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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Address by William Tryon to the Cherokee Nation concerning the boundary between North Carolina and Cherokee land
Tryon, William, 1729-1788
June 01, 1767
Volume 07, Pages 462-464

[From Tryon's Letter Book.]
Governor Tryon's talk to the Cherokees assembled at Tyger river camp the 1st day of June 1767 to confer together concerning the running the boundary line between the western frontiers of North Carolina, and the Cherokee Indian hunting grounds.

Friends & Brethren, Sachems and Warriors of the Cherokee Nation.

I heartily congratulate you brethren on my meeting you yesterday all in good health, after the great delays and disappointments we have both experienced in our mutual intentions of assembling to run a partition line between the western frontiers of this province and your hunting grounds. This disappointment I apprehend must have arose from your not being properly acquainted with the appointment made for you to meet me at Salisbury where I had ordered to be provided presents for your people to the amount of one hundred and seventy five pounds North Carolina currency, a sum the General Assembly of this province had voted you in testimony of their good intentions and inclinations to maintain and hold fast that peace and friendship which they wish to cherish between this province and the Cherokee nation. By a letter I received from Mr Stuart dated the 2d of March last, he acknowledges to have received my letter I wrote him to appoint you to meet me at Salisbury the 16th of May, I left Brunswick the 6th of the same month and arrived at Salisbury punctually at my appointment, but not finding any express from Mr Stuart or your nation, and waiting in vain four day at Salisbury in that expectation, I left Salisbury

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with my escort the 21st of May with a determination to march to the westward till I could get some intelligence where I could see you, and in order to hasten our meeting I sent an express the day before I marched from that place with dispatches explaining the path I should take; This express met the day after the left Salisbury a messenger coming from Mr Stuart with intelligence of your declining coming to Salisbury but that you would meet me near Reedy river. I immediately dispatched Mr Stuart's messenger to Mr Cameron to acquaint him I was on my march with all diligence to meet you, and also sent Mr Cameron the letter I wrote by my express who returned to me on meeting Mr Stuart's messenger, to these two dispatches now in Mr Cameron's possession, I refer you for your further satisfaction.

Labouring as I was under these circumstances of uncertainty and delay it was not in my power to bring with me the presents provided for you at Salisbury, an invoice of which I now present to you for your choice to the amount of the sum above mentioned, neither have I provided provisions for the number you have brought with you being uncertain where I should meet you and other reasons mentioned in my letters in the possession of Mr Cameron before referred to. By the return of provisions with me I find there is not sufficient of meal and flour to last the men escorting me for more than fourteen days, an allowance too scanty for the service I intended to have been present at, This being the just and true state of my situation I find it impracticable to support the number of people you have at present with you as it is impossible to get provisions in this unsettled part of the country equal to the daily consumption of both parties and which will be rendered still more impracticable as we proceed on the line from Reedy river.

Under these difficulties I can think of no other expedient than for me on my part to give up my intention of attending the running the dividing line and to return to Salisbury with the soldiers as soon as the course and distance are settled, and the line begun to be run leaving the Commissioners to finish it according to what shall be agreed on and that you on your part should send to Salisbury as many of your people as would be able to carry the presents to your nation sending the rest home except a few who might accompany the Commissioners in running the dividing line. I must therefore desire that you will take this talk into your wise and serious consideration and be assured that no delay or neglect to carry this important

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service into execution is to be imputed to me, but on the contrary that I have exerted my utmost endeavors to promote it with all possible dispatch. I have travelled upwards of four hundred miles to meet you and have been now twenty six days absent from my place of residence which may be sufficient to convince you of my warmest wishes to promote a service I am sensible will be productive of the most salutary and beneficial consequences both to the inhabitants of this province and your nation. It therefore remains that we should confer together concerning what courses the dividing line shall run that the service may be performed without loss of time.

I have it in command from his most gracious Majesty King George to inform you of his steady purposes to support you in your just rights and claims, and he has given me directions to make use of all necessary means to remove and prosecute every white person who shall settle upon your lands or unjustly molest you. These my royal master's commands I shall most faithfully adhere to and when the boundary line is ascertained pursue every measure that may strengthen and brighten the chain which holds fast that Peace and harmony which at present happily subsists between us.