Note 351 — Chapter VII · —Geographical Boundaries

The vast and fertile region defined by the Ohio and Tennessee rivers, lay as a debatable border between the Algonquin Indians of the north and the Appalachians of the south. Both claimed it, both used it for hunting, but neither dared dwell therein.351 Similarly the Cherokees had no definite understanding with their savage neighbors as to the limits of their respective territories The effectiveness of their claim to any particular tract of country usually diminished with every increase of its distance from their villages. The consequence was that a considerable strip of territory between the settlements of two tribes, Cherokees and Creeks for instance, though claimed by both, was practically considered neutral ground and the common hunting ground of both.352 The Creeks, whose most western villages from 1771 to 1798 were located along the Coosa and upper Alabama rivers,353 were separated by 300 miles of wilderness from the Chickasaws to the northwest, and by a 150-mile zone from the Choctaws. The most northern Choctaw towns, in turn, lay 160 miles to the south of the Chickasaw nation, whose compact settlements were located on the watershed between the western sources of the Tombigby and the head stream of the Yazoo.354 The wide intervening zone of forest and canebrake was hunted upon by both nations.355