primarily between the Shawnee and the Province of Virginia. The Shawnee lost this brief war and their chief Cornstalk ceded all their claims south of the Ohio River, including Kentucky.

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