Contents ▼▲
Front Matter At Boonesborough Beginning of the Story Boone on the Yadkin Boone Moves his Family Ready for the Journey What we Wore Driving Cattle and Sheep Camping at Nightfall The Long Halt Jimmy Boone Goes to Clinch Murder of Jimmy Boone A Time of Mourning The Faint-hearted Return A New Home Making Moccasins Tanning Leather Governor Dunmore Our Home on the Clinch Household Duties Attacked by a Wildcat Fighting the Wildcat Boone and Father Return The Wilderness Road Building the Forts Boonesborough Gathering Salt Boonesborough Precautions Our Home in the Fort Ready for Cooking Furnishing the House The Hominy Block The Supply of Water Sports Inside the Fort Wrestling and Running Religion of the Indians Indian Babies Colonel Callaway Arives News from Eastern Colonies Venturing Outside the Fort Dividing the Land Who Owned Kentucky? Ready to Build a Home Billy's Hard Lot Preparing Flax Spinning and Soap Making Broom Making More Indian Murders Indian "Signs" Woodcraft and Hunting Pelts Used as Money Petition of the Settlers Making Sugar Building Fences Capture of the Girls My Willful Thoughts Finding the Trail The Pursuit The Story Told by Jemima Elizabeth's Heroism Rescuing the Girls Alarm Among the Settlers Indians on the Warpath The First Wedding The Wedding Festivities The Brides Home The Housewarming Attacks by the Indians Besieged by the Savages In the Midst of the Fight The Assault by the Indians Failure of the Assault Watchfulness of the Indians The Sortie My Father Wounded Our Wounded

Hannah of Kentucky - James Otis




Dividing the Land

Mother says I should tell something about the restlessness which was coming over our people in regard to dividing the land, if I expect this to be a story of our struggles, not only against the savages who prowled around for the sole pleasure of shedding blood, but against those Indians whom General Hamilton, the British commander at Detroit, set upon us when the eastern colonies and the king's soldiers were really at war against one another.

[Illustration] from Hannah of Kentucky by James Otis

First, I should say that Colonel Richard Henderson, expecting to make a great deal of money, had bought his land with such trifles as beads, hatchets, and other things that the savages wanted. Then he hired many men, as I have already said, to make the Wilderness Road, so that people might find it easy to get into that part of the country.

Colonel Boone, my father, and, in fact, nearly all the men in Boonesborough believed at first that Colonel Henderson had a right to the land, having bought it as I have said, and when this fort was finished, they were ready to buy plantations from him.