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The 250th anniversary of the Transylvania Purchase is being celebrated this weekend at Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area. According to Tennessee history, the Transylvania Purchase occurred on March 14, 1775, when Richard Henderson, a North Carolina land speculator, met with Cherokee representatives at Sycamore Shoals near the present site of Elizabethton.

Henderson wanted to purchase a tract of land in what is now Kentucky and Middle Tennessee, where he planned to establish a 14th colony. The venture posed several problems: The Cherokees held the strongest among competing claims to the region, and there was no guarantee of British recognition of the purchase, inasmuch as it represented a violation of the Proclamation of 1763. Nevertheless, Henderson had spent the previous year organizing the Transylvania Company and conducting negotiations with the Cherokees. Four days after the conference began, the Cherokees agreed to the Sycamore Shoals Treaty, whereby they transferred to the Transylvania Company a tract of 20 million acres lying north of the Cumberland River, southeast of the Ohio River and west of the Cumberland Mountains, with a narrow access route extending from Sycamore Shoals to Cumberland Gap. In exchange, the Cherokees received trade goods valued, according to some scholars, at approximately 10,000 British pounds.

Henderson moved quickly to consolidate his claim, constructing a road to the proposed settlements and initiating a system of government under the authority of the Transylvania Company. The Virginia legislature refused to recognize the Transylvania Purchase, however, despite Henderson’s intense lobbying. In December 1776, Virginia annexed the Transylvania settlements and soon afterward nullified the entire purchase agreement, awarding Henderson a compensatory grant of 200,000 acres.

The Virginia decision did not affect the Middle Tennessee portion of the Transylvania Purchase, and Henderson turned his attention to this region. In the winter of 1779-80, he had a proprietary interest in establishing a settlement at Nashborough. Following his Kentucky plan, Henderson implemented a system of local government but made no claims to the establishment of an autonomous colony. In 1783, the state of North Carolina again nullified Henderson’s claim and awarded him a grant of 200,000 acres as compensation.

Legal or not, the treaty’s terms were favorable to white settlers in that it opened Kentucky to European settlers, allowing for westward expansion. It was also very unpopular with the Cherokees who lived on or used the land and led to increasing conflicts with Native American tribes.

The terms of the treaty “transferred” about 2 million acres of land for “five wagons” of trade goods valued at about $10,000, which the Cherokees were to divide among themselves. Legal or not, the treaty’s terms were favorable to white settlers but very unpopular with the Cherokee people who lived on or used the land. Each Cherokee man received much less than he could make in a year hunting the same territory from the payout of the treaty. Resistance to the treaty was strong, and violence resulted. Many Cherokee people, including Dragging Cane, left the Cherokee tribe in response to the treaty. Many formed a new nation to the south, the Chickamauga Nation.

The treaty also created violent land disputes between the Cherokees and white settlers that would last for many years after its signing and amendment. And, without federal recognition, the Transylvania Company eventually lost control of the land. Henderson continued to engage in land speculation and later led a group of settlers into the Cumberland Valley in Tennessee. There, he founded French Lick, known today as Nashville.

Things haven’t changed much since the Transylvania Purchase. There is much wheeling and dealing going on in our nation today, and there are always winners and losers.

In the years to follow, the federal government created the Indian reservation system to keep Native Americans off lands that European Americans wished to settle. The reservation system allowed Indigenous people to govern themselves and to maintain some of their cultural and social traditions.

The losers in the Transylvania Purchase were Native American tribes. The winners—well-to-do American white people, such as Richard Henderson, American jurist, land speculator and politician. After the land deals, he returned to North Carolina and held various legislative and executive positions. He died at the age of 49.

The Transylvania Purchase has a place in our history. We can learn from it as well as celebrate it.