Sycamore Shoals (or the Treaty of Watauga), the Transylvania Company purchased a vast amount of land from the Cherokee, including most of present-day Kentucky and part of Tennessee. The treaty was technically illegal since only the government could have formal transactions and purchase land from Native American tribes. (The British, the colonial governments of Virginia and North Carolina and, later, the United States, all forbade private purchase of land from Indians). During the treaty process, Dragging Canoe, son of Cherokee chief Attacullaculla, made a speech condemning the sale of any Cherokee land, which the tribe held in common for the use of all. He broke from the general Cherokee tribal government to form a band that the pioneers called the Chickamauga Cherokee or Chickamauga, for their settlement, although the people never had a separate tribal identity. After Henderson's Transylvania Company had bought Kentucky (although other tribes such as the Shawnee also claimed it), Daniel Boone was hired to widen the Indian path over Cumberland Gap to facilitate migration by Anglo-American pioneers. This road became known as the Wilderness Road. Robertson's group lived at Watauga in peace until July 1776, when Chief Old Abraham of Chilhowee led a Cherokee contingent that attacked Fort Watauga (a defensive log fort built by the Watauga Association). A 40-man contingent commanded by John Carter, with Robertson and John Sevier as lieutenants, withstood a siege of about two weeks. After the Cherokee were subjugated later that year, the governor of North Carolina appointed Robertson as Indian agent to reside at the Cherokee capital. He was to prevent them from forming an alliance with the British to fight as their allies against the rebels during the American Revolution. Fort Nashborough In the spring of 1779, during the Revolutionary War, Robertson and John Donelson founded Fort Nashborough, later to become Nashville. It was then part of the Washington District, North Carolina. He represented Davidson County (home of Fort Nashborough in present-day Tennessee, not to be confused with the modern Davidson County, North Carolina), in the North Carolina legislature and had the settlement established as a town. He also established the first school there, the historic Davidson Academy for male students. The Spanish governor of former French territory west of the Mississippi River offered Robertson peace and the free navigation of the Mississippi in exchange for his leaving the United States and establishing — along with the Watauga settlement