page_title: Transylvania Colony
section_title: Settlement
hierarchical_section_title: Transylvania Colony / Settlement
caption_attribution_description: English: Meeting of the Transilvania House of Delegates. At Boonesborough, May, 1775. From "Boonesborough; its founding, pioneer struggles, Indian experiences, Transylvania days, and revolutionary annals" by George Washington Ranck (1901).
context_page_description: The Transylvania Colony, also referred to as the Transylvania Purchase, 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 the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals with most leading Cherokee chieftains then controlling these lands. In exchange for the land the tribes received goods worth, according to the estimates of some scholars, about 10,000 British pounds. To further complicate matters, this early American frontier land was also claimed at the same time by both the Province of Virginia 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.
context_section_description: Prior to the signing of the Sycamore Shoals Treaty, Henderson had hired Daniel Boone, an experienced hunter, to travel to the Cherokee towns and to inform them of the upcoming negotiations. Boone had been in southeast Kentucky long before the founding of any Kentucky settlements.
  Afterward, Boone was hired to blaze what became known as the Wilderness Road, which went from Virginia through the Cumberland Gap and into central Kentucky. During this trail-blazing expedition, Boone and his party suffered several Indian attacks. Along with a party of about thirty workers, Boone marked a path to the Kentucky River, where he established Boonesborough (near present-day Lexington, Kentucky), which was intended to be the capital of Transylvania. Unknown to Boone, Henderson led another expedition following in Boone's tracks, widening the path so travellers could bring through wagons. In addition to Boonesborough, other settlements, notably Harrodsburg, were established at this time. Many of these settlers had come to Kentucky on their own initiative, and some of them refused to recognize Transylvania's authority.
  When Henderson arrived at Boonesborough fewer than a hundred people resided there. This population and a few other settlements in the area constituted the sparse concentration of white settlers in the isolated western wilderness. The settlers recognized their precarious situation. They not only faced significant Indian hostilities, but lacked adequate supplies and shelter. Notwithstanding these circumstances, Henderson urged settlers in the area to hold a  constitutional convention.
  Henderson's plan involved the various settlements scattered across Transylvania sending delegates to Boonesborough, acting in the name of the people they represented and whose consent would justify the convention. In May 1775, under the shade of a huge elm tree, a three-day convention met. In addition to passing nine bills dealing with immediate matters of governance, delegates drafted a compact that organized a frame of government, known as the Transylvania Compact. This plan included executive, legislative, and judicial branches.
  After concluding the compact, Henderson returned to North Carolina. On behalf of his fellow investors in the land scheme he petitioned the Continental Congress, seeking to make Transylvania a legally recognized colony. Despite those efforts, the Congress declined to act without the consent of Virginia and North Carolina, both of whom claimed jurisdiction over the region in question. In June 1776 the Virginia General Assembly prohibited the Transylvania Land Company from making any demands on settlers in the region. In December 1778, Virginia's Assembly finally declared the Transylvania claim void.  In compensation, Henderson and his partners received a grant of 12 square miles (31 km²) on the Ohio River below the mouth of Green River.
caption: Meeting of the Transylvania House of Delegates. Anonymous sketch of the constitutional convention meeting "under the shade of a huge elm tree (the limbs of which extended at least a hundred feet wide)", convened by Richard Henderson.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image Software": "ACD Systems Digital Imaging", "Image DateTime": "2013:07:29 11:25:32", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "122", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF SubSecTime": "312", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1366", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "709", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "188"}