Editing Blacksburg, Virginia (section)

===European colonization, founding (1671–1771)===
In the mid-1600s, English colonists were still uncertain of what lay beyond the [[Allegheny Mountains]], whose topography and possession by native inhabitants, [[Tutelo language|Tutelo]]-speaking tribes, were a barrier to expanded settlement by the [[Colony of Virginia]]. [[Abraham Wood]], who commanded [[Fort Henry (Virginia)|Fort Henry]] on the frontier (now the site of [[Petersburg, Virginia]]), and operated an Indian trading post nearby, organized several expeditions to explore farther west. A passage over the ridge was finally found in 1671 when [[exploration|explorers]] Batts and Fallam, sent by Wood, reached the present-day location of Blacksburg, Virginia. Their expedition followed [[Stroubles Creek]], through the current locations of the town and campus of [[Virginia Tech]], to what they named Wood's River.

They reported the area as inhabited by the [[Monacan (tribe)|Monacan]] and [[Moneton]], [[Siouan languages|Siouan]]-speaking groups, but the [[Virginia General Assembly|Virginian colonial legislature]] had authorized Wood to claim it. Accordingly, on September 17, 1671, the Batts and Fallam party claimed all of the lands comprising the river's [[drainage basin]] for [[Charles II of England|King Charles II]]. However, the region was not yet open to English [[land patent|patent]]. In 1700, [[Seneca people|Seneca]] warriors of the [[Iroquois Confederacy]] based in New York and Pennsylvania, overran the entire area, driving out the other bands. As early as 1718, the Seneca had agreed to sell the parts they had conquered east of the [[Blue Ridge Mountains|Blue Ridge]] to the [[Colony of Virginia]]. Following another cession at the 1744 [[Treaty of Lancaster]], however, there was a dispute between the tribe and colonists over whether the new boundary was the [[Allegheny Mountains|Alleghenies]] or the [[Ohio River]]. The site of Blacksburg lay just within this disputed zone.

By the 1740s, the Wood's River Land Company, represented by [[James Patton (Virginia colonist)|Colonel James Patton]], gained a large tract of land within present-day [[southwest Virginia]]. Part of the tract became [[Montgomery County, Virginia|Montgomery County]] and [[Pulaski County, Virginia|Pulaski County]] and was sold to Virginian, Irish, Scots-Irish, and English settlers as a reward for their services during the [[American Indian Wars]] and other wars. The Draper and Ingles families were among those who built their homes at Draper's Meadow by 1748; this area was between the present location of the campus and the subdivision of Hethwood.

Because of its strategic location between powerful Indian nations, who alternately allied with the French or British as it suited them, plus its location through gaps into the Alleghenies further west, the area's development was viewed with increasing apprehension by the French and their Indian allies. In July 1755, during the [[French and Indian War]], hostile [[Shawnee]] Indians equipped and armed by France attacked the frontier outpost at Draper's Meadow, which then had around twenty pioneer settlers. About four settlers were killed in the attacks, and five were taken captive to Kentucky by the Shawnee, among them [[Mary Draper Ingles]], who later escaped. The memorial to [[Draper's Meadow massacre]] was dedicated on a bridge located near Duck Pond. By the end of the war, Draper's Meadow was deserted.<ref name="early">{{cite web |url=http://www.vt.edu/where_we_are/blacksburg/blacksburg-history.html |title=Blacksburg: A Brief Early History &#124; Virginia Tech |publisher=Vt.edu |access-date=January 2, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130117054901/http://www.vt.edu/where_we_are/blacksburg/blacksburg-history.html |archive-date=January 17, 2013 |url-status=dead  }}</ref><ref name="smithfield">[http://www.smithfieldplantation.org/history.html Historic Smithfield: History and Research Resources] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100711141130/http://www.smithfieldplantation.org/history.html |date=July 11, 2010 }}</ref>

By the [[Treaty of Easton]] (1758), and again by the [[Royal Proclamation of 1763]], the British Crown made the Allegheny ridge separating the Mississippi and Chesapeake watersheds the official boundary between their Virginia colony and native peoples. It remained so until 1768, when native claims to the land including Blacksburg were cleared by the [[Treaty of Hard Labour]] with the [[Cherokee]], and the [[Treaty of Fort Stanwix]] with the Six Nations (Iroquois Confederacy). The Shawnee finally abandoned their claim to this territory in 1774 following [[Dunmore's War]].