Though the Indians at the time of the coming of the white men used Kentucky mainly as a hunting ground instead of a home, various tribes laid claim to it by prior possession.

In 1768, at Fort Stanwix—now Rome, New York—the English government purchased the title to all the lands lying between the Ohio and Tennessee rivers from the tribes of Indians called the Six Nations. This tract included the present state of Kentucky.

Shortly after the battle of Point Pleasant, 1774, the Shawnees entered into a treaty with Governor Dunmore of Virginia whereby they gave up all title to the lands south of the Ohio River.

At the Sycamore Shoals, of the Watauga River, 1775, Colonel Richard Henderson, acting for the Transylvania Company, purchased the title of the Cherokees to this "hunting ground" for ten thousand pounds sterling. This purchase was afterwards declared null and void by the states of Virginia and North Carolina.

Through the commissioners Isaac Shelby and Andrew Jackson, the general government in 1818 purchased from the Chickasaws, for an annuity of twenty thousand dollars to be paid for fifteen years, all their land lying in Tennessee and Kentucky between the Mississippi and Tennessee rivers. The part in Kentucky has since been called "Jackson's Purchase."

Thus we see that Indian claims to Kentucky were relinquished only upon payment of money or blood.