Shortly before 1715 the Chickasaw and Cherokee drove the Shawnee Indians from their long-established settlements on Cumberland River.5 In 1745 a band of Shawnee returned to this region [Cumberland] but were shortly afterwards driven out and retired among the Creeks.1 Haywood thus records the Chickasaw tradition regarding the event: "The Chickasaws formerly claimed for their nation, exclusively, all the lands north of the Tennessee, and they have denied that the Cherokees were joined with them in the war against the Shawnees when they were driven from their settlements in Cumberland. They said that the Shawnees first came up the Tennessee in canoes, and thence up Bear Creek thirty miles; and there left their canoes, and came to war with the Chickasaws, and killed several of their nation. The Chickasaw chiefs and warriors embodied and drove them off. From thence they went to the Creeks, and lived with them for some time. They then returned and crossed at the Chickasaw Old Field, above the Muscle Shoals. From thence they went to Duck River and the Cumberland River, and settled there; and the Chickasaws discovered their settlements. Two of the chiefs of the Chickasaws who were in those days their principal leaders—the one named Opoia Matehah and the other Pinskey Matehah—raised their warriors and went against the Shawnees, and defeated them and took all their horses and brought them into the nation. The Cherokees, they said, had no share in the conquest, and that they drove the Shawnees themselves, without any assistance from any red people." Haywood adds that "this information is contained in a public document of the nation, signed by Chenobee, the king, Maj. George Colbert, and others." 3 This is part of a brief against the claims of the Cherokee to land north of the Tennessee and must be interpreted in the light of that fact, nor must too much confidence be placed in the particular narrative given, since the mythizing tendency always lays hold of such events, and, moreover, events belonging to several different years may be crowded together to set off one main fact. (Swanton)