Transylvania Colony

Common card · No. 448629

The Transylvania Colony, also referred to as the Transylvania Purchase or the Henderson Purchase, was a short-lived, extra-legal colony founded in early 1775 by North Carolina land speculator Richard Henderson, who formed and controlled the 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 (just over $2 million U.S. in 2026). To further complicate matters, this frontier land was also claimed by the Virginia Colony (particularly following Lord Dunmore's War) and a southern portion by Province of North Carolina. The Transylvania Colony was located in what is now the central and western parts of Kentucky, and a chunk of...

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