Spanish Treaty
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However, even though they had many victories, Dragging Canoe could see that his group of Chickamauga Cherokees would need to send part of their people to join other Cherokees in Spanish Territory if they were going to survive.  In 1775, Don Francesco Crusart complained to the Spanish Governor of the Louisiana Territory about newly arrived Cherokees near present day St. Genevieve, Missouri.  Remember, at this time, Spain claimed all land west of the Mississippi River as Spanish Territory.  In 1794, the Spanish Governor of the Louisiana Territory, Don Esteban Rodríguez Miró, signed a formal land grant for the Cherokees which included all land in the 1794 Girardeau County of the Louisiana Territory of Spain. This area later became Lawrence County and eventually was split up into 56 different counties, now located in both Missouri and Arkansas.
After the death of Dragging Canoe in 1792 and the signing of this land grant, in 1794, a great multitude of Cherokees moved to live with friends, relatives and clansmen in the future states of Missouri and Arkansas.  A large percentage of newly arrived Cherokees chose to live around present day counties of St. Genevieve, St. Francis, Madison, Perry, Wayne, Butler, Cape Girardeau and others along the Mississippi River in Missouri and Arkansas.  By 1800, most of southern Missouri and Arkansas north of the Arkansas River was heavy with Cherokee settlements.  The major earthquake of 1811 changed the focus of their settlements.