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The
Conquest of the Old Southwest:
The Romantic Story of the Early
Pioneers into Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Kentucky 1740
- 1790
By
Archibald Henderson, Ph.D., D.C.L.
Published by The Century Co.; New York; 1920
Contents
Introduction
Chapter
I. The Migration of the Peoples
Chapter
II. The Cradle of Westward Expansion
Chapter
III. The Back Country and the Border
Chapter
IV. The Indian War
Chapter
V. In Defense of Civilization
Chapter
VI. Crushing the Cherokees
Chapter
VII. The Land Companies
Chapter
VIII. The Long Hunters in the Twilight Zone
Chapter
IX. Daniel Boone and Wilderness Exploration
Chapter
X. Daniel Boone in Kentucky
Chapter
XI. The Regulators
Chapter
XII. Watauga—Haven of Liberty
Chapter
XIII. Opening the Gateway—Dunmore's War
Chapter
XIV. Richard Henderson and the Transylvania Company
Chapter
XV. Transylvania—A Wilderness Commonwealth
Chapter
XVI. The Repulse of the Red Men
Chapter
XVII. The Colonization of the Cumberland
Chapter
XVIII. King's Mountain
Chapter
XIX. The State of Franklin
Chapter
XX. The Lure of Spain—The Haven of Statehood
Some
to endure and many to fail,
Some to conquer and many to quail
Toiling over the Wilderness Trail.
TO
THE HISTORIAN OF OLD WEST AND NEW WEST
FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER
WITH ADMIRATION AND REGARD
The country
might invite a prince from his palace, merely for the pleasure of
contemplating its beauty and excellence; but only add the rapturous
idea of property, and what allurements can the world offer for the
loss of so glorious a prospect?—Richard
Henderson.
The established
Authority of any government in America, and the policy of Government
at home, are both insufficient to restrain the Americans . . . .
They acquire no attachment to Place: But wandering about Seems engrafted
in their Nature; and it is a weakness incident to it, that they
Should for ever imagine the Lands further off, are Still better
than those upon which they are already settled.—Lord Dunmore,
to the Earl of Dartmouth.
The
romantic and thrilling story of the southward and westward migration
of successive waves of transplanted European peoples throughout
the entire course of the eighteenth century is the history of the
growth and evolution of American democracy. Upon the American continent
was wrought out, through almost superhuman daring, incredible hardship,
and surpassing endurance, the formation of a new society. The European
rudely confronted with the pitiless conditions of the wilderness
soon discovered that his maintenance, indeed his existence, was
conditioned upon his individual efficiency and his resourcefulness
in adapting himself to his environment. The very history of the
human race, from the age of primitive man to the modern era of enlightened
civilization, is traversed in the Old Southwest throughout the course
of half a century.
A
series of dissolving views thrown upon the screen, picturing the
successive episodes in the history of a single family as it wended
its way southward along the eastern valleys, resolutely repulsed
the sudden attack of the Indians, toiled painfully up the granite
slopes of the Appalachians, and pitched down into the transmontane
wilderness upon the western waters, would give to the spectator
a vivid conception, in miniature, of the westward movement. But
certain basic elements in the grand procession, revealed to the
sociologist and the economist, would perhaps escape his scrutiny.
Back of the individual, back of the family, even, lurk the creative
and formative impulses of colonization, expansion, and government.
In the recognition of these social and economic tendencies the individual
merges into the group; the group into the community; the community
into a new society. In this clear perspective of historic development
the spectacular hero at first sight seems to diminish; but the mass,
the movement, the social force which he epitomizes and interprets,
gain in impressiveness and dignity.
As
the irresistible tide of migratory peoples swept ever southward
and westward, seeking room for expansion and economic independence,
a series of frontiers was gradually thrust out toward the wilderness
in successive waves of irregular indentation. The true leader in
this westward advance, to whom less than his deserts has been accorded
by the historian, is the drab and mercenary trader with the Indians.
The story of his enterprise and of his adventures begins with the
planting of European civilization upon American soil. In the mind
of the aborigines he created the passion for the fruits, both good
and evil, of the white man's civilization, and he was welcomed by
the Indian because he also brought the means for repelling the further
advance of that civilization. The trader was of incalculable service
to the pioneer in first spying out the land and charting the trackless
wilderness. The trail rudely marked by the buffalo became in time
the Indian path and the trader's "trace"; and the pioneers
upon the westward march, following the line of least resistance,
cut out their, roads along these very routes. It is not too much
to say that had it not been for the trader—brave, hardy, and
adventurous however often crafty, unscrupulous, and immoral—the
expansionist movement upon the American continent would have been
greatly retarded.
So
scattered and ramified were the enterprises and expeditions of the
traders with the Indians that the frontier which they established
was at best both shifting and unstable. Following far in the wake
of these advance agents of the civilization which they so often
disgraced, came the cattle-herder or rancher, who took advantage
of the extensive pastures and ranges along the uplands and foot-hills
to raise immense herds of cattle. Thus was formed what might be
called a rancher's frontier, thrust out in advance of the ordinary
farming settlements and serving as the first serious barrier against
the Indian invasion. The westward movement of population is in this
respect a direct advance from the coast. Years before the influx
into the Old Southwest of the tides of settlement from the northeast,
the more adventurous struck straight westward in the wake of the
fur-trader, and here and there erected the cattle-ranges beyond
the farming frontier of the piedmont region. The wild horses and
cattle which roamed at will through the upland barrens and pea-vine
pastures were herded in and driven for sale to the city markets
of the East.
The
farming frontier of the piedmont plateau constituted the real backbone
of western settlement. The pioneering farmers, with the adventurous
instincts of the hunter and the explorer, plunged deeper and ever
deeper into the wilderness, lured on by the prospect of free and
still richer lands in the dim interior. Settlements quickly sprang
up in the neighborhood of military posts or rude forts established
to serve as safeguards against hostile attack; and trade soon flourished
between these settlements and the eastern centers, following the
trails of the trader and the more beaten paths of emigration. The
bolder settlers who ventured farthest to the westward were held
in communication with the East through their dependence upon salt
and other necessities of life; and the search for salt-springs in
the virgin wilderness was an inevitable consequence of the desire
of the pioneer to shake off his dependence upon the coast.
The
prime determinative principle of the progressive American civilization
of the eighteenth century was the passion for the acquisition of
land. The struggle for economic independence developed the germ
of American liberty and became the differentiating principle of
American character. Here was a vast unappropriated region in the
interior of the continent to be had for the seeking, which served
as lure and inspiration to the man daring enough to risk his all
in its acquisition. It was in accordance with human nature and the
principles of political economy that this unknown extent of uninhabited
transmontane land, widely renowned for beauty, richness, and fertility,
should excite grandiose dreams in the minds of English and Colonials
alike. England was said to be "New Land mad and everybody there
has his eye fixed on this country." Groups of wealthy or well-to-do
individuals organized themselves into land companies for the colonization
and exploitation of the West. The pioneer promoter was a powerful
creative force in westward expansion; and the activities of the
early land companies were decisive factors in the colonization of
the wilderness. Whether acting under the authority of a crown grant
or proceeding on their own authority, the land companies tended
to give stability and permanence to settlements otherwise hazardous
and insecure.
The
second determinative impulse of the pioneer civilization was wanderlust—the
passionately inquisitive instinct of the hunter, the traveler, and
the explorer. This restless class of nomadic wanderers was responsible
in part for the royal proclamation of 1763, a secondary object of
which, according to Edmund Burke, was the limitation of the colonies
on the West, as "the charters of many of our old colonies give
them, with few exceptions, no bounds to the westward but the South
Sea." The Long
Hunters, taking their lives in their hands, fared boldly forth
to a fabled hunter's paradise in the far-away wilderness, because
they were driven by the irresistible desire of a Ponce de Leon or
a De Soto to find out the truth about the unknown lands beyond.
But
the hunter was not only thrilled with the passion of the chase and
of discovery; he was intent also upon collecting the furs and skins
of wild animals for lucrative barter and sale in the centers of
trade. He was quick to make "tomahawk claims" and to assert
"corn rights" as he spied out the rich virgin land for
future location and cultivation. Free land and no taxes appealed
to the backwoodsman, tired of paying quit-rents to the agents of
wealthy lords across the sea. Thus the settler speedily followed
in the hunter's wake. In his wake also went many rude and lawless
characters of the border, horse thieves and criminals of different
sorts, who sought to hide their delinquencies in the merciful liberality
of the wilderness. For the most part, however, it was the salutary
instinct of the homebuilder—the man with the ax, who made a
little clearing in the forest and built there a rude cabin that
he bravely defended at all risks against continued assaults—which,
in defiance of every restraint, irresistibly thrust westward the
thin and jagged line of the frontier. The ax and the surveyor's
chain, along with the rifle and the hunting-knife, constituted the
armorial bearings of the pioneer. With individual as with corporation,
with explorer as with landlord, land-hunger was the master impulse
of the era.
The
various desires which stimulated and promoted westward expansion
were, to be sure, often found in complete conjunction. The trader
sought to exploit the Indian for his own advantage, selling him
whisky, trinkets, and firearms in return for rich furs and costly
peltries; yet he was often a hunter himself and collected great
stores of peltries as the result of his solitary and protracted
hunting expeditions. The rancher and the herder sought to exploit
the natural vegetation of marsh and upland, the cane-brakes and
pea-vines; yet the constantly recurring need for fresh pasturage
made him a pioneer also, drove him ever nearer to the mountains,
and furnished the economic motive for his westward advance. The
small farmer needed the virgin soil of the new region, the alluvial
river-bottoms, and the open prairies, for the cultivation of his
crops and the grazing of his cattle; yet in the intervals between
the tasks of farm life he scoured the wilderness in search of game
"and spied out new lands for future settlement".
This
restless and nomadic race, says the keenly observant Francis Baily,
"delight much to live on the frontiers, where they can enjoy
undisturbed, and free from the control of any laws, the blessings
which nature has bestowed upon them." Independence of spirit,
impatience of restraint, the inquisitive nature, and the nomadic
temperament—these are the strains in the American character
of the eighteenth century which ultimately blended to create a typical
democracy. The rolling of wave after wave of settlement westward
across the American continent, with a reversion to primitive conditions
along the line of the farthest frontier, and a marked rise in the
scale of civilization at each successive stage of settlement, from
the western limit to the eastern coast, exemplifies from one aspect
the history of the American people during two centuries. This era,
constituting the first stage in our national existence, and productive
of a buoyant national character shaped in democracy upon a free
soil, closed only yesterday with the exhaustion of cultivable free
land, the disappearance of the last frontier, and the recent death
of "Buffalo Bill". The splendid inauguration of the period,
in the region of the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky,
during the second half of the eighteenth century, is the theme of
this story of the pioneers of the Old Southwest.
Inhabitants
flock in here daily, mostly from Pensilvania and other parts of
America, who are over-stocked with people and Mike directly from
Europe, they commonly seat themselves towards the West, and have
got near the mountains.—Gabriel Johnston, Governor of North
Carolina, to the Secretary of the Board of Trade, February 15,
1751.
At
the opening of the eighteenth century the tide of population had
swept inland to the "fall line", the westward boundary
of the established settlements. The actual frontier had been advanced
by the more aggressive pioneers to within fifty miles of the Blue
Ridge. So rapid was the settlement in North Carolina that in the
interval 1717-32 the population quadrupled in numbers. A map of
the colonial settlements in 1725 reveals a narrow strip of populated
land along the Atlantic coast, of irregular indentation, with occasional
isolated nuclei of settlements further in the interior. The civilization
thus established continued to maintain a close and unbroken communication
with England and the Continent. As long as the settlers, for economic
reasons, clung to the coast, they reacted but slowly to the transforming
influences of the frontier. Within a triangle of continental altitude
with its apex in New England, bounded on the east by the Atlantic,
and on the west by the Appalachian range, lay the settlements, divided
into two zones—tidewater and piedmont. As no break occurred
in the great mountain system south of the Hudson and Mohawk valleys,
the difficulties of cutting a passage through the towering wall
of living green long proved an effective obstacle to the crossing
of the grim mountain barrier.
In
the beginning the settlements gradually extended westward from the
coast in irregular outline, the indentations taking form around
such natural centers of attraction as areas of fertile soil, frontier
posts, mines, salt-springs, and stretches of upland favorable for
grazing. After a time a second advance of settlement was begun in
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, running in a southwesterly
direction along the broad terraces to the east of the Appalachian
Range, which in North Carolina lies as far as two hundred and fifty
miles from the sea. The Blue Ridge in Virginia and a belt of pine
barrens in North Carolina were hindrances to this advance, but did
not entirely check it. This second streaming of the population thrust
into the long, narrow wedge of the piedmont zone a class of people
differing in spirit and in tendency from their more aristocratic
and complacent neighbors to the east.
These
settlers of the Valley of Virginia and the North Carolina piedmont
region—English, Scotch-Irish, Germans, Scotch, Irish, Welsh,
and a few French—were the first pioneers of the Old Southwest.
From the joint efforts of two strata of population, geographically,
socially, and economically distinct—tidewater and piedmont, Old
South and New South—originated and flowered the third and greatest
movement of westward expansion, opening with the surmounting of
the mountain barrier and ending in the occupation and assumption
of the vast medial valley of the continent.
Synchronous
with the founding of Jamestown in Virginia, significantly enough,
was the first planting of Ulster with the English and Scotch. Emigrants
from the Scotch Lowlands, sometimes as many as four thousand a year
(1625), continued throughout the century to pour into Ulster. "Those
of the North of Ireland . . .," as pungently described in 1679
by the Secretary of State, Leoline Jenkins, to the Duke of Ormond,
"are most Scotch and Scotch breed and are the Northern Presbyterians
and phanatiques, lusty, able bodied, hardy and stout men, where
one may see three or four hundred at every meeting-house on Sunday,
and all the North of Ireland is inhabited by these, which is the
popular place of all Ireland by far. They are very numerous and
greedy after land." During the quarter of a century after the
English Revolution of 1688 and the Jacobite uprising in Ireland,
which ended in 1691 with the complete submission of Ireland to William
and Mary, not less than fifty thousand Scotch, according to Archbishop
Synge, settled in Ulster. Until the beginning of the eighteenth
century there was no considerable emigration to America; and it
was first set up as a consequence of English interference with trade
and religion. Repressive measures passed by the English parliament
(1665 1699), prohibiting the exportation from Ireland to England
and Scotland of cattle, beef, pork, dairy products, etc., and to
any country whatever of manufactured wool, had aroused deep resentment
among the Scotch-Irish, who had built up a great commerce. This
discontent was greatly aggravated by the imposition of religious
disabilities upon the Presbyterians, who, in addition to having
to pay tithes for the support of the established church, were excluded
from all civil and military office (1704), while their ministers
were made liable to penalties for celebrating marriages.
This
pressure upon a high-spirited people resulted inevitably in an exodus
to the New World. The principal ports by which the Ulsterites entered
America were Lewes and Newcastle (Delaware), Philadelphia and Boston.
The streams of immigration steadily flowed up the Delaware Valley;
and by 1720 the Scotch-Irish began to arrive in Bucks County. So
rapid was the rate of increase in immigration that the number of
arrivals soon mounted from a few hundred to upward of six thousand,
in a single year (1729); and within a few years this number was
doubled. According to the meticulous Franklin, the proportion increased
from a very small element of the population of Pennsylvania in 1700
to one fourth of the whole in 1749, and to one third of the whole
(350,000) in 1774. Writing to the Penns in 1724, James Logan, Secretary
of the Province, caustically refers to the Ulster settlers on the
disputed Maryland line as "these bold and indigent strangers,
saying as their excuse when challenged for titles, that we had solicited
for colonists and they had come accordingly." The spirit of
these defiant squatters is succinctly expressed in their statement
to Logan that it "was against the laws of God and nature that
so much land should be idle while so many Christians wanted it to
work on and to raise their bread."
The
rising scale of prices for Pennsylvania lands, changing from ten
pounds and two shillings quit-rents per hundred acres in 1719 to
fifteen pounds ten shillings per hundred acres with a quit-rent
of a halfpenny per acre in 1732, soon turned the eyes of the thrifty
Scotch-Irish settlers southward and southwestward. In Maryland in
1738 lands were offered at five pounds sterling per hundred acres.
Simultaneously, in the Valley of Virginia free grants of a thousand
acres per family were being made. In the North Carolina piedmont
region the proprietary, Lord
Granville, through his agents was disposing of the most desirable
lands to settlers at the rate of three shillings proclamation money
for six hundred and forty acres, the unit of land-division; and
was also making large free grants on the condition of seating a
certain proportion of settlers. "Lord Carteret's land in Carolina,"
says North Carolina's first American historian, "where the
soil was cheap, presented a tempting residence to people of every
denomination. Emigrants from the north of Ireland, by the way of
Pennsylvania, flocked to that country; and a considerable part of
North Carolina . . . is inhabited by those people or their descendants."
From 1740 onward, attracted by the rich lure of cheap and even free
lands in Virginia and North Carolina, a tide of immigration swept
ceaselessly into the valleys of the Shenandoah, the Yadkin, and
the Catawba. The immensity of this mobile, drifting mass, which
sometimes brought "more than 400 families with horse waggons
and cattle" into North Carolina in a single year (1752-3),
is attested by the fact that from 1732 to 1754, mainly as the result
of the Scotch-Irish inundation, the population of North Carolina
more than doubled.
The
second important racial stream of population in the settlement of
the same region was composed of Germans, attracted to this country
from the Palatinate. Lured on by the highly colored stories of the
commercial agents for promoting immigration—the "newlanders,"
who were thoroughly unscrupulous in their methods and extravagant
in their representations—a migration from Germany began in the second
decade of the eighteenth century and quickly assumed alarming proportions.
Although certain of the emigrants were well-to-do, a very great
number were "redemptioners" (indentured servants), who
in order to pay for their transportation were compelled to pledge
themselves to several years of servitude. This economic condition
caused the German immigrant, wherever he went, to become a settler
of the back country, necessity compelling him to pass by the more
expensive lands near the coast.
For
well-nigh sixty years the influx of German immigrants of various
sects was very great, averaging something like fifteen hundred a
year into Pennsylvania alone from 1727 to 1775. Indeed, Pennsylvania,
one third of whose population at the beginning of the Revolution
was German, early became the great distributing center for the Germans
as well as for the Scotch-Irish. Certainly by 1727 Adam Miller and
his fellow Germans had established the first permanent white settlement
in the Valley of Virginia. By 1732 Jost Heydt, accompanied by sixteen
families, came from York, Pennsylvania, and settled on the Opeckon
River, in the neighborhood of the present Winchester. There is no
longer any doubt that "the portion of the Shenandoah Valley
sloping to the north was almost entirely settled by Germans."
It
was about the middle of the century that these pioneers of the Old
Southwest, the shrewd, industrious, and thrifty Pennsylvania Germans
(who came to be generally called "Pennsylvania Dutch"
from the incorrect translation of Pennsylvanische Deutsche), began
to pour into the piedmont region of North Carolina. In the autumn,
after the harvest was in, these ambitious Pennsylvania pioneers
would pack up their belongings in wagons and on beasts of burden
and head for the southwest, trekking down in the manner of the Boers
of South Africa. This movement into the fertile valley lands of
the Yadkin and the Catawba continued unabated throughout the entire
third quarter of the century. Owing to their unfamiliarity with
the English language and the solidarity of their instincts, the
German settlers at first had little share in government. But they
devotedly played their part in the defense of the exposed settlements
and often bore the brunt of Indian attack.
The
bravery and hardihood displayed by the itinerant missionaries sent
out by the Pennsylvania Synod under the direction of Count Zinzendorf
(1742-8), and by the Moravian Church (1748-53), are mirrored in
the numerous diaries, written in German, happily preserved to posterity
in religious archives of Pennsylvania and North Carolina. These
simple, earnest crusaders, animated by pure and unselfish motives,
would visit on a single tour of a thousand miles the principal German
settlements in Maryland and Virginia (including the present West
Virginia). Sometimes they would make an extended circuit through
North Carolina, South Carolina, and even Georgia, everywhere bearing
witness to the truth of the gospel and seeking to carry the most
elemental forms of the Christian religion, preaching and prayer,
to the primitive frontiersmen marooned along the outer fringe of
white settlements. These arduous journeys in the cause of piety
place this type of pioneer of the Old Southwest in alleviating contrast
to the often relentless and bloodthirsty figure of the rude borderer.
Noteworthy
among these pious pilgrimages is the Virginia journey of Brothers
Leonhard Schnell and John Brandmuller (October 12 to December 12,
1749). At the last outpost of civilization, the scattered settlements
in Bath and Alleghany counties, these courageous missionaries—feasting
the while solely on bear meat, for there was no bread—encountered
conditions of almost primitive savagery, of which they give this
graphic picture: "Then we came to a house, where we had to
lie on bear skins around the fire like the rest . . . . The clothes
of the people consist of deer skins, their food of Johnny cakes,
deer and bear meat. A kind of white people are found here, who live
like savages. Hunting is their chief occupation." Into the
valley of the Yadkin in December, 1752, came Bishop Spangenberg
and a party of Moravians, accompanied by a surveyor and two guides,
for the purpose of locating the one hundred thousand acres of land
which had been offered them on easy terms the preceding year by
Lord
Granville. This journey was remarkable as an illustration of
sacrifices willingly made and extreme hardships uncomplainingly
endured for the sake of the Moravian brotherhood. In the back country
of North Carolina near the Mulberry Fields they found the whole
woods full of Cherokee Indians engaged in hunting. A beautiful site
for the projected settlement met their delighted gaze at this place;
but they soon learned to their regret that it had already been "taken
up" by Daniel Boone's future father-in-law, Morgan Bryan.
On
October 8, 1753, a party of twelve single men headed by the Rev.
Bernhard Adam Grube, set out from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to trek
down to the new-found haven in the Carolina hinterland—"a corner
which the Lord has reserved for the Brethren"—in Anson County.
Following for the most part the great highway extending from Philadelphia
to the Yadkin, over which passed the great throng sweeping into
the back country of North Carolina—through the Valley of Virginia
and past Robert Luhny's mill on the James River—they encountered
many hardships along the way. Because of their "long wagon,"
they had much difficulty in crossing one steep mountain; and of
this experience Brother Grube, with a touch of modest pride, observes:
"People had told us that this hill was most dangerous, and
that we would scarcely be able to cross it, for Morgan Bryan, the
first to travel this way, had to take the wheels off his wagon and
carry it piecemeal to the top, and had been three months on the
journey from the Shanidore [Shenandoah] to the Etkin [Yadkin]."
These
men were the highest type of the pioneers of the Old Southwest,
inspired with the instinct of homemakers in a land where, if idle
rumor were to be credited, "the people lived like wild men
never hearing of God or His Word." In one hand they bore the
implement of agriculture, in the other the book of the gospel of
Jesus Christ. True faith shines forth in the simply eloquent words:
"We thanked our Saviour that he had so graciously led us hither,
and had helped us through all the hard places, for no matter how
dangerous it looked, nor how little we saw how we could win through,
everything always went better than seemed possible." The promise
of a new day—the dawn of the heroic age—rings out in the pious carol
of camaraderie at their journey's end:
We
hold arrival Lovefeast here,
In Carolina land,
A company of Brethren true,
A little Pilgrim-Band,
Called by the Lord to be of those
Who through the whole world go,
To bear Him witness everywhere,
And nought but Jesus know.
In
the year 1746 I was up in the country that is now Anson, Orange
and Rowan Counties, there was not then above one hundred fighting
men there is now at least three thousand for the most part Irish
Protestants and Germans and dailey increasing.—Matthew Rowan,
President of the North Carolina Council, to the Board of Trade,
June 28, 1753.
The
conquest of the West is usually attributed to the ready initiative,
the stern self-reliance, and the libertarian instinct of the expert
backwoodsmen. These bold, nomadic spirits were animated by an unquenchable
desire to plunge into the wilderness in search of an El Dorado at
the outer verge of civilization, free of taxation, quit-rents, and
the law's restraint. They longed to build homes for themselves and
their descendants in a limitless, free domain; or else to fare deeper
and deeper into the trackless forests in search of adventure. Yet
one must not overlook the fact that behind Boone and pioneers of
his stamp were men of conspicuous civil and military genius, constructive
in purpose and creative in imagination, who devoted their best gifts
to actual conquest and colonization. These men of large intellectual
mold—themselves surveyors, hunters, and pioneers—were inspired
with the larger vision of the expansionist. Whether colonizers,
soldiers, or speculators on the grand scale, they sought to open
at one great stroke the vast trans-Alleghany regions as a peaceful
abode for mankind.
Two
distinct classes of society were gradually drawing apart from each
other in North Carolina and later in Virginia—the pioneer democracy
of the back country and the upland, and the planter aristocracy
of the lowland and the tide-water region. From the frontier came
the pioneer explorers whose individual enterprise and initiative
were such potent factors in the exploitation of the wilderness.
From the border counties still in contact with the East came a number
of leaders. Thus in the heart of the Old Southwest the two determinative
principles already referred to, the inquisitive and the acquisitive
instincts, found a fortunate conjunction. The exploratory passion
of the pioneer, directed in the interest of commercial enterprise,
prepared the way for the great westward migration. The warlike disposition
of the hardy backwoodsman, controlled by the exercise of military
strategy, accomplished the conquest of the trans-Alleghany country.
Fleeing
from the traditional bonds of caste and aristocracy in England and
Europe, from economic boycott and civil oppression, from religious
persecution and favoritism, many worthy members of society in the
first quarter of the eighteenth century sought a haven of refuge
in the "Quackerthal" of William Penn, with its trustworthy
guarantees of free tolerance in religious faith and the benefits
of representative self-government. From East Devonshire in England
came George Boone, the grandfather of the great pioneer, and from
Wales came Edward Morgan, whose daughter Sarah became the wife of
Squire Boone, Daniel's father. These were conspicuous representatives
of the Society of Friends, drawn thither by the roseate representations
of the great Quaker, William Penn, and by his advanced views on
popular government and religious toleration. Hither, too, from Ireland,
whither he had gone from Denmark, came Morgan Bryan, settling in
Chester County, prior to 1719; and his children, William, Joseph,
James, and Morgan, who more than half a century later gave the name
to Bryan's Station in Kentucky, were destined to play important
roles in the drama of westward migration. In September, 1734, Michael
Finley from County Armagh, Ireland, presumably accompanied by his
brother Archibald Finley, settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
According to the best authorities, Archibald Finley was the father
of John Finley, or Findlay as he signed himself, Boone's guide and
companion in his exploration of Kentucky in 1769-71. To Pennsylvania
also came Mordecai Lincoln, great grandson of Samuel Lincoln, who
had emigrated from England to Hingham, Massachusetts, as early as
1637. This Mordecai Lincoln, who in 1720 settled in Chester County,
Pennsylvania, the great-great-grandfather of President Lincoln,
was the father of Sarah Lincoln, who was wedded to William Boone,
and of Abraham Lincoln, who married Anne Boone, William's first
cousin. Early settlers in Pennsylvania were members of the Hanks
family, one of whom was the maternal grandfather of President Lincoln.
No
one race or breed of men can lay claim to exclusive credit for leadership
in the hinterland movement and the conquest of the West. Yet one
particular stock of people, the Ulster Scots, exhibited with most
completeness and picturesqueness a group of conspicuous qualities
and attitudes which we now recognize to be typical of the American
character as molded by the conditions of frontier life. Cautious,
wary, and reserved, these Scots concealed beneath a cool and calculating
manner a relentlessness in reasoning power and an intensity of conviction
which glowed and burned with almost fanatical ardor. Strict in religious
observance and deep in spiritual fervor, they never lost sight of
the main chance, combining a shrewd practicality with a wealth of
devotion. It has been happily said of them that they kept the Sabbath
and everything else they could lay their hands on. In the polity
of these men religion and education went hand in hand; and they
habitually settled together in communities in order that they might
have teachers and preachers of their own choice and persuasion.
In
little-known letters and diaries of travelers and itinerant ministers
may be found many quaint descriptions and faithful characterizations
of the frontier settlers in their habits of life and of the scenes
amidst which they labored. In a letter to Edmund Fanning, the cultured
Robin Jones, agent of Lord
Granville and Attorney-General of North Carolina, summons to
view a piquant image of the western border and borderers:
"The
inhabitants are hospitable in their way, live in plenty and dirt,
are stout, of great prowess in manly athletics; and, in private
conversation, bold, impertinent, and vain. In the art of war (after
the Indian manner) they are well-skilled, are enterprising and
fruitful of strategies; and, when in action, are as bold and intrepid
as the ancient Romans. The Shawnese acknowledge them their superiors
even in their own way of fighting . . . . [The land] may be truly
called the land of the mountains, for they are so numerous that
when you have reached the summit of one of them, you may see thousands
of every shape that the imagination can suggest, seeming to vie
with each other which should raise his lofty head to touch the
clouds . . . . It seems to me that nature has been wanton in bestowing
her blessings on that country."
An
excellent pen-picture of educational and cultural conditions in
the backwoods of North Carolina, by one of the early settlers in
the middle of the century, exhibits in all their barren cheerlessness
the hardships and limitations of life in the wilderness. The father
of William Few, the narrator, had trekked down from Maryland and
settled in Orange County, some miles east of the little hamlet of
Hillsborough.
"In
that country at that time there were no schools, no churches or
parsons, or doctors or lawyers; no stores, groceries or taverns,
nor do I recollect during the first two years any officer, ecclesiastical,
civil or military, except a justice of the peace, a constable
and two or three itinerant preachers . . . . These people had
few wants, and fewer temptations to vice than those who lived
in more refined society, though ignorant. They were more virtuous
and more happy . . . . A schoolmaster appeared and offered his
services to teach the children of the neighborhood for twenty
shillings each per year . . . . In that simple state of society
money was but little known; the schoolmaster was the welcome guest
of his pupil, fed at the bountiful table and clothed from the
domestic loom . . . . In that country at that time there was great
scarcity of books."
The
journals of itinerant ministers through the Valley of Virginia and
the Carolina piedmont zone yield precious mementoes of the people,
their longing after the things of the spirit, and their pitiful
isolation from the regular preaching of the gospel. These missionaries
were true pioneers in this Old Southwest, ardent, dauntless, and
heroic—carrying the word into remote places and preaching the gospel
beneath the trees of the forest. In his journal (1755-6), the Rev.
Hugh McAden, born in Pennsylvania of Scotch-Irish parentage, a graduate
of Nassau Hall (1753), makes the unconsciously humorous observation
that wherever he found Presbyterians he found people who "seemed
highly pleased, and very desirous to hear the word"; whilst
elsewhere he found either dissension and defection to Baptist principles,
or "no appearance of the life of religion." In the Scotch-Irish
Presbyterian settlements in what is now Mecklenburg County, the
cradle of American liberty, he found "pretty serious, judicious
people" of the stamp of Moses, William, and James Alexander.
While traveling in the upper country of South Carolina, he relates
with gusto the story of "an old gentleman who said to the Governor
of South Carolina, when he was in those parts, in treaty with the
Cherokee Indians that 'he had never seen a shirt, been in a fair,
heard a sermon, or seen a minister in all his life.' Upon which
the governor promised to send him up a minister, that he might hear
one sermon before he died." The minister came and preached;
and this was all the preaching that had been heard in the upper
part of South Carolina before Mr. McAden's visit.
Such,
then, were the rude and simple people in the back country of the
Old Southwest—the deliberate and self-controlled English, the aggressive,
landmongering Scotch-Irish, the buoyant Welsh, the thrifty Germans,
the debonair French, the impetuous Irish, and the calculating Scotch.
The lives they led were marked by independence of spirit, democratic
instincts, and a forthright simplicity. In describing the condition
of the English settlers in the backwoods of Virginia, one of their
number, Doddridge, says:
"Most
of the articles were of domestic manufacture. There might have
been incidentally a few things brought to the country for sale
in a primitive way, but there was no store for general supply.
The table furniture usually consisted of wooden vessels, either
turned or coopered. Iron forks, tin cups, etc., were articles
of rare and delicate luxury. The food was of the most wholesome
and primitive kind. The richest meat, the finest butter, and best
meal that ever delighted man's palate were here eaten with a relish
which health and labor only know. The hospitality of the people
was profuse and proverbial."
The
circumstances of their lives compelled the pioneers to become self-sustaining.
Every immigrant was an adept at many trades. He built his own house,
forged his own tools, and made his own clothes. At a very early
date rifles were manufactured at the High Shoals of the Yadkin;
Squire Boone, Daniel's brother, was an expert gunsmith. The difficulty
of securing food for the settlements forced every man to become
a hunter and to scour the forest for wild game. Thus the pioneer,
through force of sheer necessity, became a dead shot—which stood
him in good stead in the days of Indian incursions and bloody retaliatory
raids. Primitive in their games, recreations, and amusements, which
not infrequently degenerated into contests of savage brutality,
the pioneers always set the highest premium upon personal bravery,
physical prowess, and skill in manly sports. At all public gatherings,
general musters, "vendues" or auctions, and even funerals,
whisky flowed with extraordinary freedom. It is worthy of record
that among the effects of the Rev. Alexander Craighead, the famous
teacher and organizer of Presbyterianism in Mecklenburg and the
adjoining region prior to the Revolution, were found a punch bowl
and glasses.
The
frontier life, with its purifying and hardening influence, bred
in these pioneers intellectual traits which constitute the basis
of the American character. The single-handed and successful struggle
with nature in the tense solitude of the forest developed a spirit
of individualism, restive under control. On the other hand, the
sense of sharing with others the arduous tasks and dangers of conquering
the wilderness gave birth to a strong sense of solidarity arid of
human sympathy. With the lure of free lands ever before them, the
pioneers developed a restlessness and a nervous energy, blended
with a buoyancy of spirit, which are fundamentally American. Yet
this same untrammeled freedom occasioned a disregard for law and
a defiance of established government which have exhibited themselves
throughout the entire course of our history. Initiative, self-reliance,
boldness in conception, fertility in resource, readiness in execution,
acquisitiveness, inventive genius, appreciation of material advantages—these,
shot through with a certain fine idealism, genial human sympathy,
and a high romantic strain—are the traits of the American national
type as it emerged from the Old Southwest.
Far
from the bustle of the world, they live in the most delightful
climate, and richest soil imaginable; they are everywhere surrounded
with beautiful prospects and sylvan scenes; lofty mountains, transparent
streams, falls of water, rich valleys, and majestic woods; the
whole interspersed with an infinite variety of flowering shrubs,
constitute the landscape surrounding them; they are subject to
few diseases; are generally robust; and live in perfect liberty;
they are ignorant of want and acquainted with but few vices. Their
inexperience of the elegancies of life precludes any regret that
they possess not the means of enjoying them, but they possess
what many princes would give half their dominion for, health,
content, and tranquillity of mind.—Andrew Burnaby: Travels
Through North America.
The
two streams of Ulstermen, the greater through Philadelphia, the
lesser through Charleston, which poured into the Carolinas toward
the middle of the century, quickly flooded the back country. The
former occupied the Yadkin Valley and tile region to the westward,
the latter the Waxhaws and the Anson County region to the northwest.
The first settlers were known as the "Pennsylvania Irish,"
because they had first settled in Pennsylvania after migrating from
the north of Ireland; while those who came by way of Charleston
were known as the "Scotch-Irish." The former, who had
resided in Pennsylvania long enough to be good judges of land, shrewdly
made their settlements along the rivers and creeks. The latter,
new arrivals and less experienced, settled on thinner land toward
the heads of creeks and water courses.
Shortly
prior to 1735, Morgan Bryan, his wife Martha, and eight children,
together with other families of Quakers from Pennsylvania, settled
upon a large tract of land on the northwest side of the Opeckon
River near Winchester. A few years later they removed up the Virginia
Valley to the Big Lick in the present Roanoke County, intent upon
pushing westward to the very outskirts of civilization. In the autumn
of 1748, leaving behind his brother William, who had followed him
to Roanoke County, Morgan Bryan removed with his family to the Forks
of the Yadkin River. The Morgans, with the exception of Richard,
who emigrated to Virginia, remained in Pennsylvania, spreading over
Philadelphia and Bucks counties; while the Hanks and Lincoln families
found homes in Virginia—Mordecai Lincoln's son, John, the great-grandfather
of President Lincoln, removing from Berks to the Shenandoah Valley
in 1765. On May 1, 1750, Squire Boone, his wife Sarah (Morgan),
and their eleven children—a veritable caravan, traveling like the
patriarchs of old—started south; and tarried for a space, according
to reliable tradition, on Linville Creek in the Virginia Valley.
In 1752 they removed to the Forks of the Yadkin, and the following
year received from Lord
Granville three tracts of land, all situated in Rowan County.
About the hamlet of Salisbury, which in 1755 consisted of seven
or eight log houses and the court house, there now rapidly gathered
a settlement of people marked by strong individuality, sturdy independence,
and virile self-reliance. The Boones and the Bryans quickly accommodated
themselves to frontier conditions and immediately began to take
an active part in the local affairs of the county. Upon the organization
of the county court Squire Boone was chosen justice of the peace;
and Morgan Bryan was soon appearing as foreman of juries and director
in road improvements.
The
Great Trading Path, leading from Virginia to the towns of the Catawbas
and other Southern Indians, crossed the Yadkin at the Trading Ford
and passed a mile southeast of Salisbury. Above Sapona Town near
the Trading Ford was Swearing Creek, which, according to constant
and picturesque tradition, was the spot where the traders stopped
to take a solemn oath never to reveal any unlawful proceedings that
might occur during their sojourn among the Indians. In his divertingly
satirical "History of the Dividing Line" William Byrd
in 1728 thus speaks of this locality: "The Soil is exceedingly
rich on both sides the Yadkin, abounding in rank Grass and prodigiously
large Trees; and for plenty of Fish, Fowl and Venison, is inferior
to No Part of the Northern Continent. There the Traders commonly
lie Still for some days, to recruit their Horses' Flesh as well
as to recover their own spirits." In this beautiful country
happily chosen for settlement by Squire Boone —who erected
his cabin on the east side of the Yadkin about a mile and a quarter
from Alleman's, now Boone's, Ford—wild game abounded. Buffaloes
were encountered in eastern North Carolina by Byrd while running
the dividing line; and in the upper country of South Carolina three
or four men with their dogs could kill fourteen to twenty buffaloes
in a single day."Deer and bears fell an easy prey to the hunter;
wild turkeys filled every thicket; the watercourses teemed with
beaver, otter, and muskrat, as well as with shad and other delicious
fish. Panthers, wildcats, and wolves overran the country; and the
veracious Brother Joseph, while near the present Wilkesboro, amusingly
records: "The wolves are not like those in Germany, Poland
and Lifland (because they fear men and don't easily come near) give
us such music of six different cornets the like of wh. I have never
heard in my life." So plentiful was the game that the wild
deer mingled with the cattle grazing over the wide stretches of
luxuriant grass.
In
the midst of this sylvan paradise grew up Squire Boone's son, Daniel
Boone, a Pennsylvania youth of English stock, Quaker persuasion,
and Baptist proclivities. Seen through a glorifying halo after the
lapse of a century and three quarters, he rises before us a romantic
figure, poised and resolute, simple, benign—as naive and shy
as some wild thing of the primeval forest—five feet eight inches
in height, with broad chest and shoulders, dark locks, genial blue
eyes arched with fair eyebrows, thin lips and wide mouth, nose of
slightly Roman cast, and fair, ruddy countenance. Farming was irksome
to this restless, nomadic spirit, who on the slightest excuse would
exchange the plow and the grubbing hoe for the long rifle and keen-edged
hunting knife. In a single day during the autumn season he would
kill four or five deer; or as many bears as would snake from two
to three thousand pounds weight of bear-bacon. Fascinated with the
forest, he soon found profit as well as pleasure in the pursuit
of game; and at excellent fixed prices he sold his peltries, most
often at Salisbury, some thirteen miles away, sometimes at the store
of the old "Dutchman," George Hartman, on the Yadkin,
and occasionally at Bethabara, the Moravian town sixty odd miles
distant. Skins were in such demand that they soon came to replace
hard money, which was incredibly scarce in the back country, as
a medium of exchange. Upon one occasion a caravan from Bethabara
hauled three thousand pounds, upon another four thousand pounds,
of dressed deerskins to Charleston. So immense was this trade that
the year after Boone's arrival at the Forks of Yadkin thirty thousand
deerskins were exported from the province of North Carolina. We
like to think that the young Daniel Boone was one of that band of
whom Brother Joseph, while in camp on the Catawba River (November
12, 1752) wrote: "There are many hunters about here, who live
like Indians, they kill many deer selling their hides, and thus
live without much work."
In
this very class of professional hunters, living like Indians, was
thus bred the spirit of individual initiative and strenuous leadership
in the great westward expansionist movement of the coming decade.
An English traveler gives the following minute picture of the dress
and accoutrement of the Carolina backwoodsman.
"Their
whole dress is very singular, and not very materially different
from that of the Indians; being a hunting shirt, somewhat resembling
a waggoner's frock, ornamented with a great many fringes, tied
round the middle with a broad belt, much decorated also, in which
is fastened a tomahawk, an instrument that serves every purpose
of defence and convenience; being a hammer at one side and a sharp
hatchet at the other; the shot bag and powderhorn, carved with
a variety of whimsical figures and devices, hang from their necks
over one shoulder; and on their heads a flapped hat, of a reddish
hue, proceeding from the intensely hot beams of the sun.
Sometimes
they wear leather breeches, made of Indian dressed elk, or deer
skins, but more frequently thin trowsers.
On
their legs they have Indian boots, or leggings, made of coarse
woollen cloth, that either are wrapped round loosely and tied
with garters, or laced upon the outside, and always come better
than half-way up the thigh.
On
their feet they sometimes wear pumps of their own manufacture,
but generally Indian moccossons, of their own construction also,
which are made of strong elk's, or buck's skin, dressed soft as
for gloves or breeches, drawn together in regular plaits over
the toe, and lacing from thence round to the fore part of the
middle of the ancle, without a seam in them, yet fitting close
to the feet, and are indeed perfectly easy and pliant.
Their
hunting, or rifle shirts, they have also died in a variety of
colours, some yellow, others red, some brown, and many wear them
quite white."
No
less unique and bizarre, though less picturesque, was the dress
of the women of the region—in particular of Surry County, North
Carolina, as described by General William Lenoir:
"The
women wore linses [flax] petticoats and 'bedgowns' [like a dressing-sack],
and often went without shoes in the summer. Some had bonnets and
bedgowns made of calico, but generally of linsey; and some of
them wore men's hats. Their hair was commonly clubbed. Once, at
a large meeting, I noticed there but two women that had on long
gowns. One of these was laced genteelly, and the body of the other
was open, and the tail thereof drawn up and tucked in her apron
or coat-string."
While
Daniel Boone was quietly engaged in the pleasant pursuits of the
chase, a vast world-struggle of which he little dreamed was rapidly
approaching a crisis. For three quarters of a century this titanic
contest between France and England for the interior of the continent
had been waged with slowly accumulating force. The irrepressible
conflict had been formally inaugurated at Sault Ste. Marie in 1671,
when Daumont de Saint Lusson, swinging aloft his sword, proclaimed
the sovereignty of France over "all countries, rivers, lakes,
and streams . . . both those which have been discovered and those
which may be discovered hereafter, in all their length and breadth,
bounded on the one side by the seas of the North and of the West,
and on the other by the South Sea." Just three months later,
three hardy pioneers of Virginia, despatched upon their arduous
mission by Colonel Abraham Wood in behalf of the English crown,
had crossed the Appalachian divide; and upon the banks of a stream
whose waters slipped into the Ohio to join the Mississippi and the
Gulf of Mexico, had carved the royal insignia upon the blazed trunk
of a giant of the forest, the while crying: "Long live Charles
the Second, by the grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France,
Ireland and Virginia and of the territories thereunto belonging."
La
Salle's dream of a New France in the heart of America was blotted
out in his tragic death upon the banks of the River Trinity (1687).
Yet his mantle was to fall in turn upon the square shoulders of
Le Moyne d'Iberville and of his brother—the good, the constant Bienville,
who after countless and arduous struggles laid firm the foundations
of New Orleans. In the precious treasury of Margry we learn that
on reaching Rochelle after his first voyage in 1699 Iberville in
these prophetic words voices his faith: "If France does not
immediately seize this part of America which is the most beautiful,
and establish a colony which is strong enough to resist any which
England may have, the English colonies (already considerable in
Carolina) will so thrive that in less than a hundred years they
will be strong enough to seize all America." But the world-weary
Louis Quatorze, nearing his end, quickly tired of that remote and
unproductive colony upon the shores of the gulf, so industriously
described in Paris as a "terrestrial paradise"; and the
"paternal providence of Versailles" willingly yielded
place to the monumental speculation of the great financier Antoine
Crozat. In this Paris of prolific promotion and amazed credulity,
ripe for the colossal scheme of Law, soon to blow to bursting-point
the bubble of the Mississippi, the very songs in the street echoed
flamboyant, half-satiric panegyrics upon the new Utopia, this Mississippi
Land of Cockayne:
It's
to-day no contribution
To discuss the Constitution
And the Spanish war's forgot
For a new Utopian spot;
And the very latest phase
Is the Mississippi craze.
Interest
in the new colony led to a great development of southwesterly trade
from New France. Already the French coureurs de bois were following
the water route from the Illinois to South Carolina. Jean Couture,
a deserter from the service in New France, journeyed over the Ohio
and Tennessee rivers to that colony, and was known as "the
greatest Trader and Traveller amongst the Indians for more than
Twenty years." In 1714 young Charles Charleville accompanied
an old trader from Crozat's colony on the gulf to the great salt-springs
on the Cumberland, where a post for trading with the Shawanoes had
already been established by the French. But the British were preparing
to capture this trade as early as 1694, when Tonti warned Villermont
that Carolinians were already established on a branch of the Ohio.
Four years later, Nicholson, Governor of Maryland, was urging trade
with the Indians of the interior in the effort to displace the French.
At an early date the coast colonies began to trade with the Indian
tribes of the back country: the Catawbas of the Yadkin Valley; the
Cherokees, whose towns were scattered through Tennessee; the Chickasaws,
to the westward in northern Mississippi; and the Choctaws farther
to the southward. Even before the beginning of the eighteenth century,
when the South Carolina settlements extended scarcely twenty miles
from the coast, English traders had established posts among the
Indian tribes four hundred miles to the west of Charleston. Following
the sporadic trading of individuals from Virginia with the inland
Indians, the heavily laden caravans of William Byrd were soon regularly
passing along the Great Trading Path from Virginia to the towns
of the Catawbas and other interior tribes of the Carolinas, delighting
the easily captivated fancy and provoking the cupidity of the red
men with "Guns, Powder, Shot, Hatchets (which the Indians call
Tomahawks), Kettles, red and blue Planes, Duffields, Stroudwater
blankets, and some Cutlary Wares, Brass Rings and other Trinkets."
In Pennsylvania, George Croghan, the guileful diplomat, who was
emissary from the Council to the Ohio Indians (1748), had induced
"all-most all the Ingans in the Woods" to declare against
the French; and was described by Christopher Gist as a "meer
idol among his countrymen, the Irish traders."
Against
these advances of British trade and civilization, the French for
four decades had artfully struggled, projecting tours of exploration
into the vast medial valley of the continent and constructing a
chain of forts and trading-posts designed to establish their claims
to the country and to hold in check the threatened English thrust
from the east. Soon the wilderness ambassador of empire, Celoron
de Bienville, was despatched by the far-visioned Galissoniere at
Quebec to sow broadcast with ceremonial pomp in the heart of America
the seeds of empire, grandiosely graven plates of lasting lead,
in defiant yet futile symbol of the asserted sovereignty of France.
Thus threatened in the vindication of the rights of their colonial
sea-to-sea charters, the English threw off the lethargy with which
they had failed to protect their traders, and in grants to the Ohio
and Loyal land companies began resolutely to form plans looking
to the occupation of the interior. But the French seized the English
trading-house at Venango which they converted into a fort; and Virginia's
protest, conveyed by a calm and judicious young man, a surveyor,
George Washington, availed not to prevent the French from seizing
Captain Trent's hastily erected military post at the forks of the
Ohio and constructing there a formidable work, named Fort Duquesne.
Washington, with his expeditionary force sent to garrison Captain
Trent's fort, defeated Jumonville and his small force near Great
Meadows (May, 1754); but soon after he was forced to surrender Fort
Necessity to Coulon de Villiers.
The
titanic struggle, fittingly precipitated in the backwoods of the
Old Southwest, was now on—a struggle in which the resolute
pioneers of these backwoods first seriously measured their strength
with the French and their copper-hued allies, and learned to surpass
the latter in their own mode of warfare. The portentous conflict,
destined to assure the eastern half of the continent to Great Britain,
is a grim, prophetic harbinger of the mighty movement of the next
quarter of a century into the twilight zone of the trans-Alleghany
territory:
All
met in companies with their wives and children, and set about
building little fortifications, to defend themselves from such
barbarian and inhuman enemies, whom they concluded would be let
loose upon them at pleasure.—The Reverend Hugh McAden—Diary,
July, 1755.
Long
before the actual outbreak of hostilities powerful forces were gradually
converging to produce a clash between the aggressive colonials and
the crafty Indians. As the settlers pressed farther westward into
the domain of the red men, arrogantly grazing their stock over the
cherished hunting-grounds of the Cherokees, the savages, who were
already well disposed toward the French, began to manifest a deep
indignation against the British colonists because of this callous
encroachment upon their territory. During the sporadic forays by
scattered bands of Northern Indians upon the Catawbas and other
tribes friendly to the pioneers the isolated settlements at the
back part of the Carolinas suffered rude and sanguinary onslaughts.
In the summer of 1753 a party of northern Indians warring in the
French interest made their appearance in Rowan County, which had
just been organized, and committed various depredations upon the
scattered settlements. To repel these attacks a band of the Catawbas
sallied forth, encountered a detached party of the enemy, and slew
five of their number. Among the spoils, significantly enough, were
silver crucifixes, beads, looking-glasses, tomahawks and other implements
of war, all of French manufacture.
Intense
rivalry for the good will of the near-by southern tribes existed
between Virginia and South Carolina. In strong remonstrance against
the alleged attempt of Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia to alienate
the Cherokees, Catawbas, Muscogees, and Chickasaws from South Carolina
and to attach them to Virginia, Governor Glen of South Carolina
made pungent observations to Dinwiddie: "South Carolina is
a weak frontier colony, and in case of invasion by the French would
be their first object of attack. We have not much to fear, however,
while we retain the affection of the Indians around us; but should
we forfeit that by any mismanagement on our part, or by the superior
address of the French, we are in a miserable situation. The Cherokees
alone have several thousand gunmen well acquainted with every inch
of the province . . . their country is the key to Carolina."
By a treaty concluded at Saluda (November 24, 1753), Glen promised
to build the Cherokees a fort near the lower towns, for the protection
of themselves and their allies; and the Cherokees on their part
agreed to become the subjects of the King of Great Britain and hold
their lands under him. This fort, erected this same year on the
headwaters of the Savannah, within gunshot distance of the important
Indian town of Keowee, was named Fort Prince George. "It is
a square," says the founder of the fort (Governor Glen to the
Board of Trade, August 26, 1754), "with regular Bastions and
four Ravelins it is near Two hundred foot from Salient Angle to
Salient Angle and is made of Earth taken out of the Ditch, secured
with fachines and well rammed with a banquet on the Inside for the
men to stand upon when they fire over, the Ravelins are made of
Posts of Lightwood which is very durable, they are ten foot in length
sharp pointed three foot and a half in the ground." The dire
need for such a fort in the back country was tragically illustrated
by the sudden onslaught upon the "House of John Gutry &
James Anshers" in York County by a party of sixty French Indians
(December 16, 1754), who brutally murdered sixteen of the twenty-one
persons present, and carried off as captives the remaining five."
At
the outbreak of the French
and Indian War in 1754 North Carolina voted twelve thousand
pounds for the raising of troops and several thousand pounds additional
for the construction of forts—a sum considerably larger than that
voted by Virginia. A regiment of two hundred and fifty men was placed
under the command of Colonel James Innes of the Cape Fear section;
and the ablest officer under him was the young Irishman from the
same section, Lieutenant Hugh Waddell. On June 3, 1754, Dinwiddie
appointed Innes, his close friend, commander-in-chief of all the
forces against the French; and immediately after the disaster at
Great Meadows (July, 1754), Innes took command. Within two months
the supplies for the North Carolina troops were exhausted; and as
Virginia then failed to furnish additional supplies, Colonel Innes
had no recourse but to disband his troops and permit them to return
home. Appointed governor of Fort Cumberland by General Braddock,
he was in command there while Braddock advanced on his disastrous
march.
The
lesson of Braddock's defeat (July 9, 1755) was memorable in the
history of the Old Southwest. Well might Braddock exclaim with his
last breath: "Who would have thought it? . . . We shall know
better how to deal with them another time." Led on by the reckless
and fiery Beaujeu, wearing an Indian gorget about his neck, the
savages from the protection of trees and rough defenses, a pre pared
ambuscade, poured a galling fire into the compact divisions of the
English, whose scarlet coats furnished ideal targets. The obstinacy
of the British commanders in refusing to permit their troops to
fight Indian fashion was suicidal; for as Herman Alriclis wrote
Governor Morris of Pennsylvania (July 22, 1755): " . . . the
French and Indians had cast an Intrenchment across the road before
our Army which they Discovered not Untill they came Close up to
it, from thence and both sides of the road the enemy kept a constant
fireing on them, our Army being so confused, they could not fight,
and they would not be admitted by the Genl or Sir John St. Clair,
to break thro' their Ranks and Take behind trees." Daniel Boone,
who went from North Carolina as a wagoner in the company commanded
by Edward Brice Dobbs, was on the battle-field; but Dobbs's company
at the time was scouting in the woods. When the fierce attack fell
upon the baggage a train, Boone succeeded in effecting his escape
only by cutting the traces of his team and fleeing on one of the
horses. To his dying day Boone continued to censure Braddock's conduct,
and reprehended especially his fatal neglect to employ strong flank-guards
and a sufficient number of Provincial scouts thoroughly acquainted
with the wilderness and all the wiles and strategies of savage warfare.
For
a number of months following Braddock's defeat there was a great
rush of the frightened people southward. In a letter to Dinwiddie,
Washington expresses the apprehension that Augusta, Frederick, and
Hampshire County will soon be depopulated, as the whole back country
is in motion toward the southern colonies. During this same summer
Governor Arthur Dobbs of North Carolina made a tour of exploration
through the western part of the colony, seeking a site for a fort
to guard the frontier. The frontier company of fifty men which was
to garrison the projected fort was placed under the command of Hugh
Waddell, now promoted to the rank of captain, though only twenty-one
years old. In addition to Waddell's company, armed patrols were
required for the protection of the Rowan County frontier; and during
the summer Indian alarms were frequent at the Moravian village of
Bethabara, whose inhabitants had heard with distress on March 31st
of the slaughter of eleven Moravians on the Mahoni and of the ruin
of Gnadenhutten. Many of the settlers in the outlying districts
of Rowan fled for safety to the refuge of the little village; and
frequently every available house, every place of temporary abode
was filled with panic stricken refugees. So persistent were the
depredations of the Indians and so alarmed were the scattered Rowan
settlers by the news of the murders and the destruction of Vaul's
Fort in Virginia (June 25, 1756) that at a conference on July 5th
the Moravians "decided to protect our houses with palisades,
and make them safe before the enemy should invade our tract or attack
us, for if the people were all going to retreat we would be the
last left on the frontier and the first point of attack." By
July 23d, they had constructed a strong defense for their settlement,
afterward called the "Dutch Fort" by the Indians. The
principal structure was a stockade, triangular in plan, some three
hundred feet on a side, enclosing the principal buildings of the
settlement; and the gateway was guarded by an observation tower.
The other defense was a stockade embracing eight houses at the mill
some distance away, around which a small settlement had sprung up.
During
the same year the fort planned by Dobbs was erected upon the site
he had chosen—between Third and Fourth creeks; and the commissioners
Richard Caswell and Francis Brown, sent out to inspect the fort,
made the following picturesque report to the Assembly (December
21, 1756):
"That
they had likewise viewed the State of Fort Dobbs, and found it to
be a good and Substantial Building of the Dimentions following (that
is to say) The Oblong Square fifty three feet by forty, the opposite
Angles Twenty four feet and Twenty-Two In Height Twenty four and
a half feet as by the Plan annexed Appears, The Thickness of the
Walls which are made of Oak Logs regularly Diminished from sixteen
Inches to Six, it contains three floors and there may be discharged
from each floor at one and the same time about one hundred Musketts
the same is beautifully scituated in the fork of Fourth Creek a
Branch of the Yadkin River. And that they also found under Command
of Cap' Hugh Waddel Forty six Effective men Officers and Soldiers,
the said Officers and Soldiers Appearing well and in good Spirits."
As
to the erection of a fort on the Tennessee, promised the Cherokees
by South Carolina, difficulties between the governor of that province
and of Virginia in regard to matters of policy and the proportionate
share of expenses made effective cooperation between the two colonies
well-nigh impossible. Glen, as we have seen, had resented Dinwiddie's
efforts to win the South Carolina Indians over to Virginia's interest.
And Dinwiddie had been very indignant when the force promised him
by the Indians to aid General Braddock did not arrive, attributing
this defection in part to Glen's negotiations for a meeting with
the chieftains and in part to the influence of the South Carolina
traders, who kept the Indians away by hiring them to go on long
hunts for furs and skinns. But there was no such contention between
Virginia and North Carolina. Dinwiddie and Dobbs arranged (November
6, 1755) to send a commission from these colonies to treat with
the Cherokees and the Catawbas. Virginia sent two commissioners,
Colonel William Byrd, third of that name, and Colonel Peter Randolph;
while North Carolina sent one, Captain Hugh Waddell. Salisbury,
North Carolina, was the place of rendezvous. The treaty with the
Catawbas was made at the Catawba Town, presumably the village opposite
the mouth of Sugaw Creek, in York County, South Carolina, on February
20-21, 1756; that with the Cherokees on Broad River, North Carolina,
March 13-17. As a result of the negotiations and after the receipt
of a present of goods, the Catawbas agreed to send forty warriors
to aid Virginia within forty days; and the Cherokees, in return
for presents and Virginia's promise to contribute her proportion
toward the erection of a strong fort, undertook to send four hundred
warriors within forty days, "as soon as the said fort shall
be built." Virginia and North Carolina thus wisely cooperated
to "straighten the path" and "brighten the chain"
between the white and the red men, in important treaties which Have
largely escaped the attention of historians."
On
May 25, 1756, a conference was held at Salisbury between King Heygler
and warriors of the Catawba nation on the one side and Chief Justice
Henley, doubtless attended by Captain Waddell and his frontier company,
on the other. King Heygler, following the lead set by the Cherokees,
petitioned the Governor of North Carolina to send the Catawbas some
ammunition and to "build us a fort for securing our old men,
women and children when we turn out to fight the Enemy on their
coming." The chief justice assured the King that the Catawbas
would receive a necessary supply of ammunition (one hundred pounds
of gunpowder and four hundred pounds of lead were later sent them)
and promised to urge with the governor their request to have a fort
built as soon as possible. Pathos not unmixed with dry humor tinges
the eloquent appeal of good old King Heygler, ever the loyal friend
of the whites, at this conference:
"I
desire a stop may be put to the selling of strong Liquors by the
White people to my people especially near the Indian nation. IF
THE WHITE PEOPLE MAKE STRONG DRINK, LET THEM. SELL IT TO ONE ANOTHER,
OR DRINK IT IN THEIR OWN FAMILIES. This will avoid a great deal
of mischief which otherwise will, happen from my people getting
drunk and quarrelling with the White people. I have no strong
prisons like you to confine them for it. Our only way is to put
them under ground and all these (pointing proudly to his Warriors)
will be ready to do that to those who shall deserve it."
In
response to this request, the sum of four thousand pounds was appropriated
by the North Carolina Assembly for the erection of "a Fort
on our western frontier to protect and secure the Catawbas"
and for the support of two companies of fifty men each to garrison
this and another fort building on the sea coast. The commissioners
appointed for the purpose recommended (December 21, 1756) a site
for the fort "near the 'Catawba nation"; and on January
20, 1757, Governor Dobbs reported; " We are now building a
Fort in the midst of their towns at their own Request." The
fort thereupon begun must have stood near the mouth of the South
Fork of the Catawba River, as Dobbs says it was in the "midst"
of their towns, which are situated a "few miles north and south
of 38 degrees" and might properly be included within a circle
of thirty miles radius."
During
the succeeding months many depredations were committed by the Indians
upon the exposed and scattered settlements. Had it not been for
the protection afforded by all these forts, by the militia companies
under Alexander Osborne of Rowan and Nathaniel Alexander of Anson,
and by a special company of patrollers under Green and Moore, the
back settlers who had been so outrageously "pilfered"
by the Indians would have "retired from the Frontier into the
inner settlements."
We
give thanks and praise for the safety and peace vouchsafed us
by our Heavenly Father in these times of war. Many of our neighbors,
driven hither and yon like deer before wild beasts, came to us
for shelter, yet the accustomed order of our congregation life
was not disturbed, no, not even by the more than 150 Indians who
at sundry times passed by, stopping for a day at a time and being
fed by us.—Wachovia Community Diary, 1757
With
commendable energy and expedition Dinwiddie and Dobbs, acting in
concert, initiated steps for keeping the engagements conjointly
made by the two colonies with the Cherokees and the Catawbas in
tile spring and summer of 1756. Enlisting sixty men, "most
of them Artificers, with Tools and Provisions," Major Andrew
Lewis proceeded in the late spring to Echota in the Cherokee country.
Here during the hot summer months they erected the Virginia Fort
on the path from Virginia, upon the northern bank of the Little
Tennessee, nearly opposite the Indian town of Echota and about twenty-five
miles southwest of Knoxville." While the fort was in process
of construction, the Cherokees were incessantly tampered with by
emissaries from the Nuntewees and the Savannahs in the French interest,
and from the French themselves at the Alibamu Fort. So effective
were these machinations, supported by extravagant promises and doubtless
rich bribes, that the Cherokees soon were outspokenly expressing
their desire for a French fort at Great Tellico.
Dinwiddie
welcomed the departure from America of Governor Glen of South Carolina,
who in his opinion had always acted contrary to the king's interest.
From the new governor, William Henry Lyttelton, who arrived in Charleston
on June 1, 1756, he hoped to secure effective cooperation in dealing
with the Cherokees and the Catawbas. This hope was based upon Lyttelton's
recognition, as stated in Dinwiddie's words, of the "Necessity
of strict Union between the whole Colonies, with't any of them considering
their particular Interest separate from the general Good of the
whole." After constructing the fort "with't the least
assistance from South Carolina," Major Lewis happened by accident
upon a grand council being held in Echota in September. At that
time he discovered to his great alarm that the machinations of the
French had already produced the greatest imaginable change in the
sentiment of the Cherokees. Captain Raymond Demere of the Provincials,
with two hundred English troops, had arrived to garrison the fort;
but the head men of all the Upper Towns were secretly influenced
to agree to write a letter to Captain Demere, ordering him to return
immediately to Charleston with all the troops under his command.
At the grand council, Atta-kulla-kulla, the great Cherokee chieftain,
passionately declared to the head men, who listened approvingly,
that "as to the few soldiers of Captain Demere that was there,
he would take their Guns, and give them to his young men to hunt
with and as to their clothes they would soon be worn out and their
skins would be tanned, and be of the same colour as theirs, and
that they should live among them as slaves." With impressive
dignity Major Lewis rose and earnestly pleaded for the observance
of the terms of the treaty solemnly negotiated the preceding March.
In response, the crafty and treacherous chieftains desired Lewis
to tell the Governor of Virginia that "they had taken up the
Hatchet against all Nations that were Enemies to the English";
but Lewis, an astute student of Indian Psychology, rightly surmised
that all their glib professions of friendship and assistance were
"only to put a gloss on their knavery." So it proved;
for instead of the four hundred warriors promised under the treaty
for service in Virginia, the Cherokees sent only seven warriors,
accompanied by three women. Al though the Cherokees petitioned Virginia
for a number of men to garrison the Virginia fort, Dinwiddie postponed
sending the fifty men provided for by the Virginia Assembly until
he could reassure himself in regard to the "Behaviour and Intention"
of the treacherous Indian allies. This proved to be a prudent decision;
for not long after its erection the Virginia fort was destroyed
by the Indians.
Whether
on account of the dissatisfaction expressed by the Cherokees over
the erection of the Virginia fort or because of a recognition of
the mistaken policy of garrisoning a work erected by Virginia with
troops sent from Charleston, South Carolina immediately proceeded
to build another stronghold on the southern bank of the Tennessee
at the mouth of Tellico River, some seven miles from the site of
the Virginia fort; and here were posted twelve great guns, brought
thither at immense labor through the wilderness. To this fort, named
Fort Loudoun in honor of Lord Loudoun, then commander-in-chief of
all the English forces in America, the Indians allured artisans
by donations of land; and during the next three or four years a
little settlement sprang up there.
The
frontiers of Virginia suffered most from the incursions of hostile
Indians during the fourteen months following May 1, 1755. In July,
the Rev. Hugh McAden records that he preached in Virginia on a day
set apart for fasting and prayer "on account of the wars and
many murders, committed by the savage Indians on the back inhabitants."
On July 30th a large party of Shawano Indians fell upon the New
River settlement and wiped it out of existence. William Ingles was
absent at the time of the raid; and Mrs. Ingles, who was captured,
afterward effected her escape. The following summer (June 25, 1756),
Fort Vaux on the headwaters of the Roanoke, under the command of
Captain John Smith, was captured by about one hundred French and
Indians, who burnt the fort, killed John Smith junior, John Robinson,
John Tracey and John Ingles, wounded four men, and captured twenty-two
men, women, and children. Among the captured was the famous Mrs.
Mary Ingles, whose husband, John Ingles, was killed; but after being
"carried away into Captivity, amongst whom she was barbarously
treated," according to her own statement, she finally escaped
and returned to Virginia." The frontier continued to be infested
by marauding bands of French and Indians; and Dinwiddie gloomily
confessed to Dobbs (July 22d): "I apprehend that we shall always
be harrass'd with fly'g Parties of these Banditti unless we form
an Expedit'n ag'st them, to attack 'em in y'r Towns." Such
an expedition, known as the Sandy River Expedition, had been sent
out in February to avenge the massacre of the New River settlers;
but the enterprise engaged in by about four hundred Virginians and
Cherokees under Major Andrew Lewis and Captain Richard Pearis, proved
a disastrous failure. Not a single Indian was seen; and the party
suffered extraordinary hardships and narrowly escaped starvation.
In
conformity with his treaty obligations with the Catawbas, Governor
Dobbs commissioned Captain Hugh Waddell to erect the fort promised
the Catawbas at the spot chosen by the commissioners near the mouth
of the South Fork of the Catawba River. This fort, for which four
thousand pounds had been appropriated, was for the most part completed
by midsummer, 1757. But owing, it appears, both to the machinations
of the French and to the intermeddling of the South Carolina traders,
who desired to retain the trade of the Catawbas for that province,
Oroloswa, the Catawba King Heygler, sent a "talk" to Governor
Lyttelton, requesting that North Carolina desist from the work of
construction and that no fort be built except by South Carolina.
Accordingly, Governor Dobbs ordered Captain Waddell to discharge
the workmen (August 11, 1757); and every effort was made for many
months thereafter to conciliate the Catawbas, erstwhile friends
of North Carolina. The Catawba fort erected by North Carolina was
never fully completed; and several years later South Carolina, having
succeeded in alienating the Catawbas from North Carolina, which
colony had given them the best possible treatment, built for them
a fort at the mouth of Line Creek on the east bank of the Catawba
River.
In
the spring and summer of 1758 the long expected Indian allies arrived
in Virginia, as many as four hundred by May—Cherokees, Catawbas,
Tuscaroras, and Nottaways. But Dinwiddie was wholly unable to use
them effectively; and in order to provide amusement for them, he
directed that they should go "a scalping" with the whites—"a
barbarous method of war," frankly acknowledged the governor,
"introduced by the French, which we are oblidged to follow
in our own defense." Most of the Indian allies discontentedly
returned home before the end of the year, but the remainder waited
until the next year, to take part in the campaign against Fort Duquesne.
Three North Carolina companies, composed of trained soldiers and
hardy frontiersmen, went through this campaign under the command
of Major Hugh Waddell, the "Washington of North Carolina."
Long of limb and broad of chest, powerful, lithe, and active, Waddell
was an ideal leader for this arduous service, being fertile in expedient
and skilful in the employment of Indian tactics. With true provincial
pride Governor Dobbs records that Waddell "had great honor
done him, being employed in all reconnoitring parties, and dressed
and acted as an Indian; and his sergeant, Rogers, took the only
Indian prisoner, who gave Mr. Forbes certain intelligence of the
forces in Fort Duquesne, upon which they resolved to proceed."
This apparently trivial incident is remarkable, in that it proved
to be the decisive factor in a campaign that was about to be abandoned.
The information in regard to the state of the garrison at Fort Duquesne,
secured from the Indian, for the capture of whom two leading officers
had offered a reward of two hundred and fifty pounds, emboldened
Forbes to advance rather than to retire. Upon reaching the fort
(November 25th), he found it abandoned by the enemy. Sergeant Rogers
never received the reward promised by General Forbes and the other
English officer; but some time afterward he was compensated by a
modest sum from the colony of North Carolina.
A
series of unfortunate occurrences, chiefly the fault of the whites,
soon resulted in the precipitation of a terrible Indian outbreak.
A party of Cherokees, returning home in May, 1758, seized some stray
horses on the frontier of Virginia—never dreaming of any wrong,
says an old historian, as they saw it frequently done by the whites.
The owners of the horses, hastily forming a party, went in pursuit
of the Indians and killed twelve or fourteen of the number. The
relatives of the slain Indians, greatly incensed, vowed vengeance
upon the whites. Nor was the tactless conduct of Forbes calculated
to quiet this resentment; for when Atta-kulla-kulla and nine other
chieftains deserted in disgust at the treatment accorded them, they
were pursued by Forbes's orders, apprehended and disarmed. This
rude treatment, coupled with the brutal and wanton murder of some
Cherokee hunters a little earlier, by an irresponsible band of Virginians
under Captain Robert Wade, still further aggravated the Indians.
Incited
by the French, who had fled to the southward after the fall of Fort
Duquesne, parties of bloodthirsty young Indians rushed down upon
the settlements and left in their path death and desolation along
the frontiers of the Carolinas. On the upper branch of the Yadkin
and below the South Yadkin near Fort Dobbs twenty-two whites fell
in swift succession before the secret onslaughts of the savages
from the lower Cherokee towns. Many of the settlers along the Yadkin
fled to the Carolina Fort at Bethabara and the stockade at the mill;
and the sheriff of Rowan County suffered siege by the Cherokees,
in his home, until rescued by a detachment under Brother Loesch
from Bethabara. While many families took refuge in Fort Dobbs, frontiersmen
under Captain Morgan Bryan ranged through the mountains to the west
of Salisbury and guarded the settlements from the hostile incursions
of the savages. So gravely alarmed were the Rowan settlers, compelled
by the Indians to desert their planting and crops, that Colonel
Harris was despatched post-haste for aid to Cape Fear, arriving
there on July 1st. With strenuous energy Captain Waddell, then stationed
in the east, rushed two companies of thirty men each to the rescue,
sending by water-carriage six swivel guns and ammunition on before
him; and these reinforcements brought relief at last to the harassed
Rowan frontiers." During the remainder of the year, the borders
were kept clear by bold and tireless rangers under the leadership
of expert Indian fighters of the stamp of Grifth Rutherford and
Morgan Bryan.
When
the Cherokee warriors who had wrought havoc along the North Carolina
border in April arrived at their town of Settiquo, they proudly
displayed the twenty-two scalps of the slain Rowan settlers. Upon
the demand for these scalps by Captain Demere at Fort Loudon and
under direction of Atta-kulla-kulla, the Settiquo warriors surrendered
eleven of the scalps to Captain Demere who, according to custom
in time of peace, buried them. New murders on Pacolet and along
the Virginia Path, which occurred shortly afterward, caused gloomy
forebodings; and it was plain, says a contemporary gazette, that
"the lower Cherokees were not satisfied with the murder of
the Rowan settlers, but intended further mischief". On October
1st and again on October 31st, Governor Dobbs received urgent requests
from Governor Lyttelton, asking that the North Carolina provincials
and militia cooperate to bring him assistance. Although there was
no law requiring the troops to march out of the province and the
exposed frontiers of North Carolina sorely needed protection, Waddell,
now commissioned colonel, assembled a force of five small companies
and marched to the aid of Governor Lyttelton. But early in January,
1760, while on the march, Waddell received a letter from Lyttelton,
informing him that the assistance was not needed and that a treaty
of peace had been negotiated with the Cherokees.
Thus
ended the Cherokee war, which was among the last humbling strokes
given to the expiring power of France in North America.—Hewatt:
An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Colonies
of South Carolina and Georgia. 1779.
Governor
Lyttelton's treaty of "peace", negotiated with the Cherokees
at the close of 1759, was worse than a crime: it was a crass and
hideous blunder. His domineering attitude and tyrannical treatment
of these Indians had aroused the bitterest animosity. Yet he did
not realize that it was no longer safe to trust their word. No sooner
did the governor withdraw his army from the borders than the cunning
Cherokees, whose passions had been inflamed by what may fairly be
called the treacherous conduct of Lyttelton, rushed down with merciless
ferocity upon the innocent and defenseless families on the frontier.
On February 1, 1760, while a large party (including the family of
Patrick Calhoun), numbering in all about one hundred and fifty persons,
were removing from the Long Cane settlement to Augusta, they were
suddenly attacked by a hundred mounted Cherokees, who slaughtered
about fifty of them. After the massacre, many of the children were
found helplessly wandering in the woods. One man alone carried to
Augusta no less than nine of the pitiful innocents, some horribly
mutilated with the tomahawk, others scalped, and all yet alive.
Atrocities
defying description continued to be committed, and many people were
slain. The Cherokees, under the leadership of Si-lou-ee, or the
Young Warrior of Estatoe, the Round O, Tiftoe, and others, were
baffled in their persistent efforts to capture Fort Prince George.
On February 16th the crafty Oconostota appeared before the fort
and under the pretext of desiring some White man to accompany him
on a visit to the governor on urgent business, lured the commander,
Lieutenant Coytomore, and two attendants to a conference outside
the gates. At a preconceived signal a volley of shots rang out;
the two attendants were wounded, and Lieutenant Coytomore, riddled
with bullets, fell dead. Enraged by this act of treachery, the garrison
put to death the Indian hostages within. During the abortive attack
upon the fort, Oconostota, unaware of the murder of the hostages,
was heard shouting above the din of battle: "Fight strong,
and you shall be relieved."
Now
began the dark days along the Rowan border, which were so sorely
to test human endurance. Many refugees fortified themselves in the
different stockades; and Colonel Hugh Waddell with his redoubtable
frontier company of Indian-fighters awaited the onslaught of the
savages, who were reported to have passed through the mountain defiles
and to be approaching along the foot-hills. The story of the investment
of Fort Dobbs and the splendidly daring sortie of Waddell and Bailey
is best told in Waddell's report to Governor Dobbs (February 29,
1760):
"For
several Days I observed a small party of Indians were constantly
about the fort, I sent out several parties after them to no purpose,
the Evening before last between 8 & 9 o'clock I found by the
Dogs making an uncommon Noise there must be a party nigh a Spring
which we sometimes use. As my Garrison is but small, and I was
apprehensive it might be a scheme to draw out the Garrison, I
took our Capt. Bailie who with myself and party made up ten: We
had not marched 300 yds. from the fort when we were attacked by
at least 60 or 70 Indians. I had given my party Orders not to
fire until I gave the word, which they punctually observed: We
rec'd the Indians' fire: When I perceived they had almost all
fired, I ordered my party to fire which We did not further than
12 steps each loaded with a Bullet and 7 Buck Shot, they had nothing
to cover them as they were advancing either to tomahawk us or
make us Prisoners: They found the fire very hot from so small
a Number which a good deal confused them: I then ordered my party
to retreat, as I found the Instant our skirmish began another
party had attacked the fort, upon our reinforcing the garrison
the Indians were soon repulsed with I am sure a considerable Loss,
from what I myself saw as well as those I can confide in they
cou'd not have less than 10 or 12 killed and wounded; The next
Morning we found a great deal of Blood and one dead whom I suppose
they cou'd not find in the night. On my side I had 2 Men wounded
one of whom I am afraid will die as he is scalped, the other is
in way of Recovery, and one boy killed near the fort whom they
durst not advance to scalp. I expected they would have paid me
another visit last night, as they attack all Fortifications by
Night, but find they did not like their Reception."
Alarmed
by Waddell's "offensive-defensive," the Indians abandoned
the siege. Robert Campbell, Waddell's ranger, who was scalped in
this engagement, subsequently recovered from his wounds and was
recompensed by the colony with the sum of twenty pounds.
In
addition to the frontier militia, four independent companies were
now placed under Waddell's command. Companies of volunteers scoured
the woods in search of the lurking Indian foe. These rangers, who
were clad in hunting-shirts and buckskin leggings, and who employed
Indian tactics in fighting, were captained by such hardy leaders
as the veteran Morgan Bryan, the intrepid Griffith Rutherford, the
German partisan, Martin Phifer (Pfeiffer), and Anthony Hampton,
the father of General Wade Hampton. They visited periodically a
chain of "forest castles" erected by the settlers—extending
all the way from Fort Dobbs and the Moravian fortifications in the
Wachau to Samuel Stalnaker's stockade on the Middle Fork of the
Holston in Virginia. About the middle of March, thirty volunteer
Rowan County rangers encountered a band of forty Cherokees, who
fortified themselves in a deserted house near the Catawba River.
The famous scout and hunter, John Perkins, assisted by one of his
bolder companions, crept up to the house and flung lighted torches
upon the roof. One of the Indians, as the smoke became suffocating
and the flames burned hotter, exclaimed: "Better for one to
die bravely than for all to perish miserably in the flames,"
and darting forth, dashed rapidly hither and thither, in order to
draw as many shots as possible. This act of superb self-sacrifice
was successful; and while the rifles of the whites, who riddled
the brave Indian with balls, were empty, the other savages made
a wild dash for liberty. Seven fell thus under the deadly rain of
bullets; but many escaped. Ten of the Indians, all told, lost their
scalps, for which the volunteer rangers were subsequently paid one
hundred pounds by the colony of North Carolina.
Beaten
back from Fort Dobbs, sorely defeated along the Catawba, hotly pursued
by the rangers, the Cherokees continued to lurk in the shadows of
the dense forests, and at every opportunity to fall suddenly upon
way faring settlers and isolated cabins remote from any stronghold.
On March 8th William Fish, his son, and Thompson, a companion, were
riding along the "trace," in search of provisions for
a group of families fortified on the Yadkin, when a flight of arrows
hurtled from the cane-brake, and Fish and his son fell dead. Although
pierced with two arrows, one in the hip and one clean through his
body, Thompson escaped upon his fleet horse; and after a night of
ghastly suffering finally reached the Carolina Fort at Bethabara.
The good Dr. Bonn, by skilfully extracting the barbed shafts from
his body, saved Thompson's life. The pious Moravians rejoiced over
the recovery of the brave messenger, whose sensational arrival gave
them timely warning of the close proximity of the Indians. While
feeding their cattle, settlers were shot from ambush by the lurking
foe; and on March 11th, a family barricaded within a burning house,
which they were defending with desperate courage, were rescued in
the nick of time by the militia. No episode from Fenimore Cooper's
Leatherstocking Tales surpasses in melancholy interest Harry Hicks's
heroic defense of his little fort on Bean Island Creek. Surrounded
by the Indians, Hicks and his family took refuge within the small
outer palisade around his humble home. Fighting desperately against
terrific odds, he was finally driven from his yard into his log
cabin, which he continued to defend with dauntless courage. With
every shot he tried to send a redskin to the happy hunting-grounds;
and it was only after his powder was exhausted that he fell, fighting
to the last, beneath the deadly tomahawk. So impressed were the
Indians by his bravery that they spared the life of his wife and
his little son; and these were afterward rescued by Waddell when
he marched to the Cherokee towns in 1761.
The
kindly Moravians had always entertained with generous hospitality
the roving bands of Cherokees, who accordingly held them in much
esteem and spoke of Bethabara as "the Dutch Fort, where there
are good people and much bread." But now, in these dread days,
the truth of their daily text was brought forcibly home to the Moravians:
"Neither Nehemiah nor his brethren put off their clothes, but
prayed as they watched." With Bible in one hand and rifle in
the other, the inhabitant of Wachovia sternly marched to religious
worship. No Puritan of bleak New England ever showed more resolute
courage or greater will to defend the hard-won outpost of civilization
than did the pious Moravian of the Wachau. At the new settlement
of Bethania on Easter Day, more than four hundred souls, including
sixty rangers, listened devoutly to the eloquent sermon of Bishop
Spangenberg concerning the way of salvation—the while their arms,
stacked without the Gemein Haus, were guarded by the watchful sentinel.
On March 14th the watchmen at Bethania with well-aimed
shots repelled the Indians, whose hideous yells of baffled rage
sounded down the wind like "the howling of a hundred wolves".
Religion was no protection against the savages; for three ministers
journeying to the present site of Salem were set upon by the red
men—one escaping, another suffering capture, and the third, a Baptist,
losing his life. A little later word came to Fort Dobbs that John
Long and Robert Gillespie of Salisbury had been shot from ambush
and scalped—Long having been pierced with eight bullets and Gillespie
with seven.
There
is one beautiful incident recorded by the Moravians, which has a
truly symbolic significance. While the war was at its height, a
strong party of Cherokees, who had lost their chief, planned in
retaliation to attack Bethabara. "When they went home,"
sets forth the Moravian Diary, "they said they had been to
a great town, where there were a great many people, where the bells
rang often, and during the night, time after time, a horn was blown,
so that they feared to attack the town and had taken no prisoners."
The trumpet of the watchman, announcing the passing of the hour,
had convinced the Indians that their plans for attack were discovered;
and the regular evening bell, summoning the pious to prayer, rang
in the stricken ears of the red men like the clamant call to arms.
Following
the retirement from office of Governor Lyttelton, Lieutenant-Governor
Bull proceeded to prosecute the war with vigor. On April 1, 1760,
twelve hundred men under Colonel Archibald Montgomerie arrived at
Charleston, with instructions to strike an immediate blow and to
relieve Fort Loudon, then invested by the Cherokees. With his own
force, two hundred and ninety-five South Carolina Rangers, forty
picked men of the new "levies," and "a good number
of guides," Montgomerie moved from Fort Ninety-Six on May 28th.
On the first of June, crossing Twelve-Mile River, Montgomerie began
the campaign in earnest, devastating and burning every Indian village
in the Valley of Keowee, killing and capturing more than a hundred
of the Cherokees, and destroying immense stores of corn. Receiving
no reply to his summons to the Cherokees of the Middle and Upper
Towns to make peace or suffer like treatment, Montgomerie took up
his march from Fort Prince George on June 24th, resolved to carry
out his threat. On the morning of the 27th, he was drawn into an
ambuscade within six miles of Et-chow-ee, eight miles south of the
present Franklin, North Carolina, a mile and a half below Smith's
Bridge, and was vigorously attacked from dense cover by some six
hundred and thirty warriors led by Si-lou-ee. Fighting with Indian
tactics, the Provincial Rangers under Patrick Calhoun particularly
distinguished themselves; and the bloodcurdling yells of the painted
savages were responded to by the wild huzzas of the kilted Highlanders
who, waving their Scotch bonnets, impetuously charged the redskins
and drove them again and again from their lurking-places. Nevertheless
Montgomerie lost from eighty to one hundred in killed and wounded,
while the loss of the Indians was supposed to be about half the
loss of the whites. Unable to care for his wounded and lacking the
means of removing his baggage, Montgomerie silently withdrew his
forces. In so doing, he acknowledged defeat, since he was compelled
to abandon his original intention of relieving the beleaguered garrison
of Fort London.
Captain
Demere and his devoted little band, who had been resolutely holding
out, were now left to their tragic fate. After the bread was exhausted,
the garrison was reduced to the necessity of eating dogs and horses;
and the loyal aid of the Indian wives of some of the garrison, who
secretly brought them supplies of food daily, enabled them to hold
out still longer. Realizing at last the futility of prolonging the
hopeless contest, Captain Demere surrendered the fort on August
8, 1760. At daylight the next morning, while on the march to Fort
Prince George, the soldiers were set upon by the treacherous Cherokees,
who at the first onset killed Captain Demere and twenty-nine others.
A humane chieftain, Outassitus, says one of the gazettes of the
day, "went around the field calling upon the Indians to desist,
and making such representations to them as stopped the further progress
and effects of their barbarous and brutal rage,"which expressed
itself in scalping and hacking off the arms and legs of the defenseless
whites. Atta-kulla-kulla, who was friendly to the whites, claimed
Captain Stuart, the second officer, as his captive, and bore him
away by stealth. After nine days' journey through the wilderness
they encountered an advance party under Major Andrew Lewis, sent
out by Colonel Byrd, head of a relieving army, to rescue and succor
any of the garrison who might effect their escape. Thus Stuart was
restored to his friends. This abortive and tragic campaign, in which
the victory lay conclusively with the Indians, ended when Byrd disbanded
his new levies and Montgomerie sailed from Charleston for the north
(August, 1760).
During
the remainder of the year, the province of North Carolina remained
free of further alarms from the Indians. But the view was generally
entertained that one more joint Effort of North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Virginia would have to be made in order to humble
the Cherokees. At the sessions of the North Carolina Assembly in
November and again in December, matters in dispute between Governor
Dobbs and the representatives of the people made impossible the
passage of a proposed aid bill, providing for five hundred men to
cooperate with Virginia and South Carolina. Nevertheless volunteers
in large numbers patriotically marched from North Carolina to Charleston
and the Congaree (December, 1760, to April, 1761), to enlist in
the famous regiment being organized by Colonel Thomas Middleton.
On March 31, 1761, Governor Dobbs called together the Assembly to
act upon a letter received from General Amherst, outlining a more
vigorous plan of campaign appropriate to the succession of a young
and vigorous sovereign, George III. An aid bill was passed, providing
twenty thousand pounds for men and supplies; and one regiment of
five companies of one hundred men each, under the command of Colonel
Hugh Waddell, was mustered into service for seven months' duty,
beginning May 1, 1761.
On
July 7, 1761, Colonel James Grant, detached from the main army in
command of a force of twenty-six hundred men, took up his march
from Fort Prince George. Attacked on June l0th two miles south of
the spot where Montgomerie was engaged the preceding year, Grant's
army, after a vigorous engagement lasting several hours, drove off
the Indians. The army then proceeded at leisure to lay waste the
fifteen towns of the Middle Settlements; and, after this work of
systematic devastation was over, returned to Fort Prince George.
Peace was concluded in September as the result of this campaign;
and in consequence the frontier was pushed seventy miles farther
to the west.
Meantime,
Colonel Waddell with his force of five hundred North Carolinians
had acted in concert with Colonel William Byrd, commanding the Virginia
detachment. The combined forces went into camp at Captain Samuel
Stalnaker's old place on the Middle Fork of Holston. Because of
his deliberately dilatory policy, Byrd was superseded in the command
by Colonel Adam Stephen. Marching their forces to the Long Island
of Holston, Stephen and Waddell erected there Fort
Robinson, in compliance with the instructions of Governor Fauquier,
of Virginia. The Cherokees, heartily tired of the war, now sued
for peace, which was concluded, independent of the treaty at Charleston,
on November 19, 1761.
The
successful termination of this campaign had an effect of signal
importance in the development of the expansionist spirit. The rich
and beautiful lands which fell under the eye of the North Carolina
and Virginia pioneers under Waddell, Byrd, and Stephen, lured them
irresistibly on to wider casts for fortune and bolder explorations
into the unknown, beckoning West.
It
was thought good policy to settle those lands as fast as possible,
and that the granting them to men of the first consequence who
were likeliest and best able to procure large bodies of people
to settle on them was the most probable means of effecting the
end proposed.—Acting-Governor Nelson of Virginia to the Earl
of Hillsborough: 1770.
Although
for several decades the Virginia traders had been passing over the
Great Trading Path to the towns of the Cherokees and the Catawbas,
it was not until the early years of the eighteenth century that
Virginians of imaginative vision directed their eyes to the westward,
intent upon crossing the mountains and locating settlements as a
firm barrier against the imperialistic designs of France. Acting
upon his oft-expressed conviction that once the English settlers
had established themselves at the source of the James River "it
would not be in the power of the French to dislodge them,"
Governor Alexander Spotswood in 1716, animated with the spirit of
the pioneer, led an expedition of fifty men and a train of pack-horses
to the mountains, arduously ascended to the summit of the Blue Ridge,
and claimed the country by right of discovery in behalf of his sovereign.
In the journal of John Fontaine this vivacious account is given
of the historic episode: "I graved my name on a tree by the
river side; and the Governor buried a bottle with a paper enclosed
on which he writ that he took possession of this place in the name
and for King George the First of England. We had a good dinner,
and after it we got the men together and loaded all their arms and
we drank the King's health in Burgundy and fired a volley, and all
the rest of the Royal Family in claret and a volley. We drank the
Governor's health and fired another volley."
By
this jovial picnic, which the governor afterward commemorated by
presenting to each of the gentlemen who accompanied him a golden
horseshoe, inscribed with the legend "Sic juvat transcendere
montes" Alexander Spotswood anticipated by a third of a
century the more ambitious expedition on behalf of France by Celoron
de Bienville (see Chapter III), and gave a memorable object-lesson
in the true spirit of westward expansion. During the ensuing years
it began to dawn upon the minds of men of the stamp of William Byrd
and Joshua Gee that there was imperative need for the establishment
of a chain of settlements in the trans-Alleghany, a great human
wall to withstand the advancing wave of French influence and occupation.
By the fifth decade of the century, as we have seen, the Virginia
settlers, with their squatter's claims and tomahawk rights, had
pushed on to the mountains; and great pressure was brought to bear
upon the council to issue grants for vast tracts of land in the
uncharted wilderness of the interior.
At
this period the English ministry adopted the aggressive policy already
mentioned in connection with the French and Indian war, indicative
of a determination to contest with France the right to occupy the
interior of the continent. This policy had been inaugurated by Virginia
with the express purpose of stimulating the adoption of a similar
policy by North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Two land companies, organized
almost simultaneously, actively promoted the preliminaries necessary
to settlement, despatching parties under expert leadership to discover
the passes through the mountains and to locate the best land in
the trans-Alleghany.
In
June, 1749, a great corporation, the Loyal Land Company of Virginia,
received a grant of eight hundred thousand acres above the North
Carolina line and west of the mountains. Dr. Thomas Walker, an expert
surveyor, who in company with several other gentlemen had made a
tour of exploration through eastern Tennessee and the Holston region
in 1748, was chosen as the agent of this company. Starting from
his home in Albemarle County, Virginia, March 6, 1750, accompanied
by five stalwart pioneers, Walker made a tour of exploration to
the westward, being absent four months and one week. On this journey,
which carried the party as far west as the Rockcastle River (May
11th) and as far north as the present Paintsville, Kentucky, they
named many natural objects, such as mountains and rivers, after
members of the party. Their two principal achievements were the
erection of the first house built by white men between the Cumberland
Mountains and the Ohio River a feat, however, which led to no important
developments; and the discovery of the wonderful gap in the Alleghanies
to which Walker gave the name Cumberland, in honor of the ruthless
conqueror at Culloden, the "bloody duke."
In
1748 the Ohio Company was organized by Colonel Thomas Lee, president
of the Virginia council, and twelve other gentlemen, of Virginia
and Maryland. In their petition for five hundred thousand acres,
one of the declared objects of the company was "to anticipate
the French by taking possession of that country southward of the
Lakes to which the French had no right . . . ." By the royal
order of May 19, 1749, the company was awarded two hundred thousand
acres, free of quit-rent for ten years; and the promise was made
of an additional award of the remainder petitioned for, on condition
of seating a hundred families upon the original grant and the building
and maintaining of a fort. Christopher Gist, summoned from his remote
home on the Yadkin in North Carolina, was instructed "to search
out and discover the Lands upon the river Ohio & other adjoining
branches of the Mississippi down as low as the great Falls thereof."
In this journey, which began at Colonel Thomas Cresap's, in Maryland,
in October, 1750, and ended at Gist's home on May 18, 1751, Gist
visited the Lower Shawnee Town and the Lower Blue Licks, ascended
Pilot Knob almost two decades before Findlay and Boone, from the
same eminence, "saw with pleasure the beautiful level of Kentucky,"
intersected Walker's route at two points, and crossed Cumberland
Mountain at Pound Gap on the return journey. This was a far more
extended journey than Walker's, enabling Gist to explore the fertile
valleys of the Muskingum, Scioto, and Miami rivers and to gain a
view of the beautiful meadows of Kentucky.
It
is eminently significant of the spirit of the age, which was inaugurating
an era of land hunger unparalleled in American history, that the
first authentic records of the trans-Alleghany were made by surveyors
who visited the country as the agents of great land companies. The
outbreak of the French and Indian War so soon afterward delayed
for a decade and more any important colonization of the West. Indeed,
the explorations and findings of Walker and Gist were almost unknown,
even to the companies they represented. But the conclusion of peace
in 1763, which gave all the region between the mountains and the
Mississippi to the British, heralded the true beginning of the westward
expansionist movement in the Old Southwest, and inaugurated the
constructive leadership of North Carolina in f he occupation and
colonization of the imperial domain of Kentucky and the Ohio Valley.
In
the middle years of the century many families of Virginia gentry
removed to the back country of North Carolina in the fertile region
ranging from Williamsborough on the east to Hillsborough on the
west. There soon arose in this section of the colony a society marked
by intellectual distinction, social graces, and the leisured dignity
of the landlord and the large planter. So conspicuous for means,
intellect, culture, and refinement were the people of this group,
having "abundance of wealth and leisure for enjoyment,"
that Governor Josiah Martin, in passing through this region some
years later, significantly observes: "They have great preeminence,
as well with respect to soil and cultivation, as to the manners
and condition of the inhabitants, in which last respect the difference
is so great that one would be led to think them people of another
region." This new wealthy class which was now turning its gaze
toward the unoccupied lands along the frontier was "dominated
by the democratic ideals of pioneers rather than by the aristocratic
tendencies of slave-holding planters." From the cross-fertilization
of the ideas of two social groups—this back-country gentry, of innate
qualities of leadership, democratic instincts, economic independence,
and expansive tendencies, and the primitive pioneer society of the
frontier, frugal in taste, responsive to leadership, bold, ready,
and thorough in execution—there evolved the militant American expansion
in the Old Southwest.
A
conspicuous figure in this society of Virginia emigrants was a young
man named Richard
Henderson, whose father had removed with his family from Hanover
County, Virginia, to Bute, afterward Granville County, North Carolina,
in 1742. Educated at home by a private tutor, he began his career
as assistant of his father, Samuel Henderson, the High Sheriff of
Granville County; and after receiving a law-license, quickly acquired
an extensive practice. "Even in the superior courts where oratory
and eloquence are as brilliant and powerful as in Westminster hall,"
records an English acquaintance, "he soon became distinguished
and eminent, and his superior genius shone forth with great splendour,
and universal applause." This young attorney, wedded to the
daughter of an Irish lord, often visited Salisbury on his legal
circuit; and here he became well acquainted with Squire Boone, one
of the "Worshipfull Justices," and often appeared in suits
before him. By his son, the nomadic Daniel Boone, conspicuous already
for his solitary wanderings across the dark green mountains to the
sun-lit valleys and boundless hunting-grounds beyond, Henderson
was from time to time regaled with bizarre and fascinating tales
of western exploration; and Boone, in his dark hour of poverty and
distress, when he was heavily involved financially, turned for aid
to this friend and his partner, who composed the law-firm of Williams
and Henderson.
Boone's
vivid descriptions of the paradise of the West stimulated Henderson's
imaginative mind and attracted his attention to the rich possibilities
of unoccupied lands there. While the Board of Trade in drafting
the royal proclamation of October 7, 1763, forbade the granting
of lands in the vast interior, which was specifically reserved to
the Indians, it was clearly not their intention to set permanent
western limits to the colonies. The prevailing opinion among the
shrewdest men of the period was well expressed by George Washington,
who wrote his agent for preempting western lands: "I can never
look upon that proclamation in any other light (but I say this between
ourselves) than as a temporary expedient to quiet the minds of the
Indians." And again in 1767: "It (the proclamation of
1763) must fall, of course, in a few years, especially when those
Indians consent to our occupying the lands. Any person, therefore,
who neglects the present opportunity of hunting out good lands,
and in some measure marking out and distinguishing them for his
own, in order to keep others from settling them, will never regain
it." Washington had added greatly to his holdings of bounty
lands in the West by purchasing at trivial prices the claims of
many of the officers and soldiers. Three years later we find him
surveying extensive tracts along the Ohio and the Great Kanawha,
and, with the vision of the expansionist, making large plans for
the establishment of a colony to be seated upon his own lands. Henderson,
too, recognized the importance of the great country west of the
Appalachians. He agreed with the opinion of Benjamin Franklin, who
in 1756 called it "one of the finest in North America for the
extreme richness and fertility of the land, the healthy temperature
of the air and the mildness of the climate, the plenty of hunting,
fishing and fowling, the facility of trade with the Indians and
the vast convenience of inland navigation or water carriage."
Henderson therefore proceeded to organize a land company for the
purpose of acquiring and colonizing a large domain in the West.
This partnership, which was entitled Richard Henderson and Company,
was composed of a few associates, including Richard Henderson, his
uncle and law-partner, John Williams, and, in all probability, their
close friends Thomas and Nathaniel Hart of Orange County, North
Carolina, immigrants from Hanover County, Virginia.
Seizing
the opportunity presented just after the conclusion of peace, the
company engaged Daniel Boone as scout and surveyor. He was instructed,
while hunting and trapping on his own account, to examine, with
respect to their location and fertility, the lands which he visited,
and to report his findings upon his return. The secret expedition
must have been transacted with commendable circumspection; for although
in after years it became common knowledge among his friends that
he had acted as the company's agent, Boone himself consistently
refrained from betraying the confidence of his employers. Upon a
similar mission, Gist had carefully concealed from the suspicious
Indians the fact that he carried a compass, which they wittily termed
"land stealer"; and Washington likewise imposed secrecy
upon his land agent Crawford, insisting that the operation be carried
on under the guise of hunting game." The discreet Boone, taciturn
and given to keeping his own counsel, in one instance at least deemed
it advantageous to communicate the purpose of his mission to some
hunters, well known to him, in order to secure the results of their
information in regard to the best lands they had encountered in
the course of their hunting expedition. Boone came among the hunters,
known as the "Blevens connection," at one of their Tennessee
station camps on their return from a long hunt in Kentucky, in order,
as expressed in the quaint phraseology of the period, to be "informed
of the geography and locography of these woods, saying that he was
employed to explore them by Henderson & Company." The acquaintance
which Boone on this occasion formed with a member of the party,
Henry Scaggs, the skilled hunter and explorer, was soon to bear
fruit; for shortly afterward Scaggs was employed as prospector by
the same land company. In 1764 Scaggs had passed through Cumberland
Gap and hunted for the season on the Cumberland; and accordingly
the following year, as the agent of Richard Henderson and Company,
he was despatched on an extended exploration to the lower Cumberland,
fixing his station at the salt lick afterward known as Mansker's
Lick.
Richard
Henderson thus, it appears, "enlisted the Harts and others
in an enterprise which his own genius planned," says Peck,
the personal acquaintance and biographer of Boone, "and then
encouraged several hunters to explore the country and learn where
the best lands lay." Just why Henderson and his associates
did not act sooner upon the reports brought back by the hunters—Boone
and Scaggs and Callaway, who accompanied Boone in 1764 in the interest
of the land company "is not known; but in all probability the
fragmentary nature of these reports, however glowing and enthusiastic,
was sufficient cause for the delay of five years before the land
company, through the agency of Boone and Findlay, succeeded in having
a thorough exploration inside of the Kentucky region. Delay was
also caused by rival claims to the territory. In the Virginia Gazette
of December 1, 1768, Henderson must have read with astonishment
not unmixed with dismay that "the Six Nations and all their
tributaries have granted a vast extent of country to his majesty,
and the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania, and settled an advantageous
boundary line between their hunting country and this, and the other
colonies to the Southward as far as the Cherokee River, for which
they received the most valuable present in goods and dollars that
was ever given at any conference since the settlement of America."
The news was now bruited about through the colony of North Carolina,
that the Cherokees were hot in their resentment because the Northern
Indians, the inveterate foes of the Cherokees and the perpetual
disputants for the vast Middle Ground of Kentucky, had received
at the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, November 5, 1768, an immense compensation
from the crown for the territory which they, the Cherokees, claimed
from time immemorial. Only three weeks before, John Stuart, Superintendent
for Indian Affairs in the Southern Department, had negotiated with
the Cherokees the Treaty of Hard Labor, South Carolina (October
14th), by which Governor Tryon's line of 1767, from Reedy River
to Tryon Mountain, was continued direct to Colonel Chiswell's mine,
the present Wytheville, Virginia, and thence in a straight Brie
to the mouth of the Great Kanawha. Thus at the close of the year
1768 the crown through both royal governor and superintendent of
Indian affairs acknowledged in fair and open treaty the right of
the Cherokees, whose Tennessee villages guarded the gateway, to
the valley lands east of the mountain barrier as well as to the
dim mid-region of Kentucky. In the very act of negotiating the Treaty
of Fort Stanwix, Sir William Johnson privately acknowledged that
possession of the trans-Alleghany could be legally obtained only
by extinguishing the title of the Cherokees.
These
conflicting claims soon led to collisions between the Indians and
the company's settlers. In the spring of 1769 occurred one of those
incidents in the westward advance which, though slight in itself,
was to have a definite bearing upon the course of events in later
years. In pursuance of his policy, as agent of the Loyal Land Company,
of promoting settlement upon the company's lands, Dr. Thomas Walker,
who had visited Powell's Valley the preceding year and come into
possession of a very large tract there, simultaneously made proposals
to one party of men including the Kirtleys, Captain Rucker, and
others, and to another party led by Joseph Martin, trader of Orange
County, Virginia, afterward a striking figure in the Old Southwest.
The fevered race by these bands of eighteenth-century "sooners"
for possession of an early "Cherokee Strip" was won by
the latter band, who at once took possession and began to clear;
so that when the Kirtleys arrived, Martin coolly handed them "a
letter from Dr. Walker that informed them that if we got to the
valley first, we were to have 21,000 acres of land, and they were
not to interfere with us." Martin and his companions were delighted
with the beautiful valley at the base of the Cumberland, quickly
"eat and destroyed 23 deer—15 bears—2 buffaloes and a great
quantity of turkeys," and entertained gentlemen from Virginia
and Maryland who desired to settle more than a hundred families
there. The company reckoned, however, without their hosts, the Cherokees,
who, fortified by the treaty of Hard Labor (1768) which left this
country within the Indian reservation, were determined to drive
Martin and his company out. While hunting on the Cumberland River,
northwest of Cumberland Gap, Martin and his company were surrounded
and disarmed by a party of Cherokees who said they had orders from
Cameron, the royal agent, to rob all white men hunting on their
lands. When Martin and his party arrived at their station in Powell's
Valley, they found it broken up and their goods stolen by the Indians,
which left them no recourse but to return to the settlements in
Virginia. It was not until six years later that Martin, under the
stable influence of the Transylvania
Company, was enabled to return to this spot and erect there
the station which was to play an integral part in the progress of
westward expansion.
Before
going on to relate Boone's
explorations of Kentucky under the auspices of the land company,
it will be convenient to turn back for a moment and give some account
of other hunters and explorers who visited that territory between
the time of its discovery by Walker and Gist and the advent of Boone.
The
long
Hunters principally resided in the upper countries of Virginia
& North Carolina on New River & Holston River, and when
they intended to make a long Hunt (as they calls it) they Collected
near the head of Holston near whare Abingdon now stands . . .
.—General William Hall.
Before
the coming of Walker and Gist in 1750 and 1751 respectively, the
region now called Kentucky had, as far as we know, been twice visited
by the French, once in 1729 when Chaussegros de Lery and his party
visited the Big Bone Lick, and again in the summer of 1749 when
the Baron de Longueuil with four hundred and fifty-two Frenchmen
and Indians, going to join Bienville in an expedition against "the
Cherickees and other Indians lying at the back of Carolina and Georgia,"
doubtless encamped on the Kentucky shore of the Ohio. Kentucky was
also traversed by John Peter Salling with his three adventurous
companions in their journey through the Middle West in 1742. But
all these early visits, including the memorable expeditions of Walker
and Gist, were so little known to the general public that when John
Filson wrote the history of Kentucky in 1784 he attributed its discovery
to James McBride in 1754. More influential upon the course of westward
expansion was an adventure which occurred in 1752, the very year
in which the Boones settled down in their Yadkin home.
In
the autumn of 1752, a Pennsylvania trader, John Findlay, with three
or four companions, descended the Ohio River in a canoe as far as
the falls at the present Louisville, Kentucky, and accompanied a
party of Shawnees to their town of Es-kip-pa-ki-thi-ki, eleven miles
east of what is now Winchester.
This
was the site of the "Indian Old Corn Field," the Iroquois
name for which ("the place of many fields," or "prairie")
was Ken-ta-ke, whence came the name of the state.
Five
miles east of this spot, where still may be seen a mound and an
ellipse showing the outline of the stockade, is the famous Pilot
Knob, from the summit of which the fields surrounding the town lie
visible in their smooth expanse. During Findlay's stay at the Indian
town other traders from Pennsylvania and Virginia, who reported
that they were "on their return from trading with the Cuttawas
(Catawbas), a nation who live in the Territories of Carolina,"
assembled in the vicinity in January, 1753. Here, as the result
of disputes arising from their barter, they were set upon and captured
by a large party of straggling Indians (Coghnawagas from Montreal)
on January 26th; but Findlay and another trader named James Lowry
were so fortunate as to escape and return through the wilderness
to the Pennsylvania settlements." The incident is of important
historic significance; for it was from these traders, who must have
followed the Great Warriors' Path to the country of the Catawbas,
that Findlay learned of the Ouasioto (Cumberland) Gap traversed
by the Indian path. His reminiscences of this gateway to Kentucky,
of the site of the old Indian town on Lulbegrud Creek, a tributary
of the Red River, and of the Pilot Knob were sixteen years later
to fire Boone to his great tour of exploration in behalf of the
Transylvania
Company.
During
the next two decades, largely because of the hostility of the savage
tribes, only a few traders and hunters from the east ranged through
the trans-Alleghany. But in 1761, a party of hunters led by a rough
frontiersman, Elisha Walden, penetrated into Powell's Valley, followed
the Indian trail through Cumberland Gap, explored the Cumberland
River, and finally reached the Laurel Mountain where, encountering
a party of Indians, they deemed it expedient to return. With Walden
went Henry Scaggs, afterward explorer for the Henderson Land Company,
William Elevens and Charles Cox, the famous Virginia hunters, one
Newman, and some fifteen other stout pioneers. Their itinerary may
be traced from the names given to natural objects in honor of members
of the party—Walden's Mountain and Walden's Creek, Scaggs' Ridge
and Newman's Ridge. Following the peace of 1763, which made travel
in this region moderately safe once more, the English proceeded
to occupy the territory which they had won. In 1765 George Croghan
with a small party, on the way to prepare the inhabitants of the
Illinois country for transfer to English sovereignty, visited the
Great Bone Licks of Kentucky (May 30th, 31st); and a year later
Captain Harry Gordon, chief engineer in the Western Department in
North America, visited and minutely described the same licks and
the falls. But these, and numerous other water-journeys and expeditions
of which no records were kept, though interesting enough in themselves,
had little bearing upon the larger phases of westward expansion
and colonization.
The
decade opening with the year 1765 is the epoch of bold and ever
bolder exploration—the more adventurous frontiersmen of the border
pushing deep into the wilderness in search of game, lured on by
the excitements of the chase and the profit to be derived from the
sale of peltries. In midsummer, 1766, Captain James Smith, Joshua
Horton, Uriah Stone, William Baker, and a young mulatto slave passed
through Cumberland Gap, hunted through the country south of the
Cherokee and along the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers, and as Smith
reports "found no vestige of any white man." During the
same year a party of five hunters from South Carolina, led by Isaac
Lindsey, penetrated the Kentucky wilderness to the tributary of
the Cumberland, named Stone's River by the former party, for one
of their number. Here they encountered two men, who were among the
greatest of the western pioneers, and were destined to leave their
names in historic association with the early settlement of Kentucky,
James
Harrod and Michael Stoner, a German, both of whom had descended
the Ohio from Fort Pitt. With the year 1769 began those longer and
more extended excursions into the interior which were to result
in conveying at last to the outside world graphic and detailed information
concerning "the wonderful new country of Cantucky." In
the late spring of this year Hancock and Richard Taylor (the latter
the father of President Zachary Taylor), Abraham Hempinstall, and
one Barbour, all true-blue frontiersmen, left their homes in Orange
County, Virginia, and hunted extensively in Kentucky and Arkansas.
Two of the party traveled through Georgia and East and West Florida;
while the other two hunted on the Washita during the winter of 1770-1.
Explorations of this type became increasingly hazardous as the animosity
of the Indians increased; and from this time onward for a number
of years almost all the parties of roving hunters suffered capture
or attack by the crafty red men. In this same year Major John McCulloch,
living on the south branch of the Potomac, set out accompanied by
a white man-servant and a negro, to explore the western country.
While passing down the Ohio from Pittsburgh McCulloch was captured
by the Indians near the mouth of the Wabash and carried to the present
site of Terre Haute, Indiana. Set free after four or five months,
he journeyed in company with some French voyageurs first to Natchez
and then to New Orleans, whence he made the sea voyage to Philadelphia.
Somewhat later, Benjamin Cleveland (afterward famous in the Revolution),
attended by four companions, set out from his home on the upper
Yadkin to explore the Kentucky wilderness. After passing through
Cumberland Gap, they encountered a band of Cherokees who plundered
them of everything they had, even to their hats and shoes, and ordered
them to leave the Indian hunting-grounds. On their return journey
they almost starved, and Cleveland, who was reluctantly forced to
kill his faithful little hunting-dog, was wont to declare in after
years that it was the sweetest meat he ever ate.
Fired
to adventure by the glowing accounts brought back by Uriah Stone,
a much more formidable band than any that had hitherto ventured
westward—including Uriah Stone as pilot, Gasper Mansker, John
Rains, Isaac Bledsoe, and a dozen others—assembled in June, 1769,
in the New River region. "Each Man carried two horses,"
says an early pioneer in describing one of these parties, "traps,
a large supply of powder and led, and a small hand vise and bellows,
files and screw plate for the purpose of fixing the guns if any
of them should get out of fix." Passing through Cumberland
Gap, they continued their long journey until they reached Price's
Meadow, in the present Wayne County, Kentucky, where they established
their encampment. In the course of their explorations, during which
they gave various names to prominent natural features, they established
their "station camp" on a creek in Sumner County, Tennessee,
whence originated the name of Station Camp Creek. Isaac Bledsoe
and Gasper Mansker, agreeing to travel from here in opposite directions
along a buffalo trace passing near the camp, each succeeded in discovering
the famous salt-lick which bears his name— namely Bledsoe's Lick
and Mansker's Lick. The flat surrounding the lick, about one hundred
acres in extent, discovered by Bledsoe, according to his own statement
"was principally Covered with buffelows in every direction—not
hundreds but thousands." As he sat on his horse, he shot down
two deer in the lick; but the buffaloes blindly trod them in the
mud. They did not mind him and his horse except when the wind blew
the scent in their nostrils, when they would break and run in droves.
Indians often lurked in the neighbourhood of these hunters—plundering
their camp, robbing them, and even shooting down one of their number,
Robert Crockett, from ambush. After many trials and vicissitudes,
which included a journey to the Spanish Natchez and the loss of
a great mass of peltries when they were plundered by Piomingo and
a war party of Chickasaws, they finally reached home in the late
spring of 1770.
The
most notable expedition of this period, projected under the auspices
of two bold leaders extraordinarily skilled in woodcraft, Joseph
Drake and Henry Scaggs, was organized in the early autumn of 1770.
This imposing band of stalwart hunters from the New River and Holston
country, some forty in number, garbed in hunting shirts, leggings,
and moccasins, with three pack-horses to each man, rifles, ammunition,
traps, dogs, blankets, and salt, pushed boldly through Cumberland
Gap into the heart of what was later justly named the "Dark
and Bloody Ground" (see Chapter XIV)—"not doubting,"
says an old border chronicler, "that they were to be encountered
by Indians, and to subsist on game." From the duration of their
absence from home, they received the name of the Long
Hunters—the romantic appellation by which they are known
in the pioneer history of the Old Southwest. Many natural objects
were named by this party—in particular Dick's River, after the noted
Cherokee hunter, Captain Dick, who, pleased to be recognized by
Charles Scaggs, told the Long Hunters that on HIS river, pointing
it out, they would find meat plenty—adding with laconic signifigance:
"Kill it and go home." From the Knob Lick, in Lincoln
County, as reported by a member of the party, "they beheld
largely over a thousand animals, including buffaloe, elk, bear,
and deer, with many wild turkies scattered among them; all quite
restless, some playing, and others busily employed in licking the
earth . . . . The buffaloe and other animals had so eaten away the
soil, that they could, in places, go entirely underground."
Upon the return of a detachment to Virginia, fourteen fearless hunters
chose to remain; and one day, during the absence of some of the
band upon a long exploring trip, the camp was attacked by a straggling
party of Indians under Will Emery, a halfbreed Cherokee. Two of
the hunters were carried into captivity and never heard of again;
a third managed to escape. In embittered commemoration of the plunder
of the camp and the destruction of the peltries, they inscribed
upon a poplar, which had lost its bark, this emphatic record, followed
by their names:
2300
Deer Skins lost Ruination by God
Undismayed
by this depressing stroke of fortune, they continued their hunt
in the direction of the lick which Bledsoe had discovered the preceding
year. Shortly after this discovery, a French voyageur from the Illinois
who had hunted and traded in this region for a decade, Timothe de
Monbreun, subsequently famous in the history of Tennessee, had visited
the lick and killed an enormous number of buffaloes for their tallow
and tongues with which he and his companion loaded a keel boat and
descended the Cumberland. An early pioneer, William Hall, learned
from Isaac Bledsoe that when "the long hunters Crossed the
ridge and came down on Bledsoe's Creek in four or five miles of
the Lick the Cane had grown up so thick in the woods that they thought
they had mistaken the place until they Came to the Lick and saw
what had been done . . . . One could walk for several hundred yards
a round the Lick and in the lick on buffellows Skuls, & bones
and the whole flat round the Lick was bleached with buffellows bones,
and they found out the Cause of the Canes growing up so suddenly
a few miles around the Lick which was in Consequence of so many
buffellows being killed." This expedition was of genuine importance,
opening the eyes of the frontiersmen to the charms of the country
and influencing many to settle subsequently in the West, some in
Tennessee, some in Kentucky. The elaborate and detailed information
brought back by Henry Scaggs exerted an appreciable influence, no
doubt, in accelerating the plans of Richard Henderson and Company
for the acquisition and colonization of the trans-Alleghany. But
while the "Long Hunters" were in Tennessee and Kentucky
the same region was being more extensively and systematically explored
by Daniel Boone. To his life, character, and attainments, as the
typical "long hunter" and the most influential pioneer
we may now turn our particular attention.
Here,
where the hand of violence shed the blood of the innocent; where
the horrid yells of the savages, and the groans of the distressed,
sounded in our ears, we now hear the praises and adorations of
our Creator; where wretched wigwams stood, the miserable abodes
of savages, we behold the foundations of cities laid, that, in
all probability, will equal the glory of the greatest upon earth.—Daniel
Boone, 1781.
The
wandering life of a border Nimrod in a surpassingly beautiful country
teeming with game was the ideal of the frontiersman of the eighteenth
century. As early as 1728, while running the dividing line between
North Carolina and Virginia, William Byrd encountered along the
North Carolina frontier the typical figure of the professional hunter:
"a famous Woodsman, call'd Epaphroditus Bainton. This Forester
Spends all his time in ranging the Woods, and is said to make great
Havock among the Deer, and other Inhabitants of the Forest, not
much wilder than himself." By the middle of the century, as
he was threading his way through the Carolina piedmont zone, the
hunter's paradise of the Yadkin and Catawba country, Bishop Spangenberg
found ranging there many hunters, living like Indians, who killed
thousands of deer each year and sold the skins in the local markets
or to the fur-traders from Virginia whose heavy pack-trains with
their tinkling bells constantly traversed the course of the Great
Trading Path. The superlative skill of one of these hunters, both
as woodsman and marksman, was proverbial along the border. The name
of Daniel Boone became synonymous with expert huntsmanship and almost
uncanny wisdom in forest lore. The bottoms of the creek near the
Boone home, three miles west of present Mocksville, contained a
heavy growth of beech, which dropped large quantities of its rich
nuts or mast, greatly relished by bears; and this creek received
its name, Bear Creek, because Daniel and his father killed in its
rich bottoms ninety-nine bears in a single hunting-season. After
living for a time with his young wife, Rebecca Bryan, in a cabin
in his father's yard, Daniel built a home of his own upon a tract
of land, purchased from his father on October 12, 1759, and lying
on Sugar Tree, a tributary of Dutchman's Creek. Here he dwelt for
the next five years, with the exception of the period of his temporary
removal to Virginia during the terrible era of the Indian war. Most
of his time during the autumn and winter, when he was not engaged
in wagoning or farming, he spent in long hunting-journeys into the
mountains to the west and northwest. During the hunting-season of
1760 he struck deeper than ever before into the western mountain
region and encamped in a natural rocky shelter amidst fine hunting-grounds,
in what is now Washington County in east Tennessee. Of the scores
of inscriptions commemorative of his hunting-feats, which Boone
with pardonable pride was accustomed throughout his life time to
engrave with his hunting-knife upon trees and rocks, the earliest
known is found upon a leaning beech tree, only recently fallen,
near his camp and the creek which since that day has borne his name.
This is a characteristic and enduring record in the history of American
exploration
D. Boon
CillED A. BAR On
Tree
in The
yEAR
1760
Late
in the summer of the following year Boone marched under the command
of the noted Indian-fighter of the border, Colonel Hugh Waddell,
in his campaign against the Cherokees. From the lips of Waddell,
who was outspoken in his condemnation of Byrd's futile delays in
road-cutting and fort-building, Boone learned the true secret of
success in Indian warfare, which was lost upon Braddock, Forbes,
and later St. Clair: that the art of defeating red men was to deal
them a sudden and unexpected blow, before they had time either to
learn the strength of the force employed against them or to lay
with subtle craft their artful ambuscade.
In
the late autumn of 1761, Daniel Boone and Nathaniel Gist, the son
of Washington's famous guide, who were both serving under Waddell,
temporarily detached themselves from his command and led a small
party on a "long hunt" in the Valley of the Holston, While
encamping near the site of Black's Fort, subsequently built, they
were violently assailed by a pack of fierce wolves which they had
considerable difficulty in beating off; and from this incident the
locality became known as Wolf Hills (now Abingdon, Virginia).
From
this time forward Boone's roving instincts had full sway. For many
months each year he threaded his way through that marvelously beautiful
country of western North Carolina felicitously described as the
Switzerland of America. Boone's love of solitude and the murmuring
forest was surely inspired by the phenomenal beauties of the country'
through which he roamed at will. Blowing Rock on one arm of a great
horseshoe of mountains and Tryon Mountain upon the other arm, overlooked
an enormous, primeval bowl, studded by a thousand emerald-clad eminences.
There was the Pilot Mountain, the towering and isolated pile which
from time immemorial had served the aborigines as a guide in their
forest wanderings; there was the dizzy height of the Roan on the
border; there was Mt. Mitchell, portentous in its grandeur, the
tallest peak on the continent east of the Rockies; and there was
the Grandfather, the oldest mountain on earth according to geologists,
of which it has been written:
Oldest
of all terrestrial things—still holding
Thy wrinkled forehead high;
Whose every scam, earth's history enfolding,
Grim science doth defy!
Thou caught'st the far faint ray from Sirius rising,
When through space first was hurled
The primal gloom of ancient voids surprising,
This atom, called the World!
What
more gratifying to the eye of the wanderer than the luxuriant vegetation
and lavish profusion of the gorgeous flowers upon the mountain slopes,
radiant rhododendron, rosebay, and laurel, and the azalea rising
like flame; or the rare beauties of the water—the cataract of Linville,
taking its shimmering leap into the gorge, and that romantic river
poetically celebrated in the lines:
Swannanoa,
nymph of beauty,
I would woo thee in my rhyme,
Wildest, brightest, loveliest river
Of our sunny Southern clime.
Gone forever from the borders
But immortal in thy name,
Are the Red Men of the forest
Be thou keeper of their fame!
Paler races dwell beside thee,
Celt and Saxon till thy lands
Wedding use unto thy beauty
Linking over thee their hands.
The
long rambling excursions which Boone made through western North
Carolina and eastern Tennessee enabled him to explore every nook
and corner of the rugged and beautiful mountain region. Among the
companions and contemporaries with whom he hunted and explored the
country were his little son James and his brother Jesse; the Linville
who gave the name to the beautiful falls; Julius Caesar Dugger,
whose rock house stood near the head of Elk Creek; and Nathaniel
Gist, who described for him the lofty gateway to Kentucky, through
which Christopher Gist had passed in 1751. Boone had already heard
of this gateway, from Findlay, and it was one of the secret and
cherished ambitions of his life to scale the mountain wall of the
Appalachians and to reach that high portal of the Cumberland which
beckoned to the mysterious new Eden beyond. Although hunting was
an endless delight to Boone he was haunted in the midst of this
pleasure, as was Kipling's Explorer, by the lure of the undiscovered:
Till
a voice as bad as conscience, rang interminable changes
On one everlasting whisper day and night repeated—so:
'Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the ranges—
'Something lost behind the ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go.'
Of
Boone's preliminary explorations for the land company known as Richard
Henderson and Company, an account has already been given; and
the delay in following them up has been touched on and in part explained.
Meanwhile Boone transferred his efforts for a time to another field.
Toward the close of the summer of 1765 a party consisting of Major
John Field, William Hill, one Slaughter, and two others, all from
Culpeper County, Virginia, visited Boone and induced him to accompany
them on the "long Journey" to Florida, whither they were
attracted by the liberal offer of Colonel James Grant, governor
of the eastern section, the Florida of today. On this long and arduous
expedition they suffered many hardships and endured many privations,
found little game, and on one occasion narrowly escaped starvation.
They explored Florida from St. Augustine to Pensacola; and Boone,
who relished fresh scenes and a new environment, purchased a house
and lot in Pensacola in anticipation of removal thither. But upon
his return home, finding his wife unwilling to go, Boone once more
turned his eager eye toward the West, that mysterious and alluring
region beyond the great range, the fabled paradise of Kentucky.
The
following year four young men from the Yadkin, Benjamin Cutbird,
John Stewart (Boone's brother-in-law who afterwards accompanied
him to Kentucky), John Baker, and James Ward made a remarkable journey
to the westward, crossing the Appalachian mountain chain over some
unknown route, and finally reaching the Mississippi. The significance
of the journey, in its bearing upon westward expansion, inheres
in the fact that while for more than half a century the English
traders from South Carolina had been winning their way to the Mississippi
along the lower routes and Indian trails, this was the first party
from either of the Carolinas, as far as is known, that ever reached
the Mississippi by crossing the great mountain barrier. When Cutbird,
a superb woodsman and veritable Leather stocking, narrated to Boone
the story of his adventures, it only confirmed Boone in his determination
to find the passage through the mountain chain leading to the Mesopotamia
of Kentucky.
Such
an enterprise was attended by terrible dangers. During 1766 and
1767 the steady encroachments of the white settlers upon the ancestral
domain which the Indians reserved for their imperial hunting-preserve
aroused bitter feelings of resentment among the red men. Bloody
reprisal was often the sequel to such encroachment. The vast region
of Tennessee and the trans-Alleghany was a twilight zone, through
which the savages roamed at will. From time to time war parties
of northern Indians, the inveterate foes of the Cherokees, scouted
through this no-man's land and even penetrated into the western
region of North Carolina, committing murders and depredations upon
the Cherokees and the whites indiscriminately. During the summer
of 1766, while Boone's friend and close connection, Captain William
Linville, his son John, and another young man, named John Williams,
were in camp some ten miles below Linville Falls, they were unexpectedly
fired upon by a hostile band of Northern Indians, and before they
had time to fire a shot, a second volley killed both the Linvilles
and severely wounded Williams, who after extraordinary sufferings
finally reached the settlements." In May, 1767, four traders
and a half-breed child of one of them were killed in the Cherokee
country. In the summer of this year Governor William Tryon of North
Carolina laid out the boundary line of the Cherokees, and upon his
return issued a proclamation forbidding any purchase of land from
the Indians and any issuance of grants for land within one mile
of the boundary line. Despite this wise precaution, seven North
Carolina hunters who during the following September had lawlessly
ventured into the mountain region some sixty miles beyond the boundary
were fired upon, and several of them killed, by the resentful Cherokees.
Undismayed by these signs of impending danger, undeterred even by
the tragic fate of the Linvilles, Daniel Boone, with the determination
of the indomitable pioneer, never dreamed of relinquishing his long-cherished
design. Discouraged by the steady disappearance of game under the
ruthless attack of innumerable hunters, Boone continued to direct
his thoughts toward the project of exploring the fair region of
Kentucky. The adventurous William Hill, to whom Boone communicated
his purpose, readily consented to go with him; and in the autumn
of 1768 Boone and Hill, accompanied, it is believed, by Squire Boone,
Daniel's brother, set forth upon their almost inconceivably hazardous
expedition. They crossed the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies, the
Holston and Clinch rivers near their sources, and finally reached
the head waters of the West Fork of the Big Sand. Surmising from
its course that this stream must flow into the Ohio, they pushed
on a hundred miles to the westward and finally, by following a buffalo
path, reached a salt-spring in what is now Floyd County, in the
extreme eastern section of Kentucky. Here Boone beheld great droves
of buffalo that visited the salt-spring to drink the water or lick
the brackish soil. After spending the winter in hunting and trapping,
the Boones and Hill, discouraged by the forbidding aspect of the
hill-country which with its dense growth of laurel was exceedingly
difficult to penetrate, abandoned all hope of finding Kentucky by
this route and wended their arduous way back to the Yadkin.
The
account of Boone's subsequent accomplishment of his purpose must
be postponed to the next chapter.
He
felt very much as Columbus did, gazing from his caravel on San
Salvador; as Cortes, looking down, from the crest of Ahualco,
on the Valley of Mexico; or Vasco Nunez, standing alone on the
peak of Darien, and stretching his eyes over the hitherto undiscovered
waters of the Pacific.—William Gilmore Simms: Views and Reviews.
A
chance acquaintance formed by Daniel Boone, during the French and
Indian War, with the Irish lover of adventure, John Findlay, was
the origin of Boone's cherished longing to reach the El Dorado of
the West. In this slight incident we may discern the initial inspiration
for the epochal movement of westward expansion. Findlay was a trader
and horse peddler, who had early migrated to Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
He had been licensed a trader with the Indians in 1747. During the
same year he was married to Elizabeth Harris, daughter of John Harris,
the Indian-trader at Harris's Ferry on the Susquehanna River, after
whom Harrisburg was named. During the next eight years Findlay carried
on his business of trading in the interior. Upon the opening of
the French and Indian War he was probably among "the young
men about Paxtang who enlisted immediately," and served as
a waggoner in Braddock's expedition. Over the campfires, during
the ensuing campaign in 1765, young Boone was an eager listener
to Findlay's stirring narrative of his adventures in the Ohio Valley
and on the wonderfully beautiful levels of Kentucky in 1752. The
fancies aroused in his brooding mind by Findlay's moving recital
and his description of an ancient passage through the Ouasioto or
Cumberland Gap and along the course of the Warrior's Path, inspired
him with an irrepressible longing to reach that alluring promised
land which was the perfect realization of the hunter's paradise.
Thirteen
years later, while engaged in selling pins, needles, thread, and
Irish linens in the Yadkin country, Findlay learned from the Pennsylvania
settlers at Salisbury or at the Forks of the Yadkin of Boone's removal
to the waters of the upper Yadkin. At Boone's rustic home, in the
winter of 1768-9, Findlay visited his old comrade-in-arms of Braddock's
campaign. On learning of Boone's failure during the preceding year
to reach the Kentucky levels by way of the inhospitable Sandy region,
Findlay again described to him the route through the Ouasioto Gap
traversed sixteen years before by Pennsylvania traders in their
traffic with the Catawbas. Boone, as we have seen, knew that Christopher
Gist, who had formerly lived near him on the upper Yadkin, had found
some passage through the lofty mountain defiles; but he had never
been able to discover the passage. Findlay's renewed descriptions
of the immense herds of buffaloes he had seen in Kentucky, the great
salt-licks where they congregated, the abundance of bears, deer,
and elk with which the country teemed, the innumerable flocks of
wild turkeys, geese, and ducks, aroused in Boone the hunter's passion
for the chase; while the beauty of the lands, as mirrored in the
vivid fancy of the Irishman, inspired him with a new longing to
explore the famous country which had, as John Filson records, "greatly
engaged Mr. Findlay's attention."
In
the comprehensive designs of Henderson,
now a judge, for securing a "graphic report of the trans-Alleghany
region in behalf of his land company", Boone divined the means
of securing the financial backing for an expedition of considerable
size and ample equipment. In numerous suits for debt, aggregating
hundreds of dollars, which had been instituted against Boone by
some of the leading citizens of Rowan, Williams and Henderson had
acted as Boone's attorneys. In order to collect their legal fees,
they likewise brought suit against Boone; but not wishing to press
the action against the kindly scout who had hitherto acted as their
agent in western exploration, they continued the litigation from
court to court, in lieu of certain "conditions performed"
on behalf of Boone, during his unbroken absence, by his attorney
in this suit, Alexander Martin. Summoned to appear in 1769 at the
March term of court at Salisbury, Boone seized upon the occasion
to lay before Judge Henderson the designs for a renewed and extended
exploration of Kentucky suggested by the golden opportunity of securing
the services of Findlay as guide. Shortly after March 6th, when
Judge Henderson reached Salisbury, the conference, doubtless attended
by John Stewart, Boone's brother-in-law, John Findlay, and Boone,
who were all present at this term of court, must have been held,
for the purpose of devising ways and means for the expedition. Peck,
the only reliable contemporary biographer of the pioneer, who derived
many facts from Boone himself and his intimate acquaintances, draws
the conclusion (1847): "Daniel Boone was engaged as the master
spirit of this exploration, because in his judgment and fidelity
entire confidence could be reposed . . . . He was known to Henderson
and encouraged by him to make the exploration, and to examine particularly
the whole country south of the Kentucky—or as then called the Louisa
River." As confidential agent of the land company, Boone carried
with him letters and instructions for his guidance upon this extended
tour of exploration."
On
May 1, 1769, with Findlay as guide, and accompanied by four of his
neighbors, John Stewart, a skilled woodsman, Joseph Holden, James
Mooney, and William Cooley, Boone left his "peaceable habitation"
on the upper Yadkin and began his historic journey "in quest
of the country of Kentucky." Already heavily burdened with
debts, Boone must have incurred considerable further financial obligations
to Judge Henderson and Colonel Williams, acting for the land company,
in order to obtain the large amount of supplies requisite for so
prolonged an expedition. Each of the adventurers rode a good horse
of strength and endurance; and behind him were securely strapped
the blanket, ammunition, salt, and cooking-utensils so indispensable
for a long sojourn in the wilderness. In Powell's Valley they doubtless
encountered the party led thither by Joseph Martin (see Chapter
VII), and there fell into the "Hunter's Trail" commented
on in a letter written by Martin only a fortnight before the passing
of Boone's cavalcade. Crossing the mountain at the Ouasioto Gap,
they made their first "station camp" in Kentucky on the
creek, still named after that circumstance, on the Red Lick Fork.
After a preliminary journey for the purpose of locating the spot,
Findlay led the party to his old trading-camp at Es-kip-pa-ki-thi-ki,
where then (June 7, 1769) remained but charred embers of the Indian
huts, with some of the stockading and the gate-posts still standing.
In Boone's own words, he and Findlay at once "proceeded to
take a more thorough survey of the country;" and during the
autumn and early winter, encountering on every hand apparently inexhaustible
stocks of wild game and noting the ever-changing beauties of the
country, the various members of the party made many hunting and
exploring journeys from their "station camp" as base.
On December 22, 1769, while engaged in a hunt, Boone and Stewart
were surprised and captured by a large party of Shawanoes, led by
Captain Will, who were returning from the autumn hunt on Green River
to their villages north of the Ohio. Boone and Stewart were forced
to pilot the Indians to their main camp, where the savages, after
robbing them of all their peltries and supplies and leaving them
inferior guns and little ammunition, set off to the northward. They
left, on parting, this menacing admonition to the white intruders:
"Now, brothers, go home and stay there. Don't come here any
more, for this is the Indians' hunting-ground, and all the animals,
skins, and furs are ours. If you are so foolish as to venture here
again, you may be sure the wasps and yellow jackets will sting you
severely."
Chagrined
particularly by the loss of the horses, Boone and Stewart for two
days pursued the Indians in hot haste. Finally approaching the Indians'
camp by stealth in the dead of night, they secured two of the horses,
upon which they fled at top speed. In turn they were immediately
pursued by a detachment of the Indians, mounted upon their fleetest
horses; and suffered the humiliation of recapture two days later.
Indulging in wild hilarity over the capture of the crestfallen whites,
the Indians took a bell from one of the horses and, fastening it
about Boone's neck, compelled him under the threat of brandished
tomahawks to caper about and jingle the bell, jeering at him the
while with the derisive query, uttered in broken English: "Steal
horse, eh?" With as good grace as they could summon—wry smiles
at best—Boone and Stewart patiently endured these humiliations,
following the Indians as captives. Some days later (about January
4, 1770), while the vigilance of the Indians was momentarily relaxed,
the captives suddenly plunged into a dense canebrake and in the
subsequent confusion succeeded in effecting their escape. Finding
their camp deserted upon their return, Boone and Stewart hastened
on and finally overtook their companions. Here Boone was both surprised
and delighted to encounter his brother Squire, loaded down with
supplies. Having heard nothing from Boone, the partners of the land
company had surmised that he and his party must have run short of
ammunition, flour, salt, and other things sorely needed in the wilderness;
and because of their desire that the party should remain, in order
to make an exhaustive exploration of the country, Squire Boone had
been sent to him with supplies. Findlay, Holden, Mooney, and Cooley
returned to the settlements; but Stewart, Squire Boone, and Alexander
Neely, who had accompanied Squire, threw in their lot with the intrepid
Daniel, and fared forth once more to the stirring and bracing adventures
of the Kentucky wilderness. In Daniel Boone's own words, he expected
"from the furs and peltries they had an opportunity of taking
. . . to recruit his shattered circumstances; discharge the debts
he had contracted by the adventure; and shortly return under better
auspices, to settle the newly discovered country."
Boone
and his party now stationed themselves near the mouth of the Red
River, and soon provided themselves, against the hard. ships of
the long winter, with jerk, bear's oil, buffalo tallow, dried buffalo
tongues, fresh meat, and marrow-bones as food, and buffalo robes
and bearskins as shelter from the inclement weather. Neely had brought
with him, to while away dull hours, a copy of "Gulliver's Travels";
and in describing Neely's successful hunt for buffalo one day, Boone
in after years amusingly deposed: "In the year 1770 I encamped
on Red River with five other men, and we had with us for our amusement
the History of Samuel Gulliver's Travels, wherein he gave an account
of his young master, Glumdelick, careing him on market day for a
show to a town called Lulbegrud. A young man of our company called
Alexander Neely came to camp and told us he had been that day to
Lulbegrud, and had killed two Brobdignags in their capital."
Far from unlettered were pioneers who indulged together in such
literary chat and gave to the near-by creek the name (after Dean
Swift's Lorbrugrud) of Lulbegrud which name, first seen on Filson's
map of Kentucky (1784), it bears to this day. From one of his long,
solitary hunts Stewart never returned; and it was not until five
years later, while cutting out the Transylvania Trail, that Boone
and his companions discovered, near the old crossing at Rockcastle,
Stewart's remains in a standing hollow sycamore. The wilderness
never gave up its tragic secret.
The
close of the winter and most of the spring were passed by the Boones,
after Neely's return to the settlements, in exploration, hunting,
and trapping beaver and otter, in which sport Daniel particularly
excelled. Owing to the drain upon their ammunition, Squire was at
length compelled to return to the settlements for supplies; and
Daniel, who remained alone in the wilderness to complete his explorations
for the land company, must often have shared the feelings of Balboa
as, from lofty knob or towering ridge, he gazed over the waste of
forest which spread from the dim out lines of the Alleghanies to
the distant waters of the Mississippi. He now proceeded to make
those remarkable solitary explorations of Kentucky which have given
him immortality—through the valley of the Kentucky and the Licking,
and along the "Belle Riviere" (Ohio) as low as the falls.
He visited the Big Bone Lick and examined the wonderful fossil remains
of the mammoth found there. Along the great buffalo roads, worn
several feet below the surface of the ground, which led to the Blue
Licks, he saw with amazement and delight thousands of huge shaggy
buffalo gamboling, bellowing, and making the earth rumble beneath
the trampling of their hooves. One day, while upon a cliff near
the junction of the Kentucky and Dick's Rivers, he suddenly found
himself hemmed in by a party of Indians. Seizing his only chance
of escape, he leaped into the top of a maple tree growing beneath
the cliffs and, sliding to safety full sixty feet below, made his
escape, pursued by the sound of a chorus of guttural "Ughs"
from the dumbfounded savages.
Finally
making his way back to the old camp, Daniel was rejoined there by
Squire on July 27, 1770. During the succeeding months, much of their
time was spent in hunting and prospecting in Jessamine County, where
two caves are still known as Boone's caves. Eventually, when ammunition
and supplies had once more run low, Squire was compelled a second
time to return to the settlements. Perturbed after a time by Squire's
failure to rejoin him at the appointed time, Daniel started toward
the settlements, in search of him; and by a stroke of good fortune
encountered him along the trail. Overjoyed at this meeting (December,
1770) the indomitable Boones once more plunged into the wilderness,
determined to conclude their explorations by examining the regions
watered by the Green and Cumberland rivers and their tributaries.
In after years, Gasper Mansker, the old German scout, was accustomed
to describe with comic effect the consternation created among the
Long
Hunters, while hunting one day on Green River, by a singular
noise which they could not explain. Stealthily slipping from tree
to tree, Mansker finally beheld with mingled surprise and amusement
a hunter, bareheaded, stretched flat upon his back on a deerskin
spread on the ground, singing merrily at the top of his voice! It
was Daniel Boone, joyously whiling away the solitary hours in singing
one of his favorite songs of the border. In March, 1771, after spending
some time in company with the Long Hunters, the Boones, their horses
laden with furs, set their faces homeward. On their return journey,
near Cumberland Gap, they had the misfortune to be surrounded by
a party of Indians who robbed them of their guns and all their peltries.
With this humiliating conclusion to his memorable tour of exploration,
Daniel Boone, as he himself says, "once more reached home after
experiencing hardships which would defy credulity in the recital."
Despite
the hardships and the losses, Boone had achieved the ambition of
years: he had seen Kentucky, which he "esteemed a second paradise."
The reports of his extended explorations, which he made to Judge
Henderson, were soon communicated to the other partners of the land
company; and their letters of this period, to one another, bristle
with glowing and minute descriptions of the country, as detailed
by their agent. Boone was immediately engaged to act in the company's
behalf to sound the Cherokees confidentially with respect to their
willingness to lease or sell the beautiful hunting-grounds of the
trans-Alleghany. The high hopes of Henderson and his associates
at last gave promise of brilliant realization. Daniel Boone's glowing
descriptions of Kentucky excited in their minds, says a gifted early
chronicler, the "spirit of an enterprise which in point of
magnitude and peril, as well as constancy and heroism displayed
in its execution, has never been paralleled in the history of America."
It
is not a persons labour, nor yet his effects that will do, but
if he has but one horse to plow with, one bed to lie on, or one
cow to give a little milk for his children, they must all go to
raise money which is not to be had. And lastly if his personal
estate (sold at one tenth of its value) will not do, then his
lands (which perhaps has cost him many years of toil and labour)
must go the same way to satisfy, these cursed hungry caterpillars,
that are eating and will eat out the bowels of our Commonwealth,
if they be not pulled down from their nests in a very short time.—George
Sims: A Serious Address to the Inhabitants of Granville County,
containing an Account of our deplorable Situation we suffer ....
and some necessary Hints with Respect to a Reformation. June 6,
1765.
It
is highly probable that even at the time of his earlier explorations
in behalf of Richard
Henderson and Company, Daniel Boone anticipated speedy removal
to the West. Indeed, in the very year of his first tour in their
interest, Daniel and his wife Rebeckah sold all their property in
North Carolina, consisting of their home and six hundred and forty
acres of land, and after several removals established themselves
upon the upper Yadkin. This removal and the later western explorations
just outlined were due not merely to the spirit of adventure and
discovery. Three other causes also were at work. In the first place
there was the scarcity of game. For fifteen years the shipments
of deerskins from Bethabara to Charleston steadily increased; and
the number of skins bought by Gammern, the Moravian storekeeper,
ran so high that in spite of the large purchases made at the store
by the hunters he would sometimes run entirely out of money. Tireless
in the chase, the far roaming Boone was among "the hunters,
who brought in their skins from as far away as the Indian lands";
and the beautiful upland pastures and mountain forests, still teeming
with deer and bear, doubtless lured him to the upper Yadkin, where
for a time in the immediate neighborhood of his home abundance of
game fell before his unerring rifle. Certainly the deer and other
game, which were being killed in enormous numbers to satisfy the
insatiable demand of the traders at Salisbury, the Forks, and Bethabara,
became scarcer and scarcer; and the wild game that was left gradually
fled to the westward. Terrible indeed was the havoc wrought among
the elk; and it was reported that the last elk was killed in western
North Carolina as early as 1781.
Another
grave evil of the time with which Boone had to cope in the back
country of North Carolina was the growth of undisguised outlawry,
similar to that found on the western plains of a later era. This
ruthless brigand age arose as the result of the unsettled state
of the country and the exposed condition of the settlements due
to the Indian alarms. When rude borderers, demoralized by the enforced
idleness attendant upon fort life during the dark days of Indian
invasion, sallied forth upon forays against the Indians, they found
much valuable property—horses, cattle, and stock—left by their owners
when hurriedly fleeing to the protection of the frontier stockades.
The temptations thus afforded were too great to resist; and the
wilder spirits of the backwoods, with hazy notions of private rights,
seized the property which they found, slaughtered the cattle, sold
the horses, and appropriated to their own use the temporarily abandoned
household goods and plantation tools. The stealing of horses, which
were needed for the cultivation of the soil and useful for quickly
carrying unknown thieves beyond the reach of the owner and the law,
became a common practice; and was carried on by bands of outlaws
living remote from one another and acting in collusive concert.
Toward
the end of July, 1755, when the Indian outrages upon the New River
settlements in Virginia had frightened away all the families at
the Town Fork in the Yadkin country, William Owen, a man of Welsh
stock, who had settled in the spring of 1752 in the upper Yadkin
near the Mulberry Fields, was suspected of having robbed the storekeeper
on the Meho. Not long afterward a band of outlaws who plundered
the exposed cabins in their owners' absence, erected a rude fort
in the mountain region in the rear of the Yadkin settlements, where
they stored their ill-gotten plunder and made themselves secure
from attack. Other members of the band dwelt in the settlements,
where they concealed their robber friends by day and aided them
by night in their nefarious projects of theft and rapine.
The
entire community was finally aroused by the bold depredations of
the outlaws; and the most worthy settlers of the Yadkin country
organized under the name of Regulators to break up the outlaw band.
When it was discovered that Owen, who was well known at Bethabara,
had allied himself with the highwaymen, one of the justices summoned
one hundred men; and seventy, who answered the call, set forth on
December 26, 1755, to seek out the outlaws and to destroy their
fortress. Emboldened by their success, the latter upon one occasion
had carried off a young girl of the settlements. Daniel Boone placed
himself at the head of one of the parties, which included the young
girl's father, to go to her rescue; and they fortunately succeeded
in effecting the release of the frightened maiden. One of the robbers
was apprehended and brought to Salisbury, where he was thrown into
prison for his crimes. Meanwhile a large amount of plunder had been
discovered at the house of one Cornelius Howard; and the evidences
of his guilt so multiplied against him that he finally confessed
his connection with the outlaw band and agreed to point out their
fort in the mountains.
Daniel
Boone and George Boone joined the party of seventy men, sent out
by the colonial authorities under the guidance of Howard, to attack
the stronghold of the bandits. Boone afterward related that the
robbers' fort was situated in the most fitly chosen place for such
a purpose that he could imagine—beneath an overhanging cliff
of rock, with a large natural chimney, and a considerable area in
front well stockaded. The frontiersmen surrounded the fort, captured
five women and eleven children, and then burned the fort to the
ground. Owen and his wife, Cumberland, and several others were ultimately
made prisoners; but Harman and the remainder of the band escaped
by flight. Owen and his fellow captives were then borne to Salisbury,
incarcerated in the prison there, and finally (May, 1756) condemned
to the gallows. Owen sent word to the Moravians, petitioning them
to adopt his two boys and to apprentice one to a tailor, the other
to a carpenter. But so infuriated was Owen's wife by Howard's treachery
that she branded him as a second Judas; and this at once fixed upon
him the sobriquet "Judas" Howard—a sobriquet he did
not live long to bear, for about a year later he was ambushed and
shot from his horse at the crossing of a stream. He thus paid the
penalty of his betrayal of the outlaw band. For a number of years,
the Regulators continued to wage war against the remaining outlaws,
who from time to time committed murders as well as thefts. As late
as January, 1768, the Regulators caught a horse thief in the Hollows
of Surry County and brought him to Bethabara, whence Richter and
Spach took him to the jail at Salisbury. After this year, the outlaws
were heard of no more; and peace reigned in the settlements.
Colonel
Edmund Fanning—of whom more anon—declared that the Regulation began
in Anson County which bordered upon South Carolina. Certain it is
that the upper country of that province was kept in an uproar by
civil disturbances during this early period. Owing to the absence
of courts in this section, so remote from Charleston, the inhabitants
found it necessary, for the protection of property and the punishment
of outlaws, to form an association called, like the North Carolina
society, the Regulation. Against this association the horse thieves
and other criminals made common cause, and received tacit support
from certain more reputable persons who condemned "the irregularity
of the Regulators." The Regulation which had been thus organized
in upper South Carolina as early as 1764 led to tumultuous risings
of the settlers; and finally in the effort to suppress these disorders,
the governor, Lord Charles Montagu, appointed one Scovil, an utterly
unworthy representative, to carry out his commands. After various
disorders, which became ever more unendurable to the law-abiding,
matters came to a crisis (1769) as the result of the high-handed
proceedings of Scovil, who promiscuously seized and flung into prison
all the Regulators he could lay hands on. In the month of March
the back country rose in revolt against Scovil and a strong body
of the settlers was on the point of attacking the force under his
command when an eleventh-hour letter arrived from Montagu, dismissing
Scovil from office. Thus was happily averted, by the narrowest of
margins, a threatened precursor of the fight at Alamance
in 1771 (see Chapter XII). As the result
of the petition of the Calhouns and others, courts were established
in 1760, though not opened until four years later. Many horse thieves
were apprehended, tried, and punished. Justice once more held full
sway.
Another
important cause for Boone's removal from the neighborhood of Salisbury
into the mountain fastnesses was the oppressive administration of
the law by corrupt sheriffs, clerks, and tax-gatherers, and the
dissatisfaction of the frontier squatters with the owners of the
soil. (See Regulator
Movement.) At the close of the year 1764 reports reached the
town of Wilmington, after the adjournment of the assembly in November,
of serious disturbances in Orange County, due, it was alleged, to
the exorbitant exactions of the clerks, registers, and some of the
attorneys. As a result of this disturbing news, Governor Dobbs issued
a proclamation forbidding any officer to take illegal fees. Troubles
had been brewing in the adjacent county of Granville ever since
the outbreak of the citizens against Francis Corbin, Lord Granville's
agent (January 24, 1759), and the issuance of the petition of Reuben
Searcy and others (March 23d) protesting against the alleged excessive
fees taken and injustices practised by Robert (Robin) Jones, the
famous lawyer. These disturbances were cumulative in their effect;
and the people at last (1765) found in George Sims, of Granville,
a fit spokesman of their cause and a doughty champion of popular
rights. In his "Serious
Address to the Inhabitants of Granville County, containing an
Account of our deplorable Situation we suffer . . . and some necessary
Hints with Respect to a Reformation," recently brought to light,
he presents a crushing indictment of the clerk of the county court,
Samuel Benton, the grandfather of Thomas Hart Benton. After describing
in detail the system of semi-peonage created by the merciless exactions
of lawyers and petty court officials, and the insatiable greed of
"these cursed hungry caterpillars," Sims with rude eloquence
calls upon the people to pull them down from their nests for the
salvation of the Commonwealth.
Other
abuses were also recorded. So exorbitant was the charge for a marriage-license,
for instance, that an early chronicler records "The consequence
was that some of the inhabitants on the head-waters of the Yadkin
took a short cut. They took each other for better or for worse;
and considered themselves as married without further ceremony."
The extraordinary scarcity of currency throughout the colony, especially
in the back country, was another great hardship and a perpetual
source of vexation. All these conditions gradually became intolerable
to the uncultured but free spirited men of the back country. Events
were slowly converging toward a crisis in government and society.
Independent in spirit, turbulent in action, the backwoodsmen revolted
not only against excessive taxes, dishonest sheriffs, and extortionate
fees, but also against the rapacious practices of the agents of
Lord
Granville. These agents industriously picked flaws in the titles
to the lands in Granville's proprietary upon which the poorer settlers
were seated; and compelled them to pay for the land if they had
not already done so, or else to pay the fees twice over and take
out a new patent as the only remedy of the alleged defect in their
titles. In Mecklenburg County the spirit of backwoods revolt flamed
out in protest against the proprietary agents. Acting under instructions
to survey and close bargains for the lands or else to eject those
who held them, Henry Eustace McCulloh, in February, 1765, went into
the county to call a reckoning. The settlers, many of whom had located
without deeds, indignantly retorted by offering to buy only at their
own prices, and forbade the surveyors to lay out the holdings when
this smaller price was declined. They not only terrorized into acquiescence
those among them who were willing to pay the amount charged for
the lands, but also openly declared that they would resist by force
any sheriff in ejectment proceedings. On May 7th an outbreak occurred;
and a mob, led by Thomas Polk, set upon John Frohock, Abraham Alexander,
and others, as they were about to survey a parcel of land, and gave
them a severe thrashing, even threatening the young McCulloh with
death.
The
choleric backwoodsmen, instinctively in agreement with Francis Bacon,
considered revenge as a sort of wild justice. Especial objects of
their animosity were the brothers Frohock, John and Thomas, the
latter clerk of the court at Salisbury, and Edmund Fanning, a cultured
gentleman-adventurer, associate justice of the superior court. So
rapacious and extortionate were these vultures of the courts who
preyed upon the vitals of the common people, that they were savagely
lampooned by Rednap Howell, the backwoods poet-laureate of the Regulation.
The temper of the back country is well caught in Howell's lines
anent this early American "grafter", the favorite of the
royal governor:
When
Fanning first to Orange came,
He looked both pale and wan;
An old patched coat was on his back,
An old mare he rode on.
Both man and mare wan't worth five pounds,
As I've been often told;
But by his civil robberies,
He's laced his coat with gold.
The
germs of the great westward migration in the coming decade were
thus working among the people of the back country. If the tense
nervous energy of the American people is the transmitted characteristic
of the border settlers, who often slept with loaded rifle in hand
in grim expectation of being awakened by the hideous yells, the
deadly tomahawk, and the lurid firebrand of the savage, the very
buoyancy of the national character is in equal measure "traceable
to the free democracy founded on a freehold inheritance of land."
The desire for free land was the fundamental factor in the development
of the American democracy. No colony exhibited this tendency more
signally than did North Carolina in the turbulent days of the Regulation.
The North Carolina frontiersmen resented the obligation to pay quit-rents
and firmly believed that the first occupant of the soil had an indefeasible
right to the land which he had won with his rifle and rendered productive
by the implements of toil. Preferring the dangers of the free wilderness
to the paying of tribute to absentee landlords and officials of
an intolerant colonial government, the frontiersman found title
in his trusty rifle rather than in a piece of parchment, and was
prone to pay his obligations to the owner of the soil in lead rather
than in gold.
The
Regulators despaired of seeing better times and therefore quitted
the Province. It is said 1,500 departed since the Battle
of Alamance and to my knowledge a great many more are only
waiting to dispose of their plantations in order to follow them.
—Reverend Morgan Edwards, 1772.
The
five years (1766-1771) which saw the rise, development, and ultimate
defeat of the popular movement known as the Regulation,
constitute a period not only of extraordinary significance in North
Carolina but also of fruitful consequences in the larger movements
of westward expansion. With the resolute intention of having their
rulers "give account of their stewardship," to employ
their own words, the Sandy
Creek Association of Baptists (organized in 1758), in a series
of papers known as Regulators'
Advertisements (1766-8) proceeded to mature, through popular
gatherings, a rough form of initiative and referendum. At length,
discouraged in its efforts, and particularly in the attempt to bring
county officials to book for charging illegal fees, this association
ceased actively to function. It was the precursor of a movement
of much more drastic character and formidable proportions, chiefly
directed against Colonel Edmund Fanning and his associates. This
movement doubtless took its name, "the Regulation," from
the bands of men already described who were organized first in North
Carolina and later in South Carolina, to put down highwaymen and
to correct many abuses in the back country, such as the tyrannies
of Scovil and his henchmen. Failing to secure redress of their grievances
through legal channels, the Regulators finally made such a powerful
demonstration in support of their refusal to pay taxes that Governor
William Tryon of North Carolina, in 1768, called out the provincial
militia, and by marching with great show of force through the disaffected
regions, succeeded temporarily in overawing the people and thus
inducing them to pay their assessments.
The
suits which had been brought by the Regulators against Edmund Fanning,
register, and Francis Nash, clerk, of Orange County, resulted in
both being "found guilty of taking too high fees." Fanning
immediately resigned his commission as register; while Nash, who
in conjunction with Fanning had fairly offered in 1766 to refund
to any one aggrieved any fee charged by him which the Superior Court
might hold excessive, gave bond for his appearance at the next court.
Similar suits for extortion against the three Froliocks in Rowan
County in 1769 met with failure, however; and this outcome aroused
the bitter resentment of the Regulators, as recorded by Herman Husband
in his "Impartial Relation." During this whole period
the insurrectionary spirit of the people, who felt themselves deeply
aggrieved but recognized their inability to secure redress, took
the form of driving local justices from the bench and threatening
court officials with violence.
At
the session of the Superior Court at Hillsborough, September 22,
1770, an elaborate petition prepared by the Regulators, demanding
unprejudiced juries and the public accounting for taxes by the sheriffs,
was handed to the presiding justice by James Hunter, a leading Regulator.
This justice was our acquaintance, Judge Richard
Henderson, of Granville County, the sole high officer in the
provincial government from the entire western section of the colony.
In this petition occur these trenchant words: "As we are serious
and in good earnest and the cause respects the whole body of the
people it would be loss of time to enter into arguments on particular
points for though there are a few men who have the gift and art
of reasoning, yet every man has a feeling and knows when he has
justice done him as well as the most learned." On the following
Monday (September 24th), upon convening of court, some one hundred
and fifty Regulators, led by James Hunter, Herman Husband, Rednap
Howell, and others, armed with clubs, whips, and cudgels, surged
into the court-room and through their spokesman, Jeremiah Fields,
presented a statement of their grievances. "I found myself,"
says Judge Henderson, "under a necessity of attempting to soften
and turn away the fury of these mad people, in the best manner in
my power, and as such could well be, pacify their rage and at the
same time preserve the little remaining dignity of the court."
During
an interim, in which the Regulators retired for consultation, they
fell without warning upon Fanning and gave him such rough treatment
that he narrowly escaped with his life. The mob, now past control,
horsewhipped a number of leading lawyers and citizens gathered there
at court, and treated others, notably the courtly Mr. Hooper of
Boston, "with every mark of contempt and insult." Judge
Henderson was assured by Fields that no harm should come to him
provided he would conduct the court in accordance with the behest
of the Regulators: namely, that no lawyer, save the King's Attorney,
should be admitted to the court, and that the Regulators' cases
should be tried with new jurors chosen by the Regulators. With the
entire little village terrorized by this campaign of "frightfulness,"
and the court wholly unprotected, Judge Henderson reluctantly acknowledged
to himself that "the power of the judiciary was exhausted."
Nevertheless, he says, "I made every effort in my power consistent
with my office and the duty the public is entitled to claim to preserve
peace and good order." Agreeing under duress to resume the
session the following day, the judge ordered an adjournment. But
being unwilling, on mature reflection, to permit a mockery of the
court and a travesty of justice to be staged under threat and intimidation,
he returned that night to his home in Granville and left the court
adjourned in course. Enraged by the judge's escape, the Regulators
took possession of the court room the following morning, called
over the cases, and in futile protest against the conditions they
were powerless to remedy, made profane entries which may still be
seen on the record: "Damned rogues," "Fanning pays
cost but loses nothing," "Negroes not worth a damn, Cost
exceeds the whole," "Hogan pays and be damned," and,
in a case of slander, "Nonsense, let them argue for Ferrell
has gone hellward."
The
uprising of these bold and resolute, simple and imperfectly educated
people, which had begun as a constitutional struggle to secure justice
and to prevent their own exploitation by dishonest lawyers of the
county courts, now gave place to open anarchy and secret incendiarism.
In the dead of night, November 12th and 14th, Judge Henderson's
barn, stables, and dwelling house were fired by the Regulators and
went up in flames. Glowing with a sense of wrong, these misguided
people, led on by fanatical agitators, thus vented their indiscriminate
rage, not only upon their op pressors, but also upon men wholly
innocent of injuring them—men of the stamp of William Hooper,
afterward signer of the Declaration of Independence, Alexander Martin,
afterward governor and United States Senator,and Richard Henderson,
popular representative of the back country and a firm champion of
due process of law. It is perhaps not surprising in view of these
events that Governor Tryon and the ruling class, lacking a sympathy
broad enough to ensure justice to the oppressed people, seemed to
be chiefly impressed with the fact that a widespread insurrection
was in progress, threatening not only life and property, but also
civil government itself. The governor
called out the militia of the province and led an army of well nigh
one thousand men and officers against the Regulators, who had assembled
at Alamance
to the number of two thousand. Tryon stood firm upon the demands
that the people should submit to government and disperse at a designated
hour. The Regulators, on their side, hoped to secure the reforms
they desired by intimidating the governor with a great display of
force. The battle was a tragic fiasco for the Regulators, who fought
bravely, but without adequate arms or real leadership. With the
conclusion of this desultory action, a fight lasting about two hours
(May 16, 1771), the power of the Regulators was completely broken."
Among
these insurgents there was a remarkable element, an element whose
influence upon the course of American history has been but imperfectly
understood which now looms into prominence as the vanguard of the
army of westward expansion. There were some of the Regulators who,
though law-abiding and conservative, were deeply imbued with ideas
of liberty, personal independence, and the freedom of the soil.
Through the influence of Benjamin Franklin, with whom one of the
leaders of the group, Herman Husband, was in constant correspondence,
the patriotic ideas then rapidly maturing into revolutionary sentiments
furnished the inspiration to action. As early as 1766, the Sandy
Creek leaders, referred to earlier in this chapter, issued a
call to each neighborhood to send delegates to a gathering for the
purpose of investigating the question "whether the free men
of this country labor under any abuses of power or not." The
close connection between the Sandy Creek men and the Sons
of Liberty is amply demonstrated in this paper wherein the Sons
of Liberty in connection with the "stamp law" are praised:
for "redeeming us from Tyranny" and for having "withstood
the lords in Parliament in behalf of true liberty." Upon the
records of the Dutchman's Creek Church, of "regular" Baptists,
at the Forks of the Yadkin, to which Daniel Boone's family belonged,
may be found this memorable entry, recognizing the "American
Cause" well-nigh a year before the declaration of independence
at Philadelphia: "At the monthly meeting it was agreed upon
concerning the American Cause, if any of the brethren see cause
to join it they have the liberty to do it without being called to
an account by the church. But whether they join or do not join they
should be used with brotherly love."
The
fundamental reasons underlying the approaching westward hegira are
found in the remarkable petition of the Regulators of Anson County
(October 9, 1769), who request that "Benjamin Franklin or some
other known PATRIOT" be appointed agent of the province in
London to seek redress at the source. They exposed the basic evil
in the situation by pointing out that, in violation of the law restricting
the amount of land that might be granted to each person to six hundred
and forty acres, much of the most fertile territory in the province
had been distributed in large tracts to wealthy landlords. In consequence
"great numbers of poor people are necessitated to toil in the
cultivation of the bad Lands whereon they hardly can subsist."
It was these poor people, "thereby deprived of His Majesties
liberality and Bounty," who soon turned their gaze to the westward
and crossed the mountains in search of the rich, free lands of the
trans-Alleghany region.
This
feverish popular longing for freedom, stimulated by the economic
pressure of thousands of pioneers who were annually entering North
Carolina, set in motion a wave of migration across the mountains
in 1769. Long before Alamance,
many of the true Americans, distraught by apparently irremediable
injustices, plunged fearlessly into the wilderness, seeking beyond
the mountains a new birth of liberty, lands of their own selection
free of cost or quit-rents, and a government of their own choosing
and control."' The glad news of the rich valleys beyond the
mountains early lured such adventurous pioneers as Andrew Greer
and Julius Caesar Dugger to the Watauga country. The glowing stories,
told by Boone, and disseminated in the back country by Henderson,
Williams, and the Harts, seemed to give promise to men of this stamp
that the West afforded relief from oppressions suffered in North
Carolina. During the winter of 1768-9 there was also a great rush
of settlers from Virginia into the valley of the Holston. A party
from Augusta County, led by men who had been delighted with the
country viewed seven years before when they were serving under Colonel
William Byrd against the Cherokees, found that this region, a wilderness
on their outward passage in 1768, was dotted with cabins on every
spot where the grazing was good, upon their return the following
year. Writing to Hillsborough on October 18, 1770, concerning the
"many hundred families" in the region from Green River
to the branches of the Holston, who refused to comply with the royal
proclamation of 1763, Acting-Governor Nelson of Virginia reports
that "very little if any Quit Rents have been received for
His Majesty's use from that Quarter for some time past" —the
people claiming that "His Majesty hath been pleased to withdraw
his protection from them since 1763."
In
the spring of 1770, with the express intention of discovering suitable
locations for homes for himself and a number of others, who wished
to escape the accumulating evils of the times, James
Robertson of Orange County, North Carolina, made an arduous
journey to the pleasing valley of the Watauga. Robertson, who was
born in Brunswick County, Virginia, June 28, 1742, of excellent
Scotch-Irish ancestry, was a noteworthy figure of a certain type—quiet,
reflective, conservative, wise, a firm believer in the basic principles
of civil Liberty and the right of local self-government. Robertson
spent some time with a man named Honeycut in the Watauga region,
raised a crop of corn, and chose for himself and his friends suitable
locations for settlement. Lost upon his return in seeking the mountain
defiles traversed by him on the outward journey, Robertson probably
escaped death from starvation only through the chance passing of
two hunters who succored him and set him upon the right path. On
arriving in Orange he found political and social conditions there
much worse than before, many of the colonists declining to take
the obligatory oath of allegiance to the British Crown after the
Battle
of Alamance, preferring to carve out for themselves new homes
along the western waters. Some sixteen families of this stamp, indignant
at the injustices and oppressions of British rule, and stirred by
Robertson's description of the richness and beauty of the western
country, accompanied him to Watauga shortly after the battle.
This
vanguard of the army of westward advance, independent Americans
in spirit with a negligible sprinkling of Loyalists, now swept in
a great tide into the northeastern section of Tennessee. The men
of Sandy Creek, actuated by independent principles but out of sympathy
with the anarchic side of the Regulation, left the colony almost
to a man. "After the defeat of the Regulators," says the
historian of the Sandy Creek Association, "thousands of the
oppressed, seeing no hope of redress for their grievances, moved
into and settled east Tennessee. A large proportion of these were
of the Baptist population. Sandy
Creek Church which some time previous to 1771, numbered 606,
was afterward reduced to fourteen members!" This movement exerted
powerful influence in stimulating westward expansion. Indeed, it
was from men of Regulating principles—Boone, Robertson, and
the Searcys—who vehemently condemned the anarchy and incendiarism
of 1770, that Judge Henderson received powerful cooperation in the
opening up of Kentucky and Tennessee.
The
several treaties concerning the western boundary of white settlement,
concluded in close succession by North Carolina, Virginia, and the
Crown with the Southern and Northern Indians, had an important bearing
upon the settlement of Watauga. The Cherokee boundary line, as fixed
by Governor Tryon (1767) and by John Stuart (1768), ran from Reedy
River to Tryon Mountain, thence straight to Chiswell's Mine, and
thence direct to the mouth of the Great Kanawha River. By the treaty
at Fort Stanwix (November 5, 1768), in the negotiation of which
Virginia was represented by Dr. Thomas Walker and Major Andrew Lewis,
the Six Nations sold to the Crown their shadowy claim to a vast
tract of western country, including in particular all the land between
the Ohio and the Tennessee Rivers. The news of the cession resulted
in a strong southwestward thrust of population, from the neighborhood
of Abingdon, in the direction of the Holston Valley. Recognizing
that hundreds of these settlers were beyond the line negotiated
by Stuart, but on lands not yet surveyed, Governor Botetourt instructed
the Virginia commissioners to press for further negotiations, through
Stuart, with the Cherokees. Accordingly, on October 18, 1770, a
new treaty was made at Lochaber, South Carolina, by which a new
line back of Virginia was established, beginning at the intersection
of the North Carolina-Cherokee line (a point some seventy odd miles
east of Long Island), running thence in a west course to a point
six miles east of Long Island, and thence in a direct course to
the confluence of the Great Kanawha and Ohio Rivers. At the time
of the treaty, it was agreed that the Holston River, from its intersection
with the North Carolina-Virginia line, and down the course of the
same, should be a temporary southern boundary of Virginia until
the line should be ascertained by actual survey. A strong influx
of population into the immense new triangle thus released for settlement
brought powerful pressure to bear upon northern Tennessee, the point
of least resistance along the western barrier. Singularly enough,
this advance was not opposed by the Cherokees, whose towns were
strung across the extreme southeast corner of Tennessee.
When
Colonel John Donelson ran the line in the latter part of 1771, The
Little Carpenter, who with other Indian chiefs accompanied the surveying
party, urged that the line agreed upon at Lochaber should break
off at the head of the Louisa River, and should run thence to the
mouth thereof, and thence up the Ohio to the mouth of the Great
Kanawha. For this increase in the territory of Virginia they of
course expected additional payment. As a representative of Virginia,
Donelson agreed to the proposed alteration in the boundary line;
and accordingly promised to send the Cherokees, in the following
spring, a sum alleged by them to have been fixed at five hundred
pounds, in compensation for the additional area. This informal agreement,
it is believed, was never ratified by Virginia; nor was the promised
compensation ever paid the Cherokees.
Under
the belief that the land belonged to Virginia, Jacob Brown with
one or two families from North Carolina settled in 1771 upon a tract
of land on the northern bank of the Nonachunheh (Nolichucky) River.
During the same year, an experimental line run westward from Steep
Rock and Beaver Creek by Anthony Bledsoe showed that upon the extension
of the boundary line, these settlers would fall within the bounds
of North Carolina. Although thus informally warned of the situation,
the settlers made no move to vacate the lands. But in the following
year, after the running of Donelson's line, Alexander Cameron, Stuart's
deputy, required "all persons who had made settlements beyond
the said line to relinquish them." Thus officially warned,
Brown and his companions removed to Watauga. Cameron's order did
not apply, however, to the settlement, to the settlement north of
the Holston River, south and east of Long Island; and the settlement
in Carter's Valley, although lying without the Virginia boundary,
strangely enough remained unmolested. The order was directed at
the Watauga settlers, who were seated south of the Holston River
in the Watauga Valley.
The
plight in which the Watauga
settlers now found themselves was truly desperate; and the way
in which they surmounted this apparently insuperable difficulty
is one of the most striking and characteristic events in the pre-Revolutionary
history of the Old Southwest. It exhibits the indomitable will and
fertile resource of the American character at the margin of desperation.
The momentous influence of the Watauga settlers, inadequately reckoned
hitherto by historians, was soon to make itself powerfully felt
in the first epochal movement of westward expansion.
Virginia,
we conceive, can claim this Country [Kentucky] with the greatest
justice and propriety, its within the Limits of their Charter.
They Fought and bled for it. And had it not been for the memorable
Battle, at the Great Kanaway those vast regions had yet continued
inaccessable.—The Harrodsburg Petition. June 7-15, 1776.
It
was fortunate for the Watauga settlers that the Indians and the
whites were on the most peaceful terms with each other at the time
the Watauga Valley was shown, by the running of the boundary line,
to lie within the Indian reservation. With true American self reliance,
the settlers met together for deliberation and counsel, and deputed
James
Robertson and John Been, as stated by Tennessee's first historian,
"to treat with their landlords, and agree upon articles of
accommodation and friendship. The attempt succeeded. For though
the Indians refused to give up the land gratuitously, they consented,
for a stipulated amount of merchandise, muskets, and other articles
of convenience, to lease all the country on the waters of the Watauga."
In addition to the land thus leased for ten years, several other
tracts were purchased from the Indians by Jacob Brown, who reoccupied
his former location on the Nolichucky.
In
taking this daring step, the Watauga
settlers moved into the spotlight of national history. For the
inevitable consequence of leasing the territory was the organization
of a form of government for the infant settlement. Through his familiarity
with the North Carolina type of "association," in which
the settlers had organized for the purpose of "regulating"
abuses, and his acquaintance with the contents of the "Impartial
Relation," in which Husband fully expounded the principles
and practices of this association, Robertson was peculiarly fitted
for leadership in organizing this new government. The convention
at which Articles of Association, unfortunately lost, were drawn
up, is noteworthy as the first governmental assemblage of free-born
American citizens ever held west of the Alleghanies. The government
then established was the first free and independent government,
democratic in spirit, representative in form, ever organized upon
the American continent. In describing this mimic republic, the royal
Governor of Virginia says: "They appointed magistrates, and
framed laws for their present occasion, and to all intents and purposes,
erected themselves into, though an inconsiderable, yet a separate
State." The most daring spirit in this little state was the
young John
Sevier, of French Huguenot family (originally spelled Xavier),
born in Augusta County, Virginia, on September 23, 1745. It was
from Millerstown in Shenandoah County where he was living the uneventful
life of a small farmer, that he emigrated (December, 1773) to the
Watauga region. With his arrival there begins one of the most fascinating
and romantic careers recorded in the varied arid stirring annals
of the Old Southwest. In this daring and impetuous young fellow,
fair-haired, blue-eyed, magnetic, debonair—of powerful build,
splendid proportions, and athletic skill—we hold the gallant
exemplar of the truly heroic life of the border. The story of his
life, thrilling in the extreme, is rich in all the multi-colored
elements which impart romance to the arduous struggle of American
civilization in the opening years of the republic.
The
creative impulses in the Watauga commonwealth are hinted at by Dunmore,
who serves, in the letter above quoted, that Watauga "sets
a dangerous example to the people America, of forming governments
distinct from and independent of his Majesty's authority."
It
is true that the experiment was somewhat limited. The organization
of the Watauga
association, which constituted a temporary expedient to meet
a crisis in the affairs of a frontier community cut off by forest
wilderness and mountain barriers from the reach of the arm of royal
or provincial government, is not to be compared with the revolutionary
assemblage at Boonesborough, May 23, 1775, or with the extraordinary
demands for independence in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina,
during the same month. Nevertheless the Watauga settlers defied
both North Carolina and the Crown, by adopting the laws of Virginia
and by ignoring Governor Josiah Martin's proclamation (March 26,
1774) "requiring the said settlers immediately to retire from
the Indian Territories." Moreover, Watauga really was the parent
of a series of mimic republics in the Old Southwest, gradually tending
toward higher forms of organization, with a larger measure of individual
liberty. Watauga, Transylvania, Cumberland, Franklin represent the
evolving political genius of a free people under the creative leadership
of three constructive minds—James
Robertson, John
Sevier, and Richard
Henderson. Indeed, Watauga furnished to Judge Henderson precisely
the "dangerous example" of which Dunmore prophetically
speaks.
Immediately
upon his return in 1771 from the extended exploration of Kentucky,
Daniel Boone as already noted was engaged as secret agent, to treat
with the Cherokees for the lease or purchase of the trans-Alleghany
region, on behalf of Judge Henderson and his associates. Embroiled
in the exciting issues of the Regulation and absorbed by his confining
duties as colonial judge, Henderson was unable to put his bold design
into execution until after the expiration of the court itself which
ceased to exist in 1773. Disregarding the royal proclamation of
1763 and Locke's Fundamental Constitutions for the Carolinas, which
forbade private parties to purchase lands from the Indians, Judge
Henderson applied to the highest judicial authorities in England
to know if there was any law in existence forbidding purchase of
lands from the Indian tribes. Lord Mansfield gave Judge Henderson
the "sanction of his great authority in favor of the purchase."
Lord Chancellor Camden and Mr. Yorke had officially advised the
King in 1757, in regard to the petition of the East Indian Company,
"that in respect to such territories as have been, or shall
be acquired by treaty or grant from the Great Mogul, or any of the
Indian princes or governments, your Majesty's letters patent are
NOT NECESSARY; the property of the soil vesting in the company by
the Indian grant subject only to your Majesties right of sovereignty
over the settlements, as English settlements, and over the inhabitants,
as English subjects, who carry with them your Majesties laws wherever
they form colonies, and receive your Majesties protection by virtue
of your royal charters." This opinion, with virtually no change,
was rendered in regard to the Indian tribes of North America by
the same two authorities, certainly as early as 1769; and a true
copy, made in London, April 1, 1772, was transmitted to Judge Henderson.
Armed with the legal opinions received from England, Judge Henderson
was fully persuaded that there was no legal bar whatsoever to his
seeking to acquire by purchase from the Cherokees the vast domain
of the trans-Alleghany. A golden dream of empire, with its promise
of an independent republic in the form of a proprietary colony,
casts him under the spell of its alluring glamour.
In
the meantime, the restless Boone, impatient over the delay in the
consummation of Judge Henderson's plans, resolved to establish himself
in Kentucky upon his own responsibility. Heedless of the question
of title and the certain hazards incident to invading the territory
of hostile savages, Boone designated a rendezvous in Powell's Valley
where he and his party of five families were to be met by a band
under the leadership of his connections, the Bryans, and another
company led by Captain William Russell, a daring pioneer of the
Clinch Valley. A small detachment of Boone's party was fiercely
attacked by Shawanoes in Powell's Valley on October 10, 1773, and
almost all were killed, including sons of Boone and Russell, and
young John and Richard Mendenhall of Guilford County, North Carolina.
As the result of this bloody repulse, Boone's attempt to settle
in Kentucky at this time was definitely abandoned. His failure to
effect a settlement in Kentucky was due to that characteristic disregard
of the territorial rights of the Indians which was all too common
among the borderers of that period.
This
failure was portentous of the coming storm. The reign of the Long
Hunters was over. Dawning upon the horizon was the day of stern
adventurers, fixed in the desperate and lawless resolve to invade
the trans-Alleghany country and to battle savagely with the red
man for its possession. More successful than Boone was the McAfee
party, five in number, from Botetourt County, Virginia, who between
May 10th and September 1, 1773, safely accomplished a journey through
Kentucky and carefully marked well-chosen sites for future location."
An ominous incident of the time was the veiled warning which Cornstalk,
the great Shawanoe chieftain, gave to Captain Thomas Bullitt, head
of a party of royal surveyors, sent out by Lord Dunmore, Governor
of Virginia. Cornstalk
at Chillicothe, June 7, 1773, warned Bullitt concerning the encroachments
of the whites, "designed to deprive us," he said, "of
the hunting of the country, as usual . . . the hunting we stand
in need of to buy our clothing." During the preceding summer,
George Rogers Clark, an aggressive young Virginian, with a small
party, had descended the Ohio as low as Fish Creek, where he built
a cabin; and in this region for many months various parties of surveyors
were busily engaged in locating and surveying lands covered by military
grants. Most significant of the ruthless determination of the pioneers
to occupy by force the Kentucky area was the action of the large
party from Monongahela, some forty in number, led by Captain
James Harrod, who penetrated to the present Miller County, where
in June, 1774, they made improvements and actually laid out a town.
A
significant, secretly conducted movement, of which historians have
taken but little account, was now in progress under the manipulation
of Virginia's royal governor. As early as 1770 Dr. John Connolly
proposed the establishment of an extensive colony south of the Ohio;
and the design of securing such territory from the Indians found
lodgment in the mind of Lord Dunmore. But this design was for the
moment thwarted when on October 28, 1773, an order was issued from
the Privy Council chamber in Whitehall granting an immense territory,
including all of the present West Virginia and the land alienated
to Virginia by Donelson's agreement with the Cherokees (1772), to
a company including Thomas Walpole, Samuel Wharton, Benjamin Franklin,
and others. This new colony, to be named "Vandalia," seemed
assured. A clash between Dunmore and the royal authorities was imminent;
for Virginia under her sea-to-sea charter claimed the vast middle
region of the continent, extending without known limit to west and
northwest. Moreover, Dunmore was interested in great land speculations
on his own account; and while overtly vindicating Virginia's claim
to the trans-Alleghany by despatching parties of surveyors to the
western wilderness to locate and survey lands covered by military
grants, he with the collusion of certain members of the "Honourable
Board," his council, as charged by Washington, was more than
"lukewarm," secretly restricting as rigorously as he dared
the extent and number of the soldiers' allotments. According to
the famous Virginia Remonstrance, he was in league with "men
of great influence in some of the neighboring states" to secure,
under cover of purchases from the Indians, large tracts of country
between the Ohio and the Mississippi." In shaping his plans
Dunmore had the shrewd legal counsel of Patrick Henry, who was equally
intent upon making for himself a private purchase from the Cherokees.
It was Henry's legal opinion that the Indiana purchase from the
Six Nations by the Pennsylvania traders at Fort Stanwix (November
5, 1768) was valid; and that purchase by private individuals from
the Indians gave full and ample title. In consequence of these facts,
William Murray, in behalf of himself and his associates of the Illinois
Land Company, and on the strength of the Camden Yorke decision,
purchased two large tracts, on the Illinois and Ohio respectively,
from the Illinois Indians (July 5, 1773); and in order to win the
support of Dunmore, who was ambitious to make a fortune in land
speculation, organized a second company, the Wabash (Ouabache) Land
Company, with the governor as the chief share-holder. In response
to Murray's petition on behalf of the Illinois Land Company, Dunmore
(May, 1774) recommended it to Lord Dartmouth, Secretary of State
for the Colonies, and urged that it be granted; and in a later letter
he disingenuously disclaimed any personal interest in the Illinois
speculation.
The
party of surveyors sent out under the direction of Colonel William
Preston, on the request of Washington and other leading eastern
men, in 1774 located lands covered by military grants on the Ohio
and in the Kentucky area for prominent Virginians, including Washington,
Patrick Henry, William Byrd, William Preston, Arthur Campbell, William
Fleming, and Andrew Lewis, among others, and also a large tract
for Dr. Connolly. Certain of these grants fell within the Vandalia
area; and in his reply (September 10, 1774) to Dunmore's letter,
Lord Dartmouth sternly censured Dunmore for allowing these grants,
and accused the white settlers of having brought on, by such unwarrantable
aggressions, the war then raging with the Indians. This charge lay
at the door of Dunmore himself; and there is strong evidence that
Dunmore personally fomented the war, ostensibly in support of Virginia's
charter rights, but actually in order to further his own speculative
designs." Dunmore's agent, Dr. Connolly, heading a party posing
as Virginia militia, fired without provocation upon a delegation
of Shawanoe chiefs assembled at Fort Pitt (January, 1774). Taking
advantage of the alarming situation created by the conflict of the
claims of Virginia and Pennsylvania, Connolly, inspired by Dunmore
without doubt, then issued an incendiary circular (April 21, 1774),
declaring a state of war to exist. Just two weeks before the Battle
of the Great Kanawha, Patrick Henry categorically stated, in
conversation with Thomas Wharton:
"...that
he was at Williamsburg with Ld. D. when Dr. Conolly first came
there, that Conolly is a chatty, sensible man, and informed Ld.
Dunmore of the extreme richness of the lands which lay on both
sides of the Ohio; that the prohibitory orders which had been
sent him relative to the land on the hither side (or Vandalia)
had caused him to turn his thoughts to the opposite shore, and
that as his Lordship was determined to settle his family in America
he was really pursueing this war, in order to obtain by purchase
or treaty from the natives a tract of territory on that side;
he then told me that he was convinced from every authority that
the law knew, that a purchase from the natives was as full and
ample a title as could be obtained, that they had Lord Camden
and Mr. York's opinion on that head, which opinion with some others
that Ld. Dunmore had consulted, and with the knowledge Conolly
had given him of the quality of the country and his determined
resolution to settle his family on this continent, were the real
motives or springs of the present expedition."
At
this very time, Patrick Henry, in conjunction with William Byrd
3d and others, was negotiating for a private purchase of lands from
the Cherokees; and when Wharton, after answering Henry's inquiry
as to where he might buy Indian goods, remarked: "It's not
possible you mean to enter the Indian trade at this period,"
Henry laughingly replied: "The wish-world is my hobby horse."
"From whence I conclude," adds Wharton, "he has some
prospect of making a purchase of the natives, but where I know not."
The
war, thus promulgated, we believe, at Dunmore's secret instigation
and heralded by a series of ghastly atrocities, came on apace. After
the inhuman murder of the family of Logan,
the Indian chieftain, by one Greathouse and his drunken companions
(April 30th), Logan, who contrary to romantic views was a blackhearted
and vengeful savage, harried the Tennessee and Virginia borders,
burning and slaughtering. Unable to arouse the Cherokees, owing
to the opposition of Atta-kulla-kulla, Logan as late as July 21st
said in a letter to the whites: "The Indians are not angry,
only myself," and not until then did Dunmore begin to give
full execution to his warlike plans. The best woodsmen of the border,
Daniel Boone and the German scout Michael Stoner, having been despatched
on July 27th by Colonel William Preston to warn the surveyors of
the trans-Alleghany, made a remarkable journey on foot of eight
hundred miles in sixty-one days. Harrod's
company at Harrodsburg, a company of surveyors at Fontainebleau,
Floyd's party on the Kentucky, and the surveyors at Mann's Lick,
this warned, hurried in to the settlements and were saved. Meanwhile,
Dunmore, in command of the Virginia forces, invaded territory guaranteed
to the Indians by the royal proclamation of 1763 and recently (1774)
added to the province of Quebec, a fact of which he was not aware,
conducted a vigorous campaign, and fortified Camp Charlotte, near
Old Chillicothe. Andrew Lewis, however, in charge of the other division
of Dunmore's army, was the one destined to bear the real brunt and
burden of the campaign. His division, recruited from the very flower
of the pioneers of the Old Southwest, was the most representative
body of borderers of this region that up to this time had assembled
to measure strength with the red men. It was an army of the true
stalwarts of the frontier, with fringed leggings and hunting-capes,
rifles and powder-horns, hunting-knives and tomahawks.
The
Battle
of the Great Kanawha, at Point Pleasant, was fought on October
10, 1774, between Lewis's force, eleven hundred strong, and the
Indians, under Cornstalk,
somewhat inferior in numbers. It was a desultory action, over a
greatly extended front and in very brushy country between Crooked
Creek and the Ohio. Throughout the long day, the Indians fought
with rare craft and stubborn bravery—loudly cursing the white
men, cleverly picking off their leaders, and derisively inquiring,
in regard to the absence of the fifes: "Where are your whistles
now?" Slowly retreating, they sought to draw the whites into
an ambuscade and at a favorable moment to "drive the Long Knives
like bullocks into the river." No marked success was achieved
on either side until near sunset, when a flank movement directed
by young Isaac
Shelby alarmed the Indians, who mistook this party for the expected
reinforcement under Christian, and retired across the Ohio. In the
morning the whites were amazed to discover that the Indians, who
the preceding day so splendidly heeded the echoing call of Cornstalk,
"Be strong! Be strong!", had quit the battlefield and
left the victory with the whites.
The
peace negotiated by Dunmore was durable. The governor had accomplished
his purpose, defied the authority of the crown, and vindicated the
claim of Virginia, to the enthusiastic satisfaction of the backwoodsmen.
While tendering their thanks to him and avowing their allegiance
to George III, at the close of the campaign, the borderers proclaimed
their resolution to exert all their powers "for the defense
of American liberty, and for the support of her just rights and
privileges, not in any precipitous, riotous or tumultuous manner,
but when regularly called forth by the unanimous voice of our countrymen."
Dunmore's War is epochal, in that it procured for the nonce a state
of peace with the Indians, which made possible the advance of Judge
Henderson over the Transylvania Trail in 1775, and, through his
establishment of the Transylvania Fort at Boonesborough, the ultimate
acquisition by the American Confederation of the imperial domain
of the trans-Alleghany.
I happened
to fall in company, and have a great deal of conversation with
one of the most singular and extraordinary persons and excentric
geniuses in America, and perhaps in the world. His name is Richard
Henderson.—J. F. D. Smyth: A Tour in the United States
of America.
Early
in 1774, chastened by his own disastrous failure the preceding autumn,
Boone advised Judge Henderson that the time was auspicious for opening
negotiations with the Cherokees for purchasing the trans-Alleghany
region." In organizing a company for this purpose, Henderson
chose men of action and resource, leaders in the colony, ready for
any hazard of life and fortune in this gigantic scheme of colonization
and promotion. The new men included, in addition to the partners
in the organization known as Richard Henderson and Company, were
Colonel John Luttrell, destined to win laurels in the Revolution,
and William Johnston, a native of Scotland, the leading merchant
of Hillsborough.
Meeting
in Hillsborough on August 27, 1774, these men organized the new
company under the name of the Louisa Company. In the articles then
drawn up they agreed to "rent or purchase" a tract of
land from the Indian owners of the soil for the express purpose
of "settling the country." Each partner obligated himself
to "furnish his Quota of Expenses necessary towards procuring
the grant." In full anticipation of the grave dangers to be
encountered, they solemnly bound themselves, as "equal sharers
in the property," to "support each other with our lives
and fortunes." Negotiations with the Indians were begun at
once. Accompanied by Colonel Nathaniel Hart and guided by the experienced
Indian-trader, Thomas Price, Judge Henderson visited the Cherokee
chieftains at the Otari towns. After elaborate consultations, the
latter deputed the old chieftain, Atta-kulla-kulla, a young buck,
and a squaw, "to attend the said Henderson and Hart to North
Carolina, and there examine the Goods and Merchandize which had
been by them offered as the Consideration of the purchase."
The goods purchased at Cross Creek (now Fayetteville, North Carolina),
in which the Louisa Company "had embarked a large amount,"
met the entire approval of the Indians—the squaw in particular
shrewdly examining the goods in the interest of the women of the
tribe.
On
January 6, 1775, the company was again enlarged, and given the name
of the Transylvania
Company—the three new partners being David Hart, brother
to Thomas and Nathaniel, Leonard Henley Bullock, a prominent citizen
of Granville, and James Hogg, of Hillsborough, a native Scotchman
and one of the most influential men in the colony. In the elaborate
agreement drawn up reference is explicitly made to the contingency
of "settling and voting as a proprietor and giving Rules and
Regulations for the Inhabitants etc." Hillsborough was the
actual starting-point for the westward movement, the first emigrants,
traveling thence to the Sycamore
Shoals of the Watauga. In speaking of the departure of the settlers,
the first movement of extended and permanent westward migration,
an eye-witness quaintly says: "At this place [Hillsborough]
I saw the first party of emigrant families that moved to Kentucky
under the auspices of Judge Henderson. They marched out of the town
with considerable solemnity, and to many their destination seemed
as remote as if it had been to the South Sea Islands." Meanwhile,
the "Proposals for the encouragement of settling the lands
etc.," issued on Christmas Day, 1774, were quickly spread broadcast
through the colony and along the border." It was the greatest
sensation North Carolina had known since Alamance;
and Archibald Neilson, deputy-auditor and naval officer of the colony,
inquired with quizzical anxiety: "Pray, is Dick Henderson out
of his head?" The most liberal terms, proffered by one quite
in possession of his head, were embodied in these proposals. Land
at twenty shillings per hundred acres was offered to each emigrant
settling within the territory and raising a crop of corn before
September 1, 1775, the emigrant being permitted to take up as much
as five hundred acres for himself and two hundred and fifty acres
for each tithable person under him. In these "Proposals"
there was no indication that the low terms at which the lands were
offered would be maintained after September 1, 1775. In a letter
to Governor Dunmore (January, 1775), Colonel William Preston, county
surveyor of Fincastle County, Virginia, says "The low price
he [Henderson] proposes to sell at, together with some further encouragement
he offers, will I am apprehensive induce a great many families to
remove from this County (Fincastle) & Carolina and settle there."
Joseph Martin, states his son, "was appointed entry-Taker and
agent for the Powell Valley portion" of the Transylvania Purchase
on January 20, 1775; and "he (Joseph Martin) and others went
on in the early part of the year 1775 and made their stand at the
very spot where he had made corn several years before. In speaking
of the startling design, unmasked by Henderson, of establishing
an independent government, Colonel Preston writes to George Washington
of the contemplated "large Purchase by one Col. Henderson of
North Carolina from the Cherokees . . . . I hear that Henderson
talks with great Freedom & Indecency of the Governor of Virginia,
sets the Government at Defiance & says if he once had five hundred
good Fellows settled in that Country he would not Value Virginia."
Early
in 1775 runners were sent off to the Cherokee towns to summon the
Indians to the treaty ground at the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga;
and Boone, after his return from a hunt in Kentucky in January,
was summoned by Judge Henderson to aid in the negotiations preliminary
to the actual treaty.
The dominating figure in the remarkable assemblage at the treaty
ground, consisting of twelve hundred Indians and several hundred
whites, was Richard
Henderson, "comely in person, of a benign and social disposition,"
with countenance betokening the man of strenuous action" noble
forehead, prominent nose, projecting chin, firm-set jaw, with kindness
and openness of expression." Gathered about him, picturesque
in garb and striking in appearance, were many of the buckskin-clad
leaders of the border—James
Robertson, John
Sevier, Isaac
Shelby, William Bailey Smith, and their compeers—as well
as his Carolina friends John Williams, Thomas and Nathaniel Hart,
Nathaniel Henderson, Jesse Benton, and Valentine Searcy.
Little
was accomplished on the first day of the treaty (March 14th); but
on the next day, the Cherokees offered to sell the section bargained
for by Donelson acting as agent for Virginia in 1771. Although the
Indians pointed out that Virginia had never paid the promised compensation
of five hundred pounds and had therefore forfeited her rights, Henderson
flatly refused to entertain the idea of purchasing territory to
which Virginia had the prior claim. Angered by Henderson's refusal,
The
Dragging Canoe, leaping into the circle of the seated savages,
made an impassioned speech touched with the romantic imagination
peculiar to the American Indian. With pathetic eloquence he dwelt
upon the insatiable land-greed of the white men, and predicted the
extinction of his race if they committed the insensate folly of
selling their beloved hunting-grounds. Roused to a high pitch of
oratorical fervor, the savage with uplifted arm fiercely exhorted
his people to resist further encroachments at all hazards—and left
the treaty ground. This incident brought the conference to a startling
and abrupt conclusion. On the following day, however, the savages
proved more tractable, agreeing to sell the land as far as the Cumberland
River. In order to secure the additional territory watered by the
tributaries of the Cumberland, Henderson agreed to pay an additional
sum of two thousand pounds. Upon this day there originated the ominous
phrase descriptive of Kentucky when The
Dragging Canoe, dramatically pointing toward the west, declared
that a DARK Cloud hung over that land, which was known as the BLOODY
GROUND.
On
the last day, March 17th, the negotiations were opened with the
signing of the "Great Grant." The area purchased, some
twenty millions of acres, included almost all the present state
of Kentucky, and an immense tract in Tennessee, comprising all the
territory watered by the Cumberland River and all its tributaries.
For "two thousand weight of leather in goods" Henderson
purchased "the lands lying down Holston and between the Watauga
lease, Colonel Donelson's line and Powell's Mountain" as a
pathway to Kentucky -the deed for which was known as the "Path
Deed." By special arrangement, Carter's Valley in this tract
went to Carter and Lucas; two days later, for two thousand pounds,
Charles
Robertson on behalf of the Watauga
Association purchased a large tract in the valleys of the Holston,
Watauga, and New Rivers; and eight days later Jacob Brown purchased
two large areas, including the Nolichucky Valley. This historic
treaty, which heralds the opening of the West, was conducted with
absolute justice and fairness by Judge Henderson and his associates.
No liquor was permitted at the treaty ground; and Thomas Price,
the ablest of the Cherokee traders, deposed that "he at that
time understood the Cherokee language, so as to comprehend everything
which was said and to know that what was observed on either side
was fairly and truly translated; that the Cherokees perfectly understood,
what Lands were the subject of the Treaty . . . ." The amount
paid by the Transylvania Company for the imperial domain was ten
thousand pounds sterling, in money and in goods.
Although
Daniel Boone doubtless assisted in the proceedings prior to the
negotiation of the treaty, his name nowhere appears in the voluminous
records of the conference. Indeed, he was not then present; for
a fortnight before the conclusion of the treaty he was commissioned
by Judge Henderson to form a party of competent woodmen to blaze
a passage through the wilderness. On March l0th this party of thirty
ax-men, under the leadership of Boone, started from the rendezvous,
the Long Island of Holston, to engage in the arduous labor of cutting
out the Transylvania Trail.
Henderson,
the empire-builder, now faced with courage and resolution the hazardous
task of occupying the purchased territory and establishing an independent
government. No mere financial promoter of a vast speculative enterprise,
he was one of the heroic figures of the Old Southwest; and it was
his dauntless courage, his unwavering resolve to go forward in the
face of all dangers, which carried through the armed "trek"
to a successful conclusion. At Martin's Station, where Henderson
and his party tarried to build a house in which to store their wagons,
as the road could be cleared no further, they were joined by another
party, of five adventurers from Prince William County, Virginia.
In Henderson's party were some forty men and boys, with forty packhorses
and a small amount of powder, lead, salt, and garden-seeds. The
warning freely given by Joseph Martin of the perils of the path
was soon confirmed, as appears from the following entry in Henderson's
diary:
"Friday
the 7th. [April] About Brake of Day began to snow. About 11 O'Clock
received a letter from Mr. Luttrells camp that were five persons
killd on the road to the Cantuckie by Indians. Capt. [Nathaniel]
Hart, uppon the receipt of this News Retreated back with his Company,
& determined to Settle in the Valley to make Corn for the
Cantucky people. The same Day Received a Letter from Dan. Boone,
that his Company was fired uppon by Indians, Kill'd Two of his
men—tho he kept the ground & saved the Baggage &c."
The
following historic letter, which reveals alike the dogged resolution
of Boone and his reliance upon Henderson and his company in this
black hour of disaster, addressed "Colonel Richard Henderson—these
with care," is eloquent in its simplicity
"Dear
Colonel: After my compliments to you, I shall acquaint you of
our misfortunes. On March the 25 a party of Indians fired on my
Company about half an hour before day, and killed Mr. Twitty and
his negro, and wounded Mr. Walker very deeply, but I hope he will
recover.
"On
March the 28 as we were hunting for provisions, we found Samuel
Tate's son, who gave us an account that the Indians fired on their
camp on the 27th day. My brother and I went down and found two
men killed and sculped, Thomas McDowell and Jeremiah McFeters.
I have sent a man down to all the lower companies in order to
gather them all at the mouth of Otter Creek.
"My
advice to you, Sir, is to come or send as soon as possible. Your
company is desired greatly, for the people are very uneasy, but
are willing to stay and venture their lives with you. and now
is the time to flusterate their [the Indians'] intentions, and
keep the country, whilst we are in it. If we give way to them
now, it will ever be the case. This day we start from the battle
ground, for the mouth of Otter Creek, where we shall immediately
erect a Fort, which will be done before you can come or send,
then we can send ten men to meet you, if you send for them.
"I
am, Sir, your most obedient
Omble Sarvent
Daniel
Boone.
"N.B.
We stood on the ground and guarded our baggage till day, and lost
nothing. We have about fifteen miles to Cantuck [Kentucky River]
at Otter Creek."
This
dread intelligence caused the hearts of strong men to quail and
induced some to turn back, but Henderson, the jurist-pioneer, was
made of sterner stuff. At once (April 8th) he despatched an urgent
letter in hot haste to the proprietors of Transylvania,
enclosing Boone's letter, informing them of Boone's plight and urging
them to send him immediately a large quantity of powder and lead,
as he had been compelled to abandon his supply of saltpeter at Martin's
Station. "We are all in high spirits," he assures the
proprietors, "and on thorns to fly to Boone's assistance, and
join him in defense of so fine and valuable a country."
Laconically
eloquent is this simple entry in his diary: "Saturday the 8th.
Started abt. 10 oClock Crossed Cumberland Gap about 4 miles met
about 40 persons Returning from the Cantucky, on Acct. of the Late
Murders by the Indians could prevail on one only to return. Memo
Several Virginians who were with us return'd."
There
is no more crucial moment in early Western history than this, in
which we see the towering form of Henderson,
clad in the picturesque garb of the pioneer, with outstretched arm
resolutely pointing forward to the "dark and bloody ground,"
and in impassioned but futile eloquence pleading with the pale and
panic-stricken fugitives to turn about, to join his company, and
to face once more the mortal dangers of pioneer conquest. Significant
indeed are the lines:
Some
to endure, and many to fail,
Some to conquer,
and many to quail,
Toiling
over the Wilderness Trail.
The
spirit of the pioneer knight-errant inspires Henderson's words:
"In this situation, some few, of genuine courage and undaunted
resolution, served to inspire the rest; by the help of whose example,
assisted by a little pride and some ostentation, we made a shift
to march on with all the appearance of gallantry, and, cavalier
like, treated every insinuation of danger with the utmost contempt."
Fearing
that Boone, who did not even know that Henderson's cavalcade was
on the road, would be unable to hold out, Henderson realized the
imperative necessity for sending him a message of encouragement.
The bold young Virginian, William Cocke, volunteered to brave alone
the dangers of the murder-haunted trail to undertake a ride more
truly memorable and hazardous than that of Revere. "This offer,
extraordinary as it was, we could by no means refuse," remarks
Henderson, who shed tears of gratitude as he proffered his sincere
thanks and wrung the brave messenger's hand. Equipped with "a
good Queen Anne's musket, plenty of ammunition, a tomahawk, a large
cuttoe knife [French, couteau], a Dutch blanket, and no small quantity
of jerked beef," Cocke on April l0th rode off "to the
Cantuckey to Inform Capt Boone that we were on the road." The
fearful apprehensions felt for Cocke's safety were later relieved,
when along the road were discovered his letters in forming Henderson
of his arrival and of his having been joined on the way by Page
Portwood of Rowan. On his arrival at Otter Creek, Cocke found Boone
and his men, and on relating his adventures, "came in for his
share of applause." Boone at once despatched the master woodman,
Michael Stoner, with pack-horses to assist Henderson's party, which
he met on April 18th at their encampment "in the Eye of the
Rich Land." Along with "Excellent Beef in plenty,"
Stoner brought the story of Boone's determined stand and an account
of the erection of a rude little fortification which they had hurriedly
thrown up to resist attack. With laconic significance Henderson
pays the following tribute to Boone which deserves to be perpetuated
in national annals: "It was owing to Boone's confidence in
us, and the people's in him, that a stand was ever attempted in
order to wait for our coming."
In
the course of their journey over the mountains and through the wilderness,
the pioneers forgot the trials of the trail in the face of the surpassing
beauties of the country. The Cumberlands were covered with rich
undergrowth of the red and white rhododendron, the delicate laurel,
the mountain ivy, the flameazalea, the spicewood, and the cane;
while the white stars of the dogwood and the carmine blossoms of
the red-bud, strewn across the verdant background of the forest,
gleamed in the eager air of spring. "To enter uppon a detail
of the Beuty & Goodness of our Country," writes Nathaniel
Henderson, "would be a task too arduous . . . . Let it suffice
to tell you it far exceeds any country I ever saw or herd off. I
am conscious its out of the power of any man to make you clearly
sensible of the great Beuty and Richness of Kentucky." Young
Felix Walker, endowed with more vivid powers of description,
says with a touch of native eloquence:
"Perhaps
no Adventurer Since the days of donquicksotte or before ever felt
So Cheerful & Ilated in prospect, every heart abounded with
Joy & excitement . . . & exclusive of the Novelties of
the Journey the advantages & accumalations arising on the
Settlement of a new Country was a dazzling object with many of
our Company . . . . As the Cain ceased, we began to discover the
pleasing & Rapturous appearance of the plains of Kentucky,
a New Sky & Strange Earth to be presented to our view . .
. . So Rich a Soil we had never Saw before, Covered with Clover
in full Bloom. the Woods alive abounding in wild Game, turkeys
so numerous that it might be said there appeared but one flock
Universally Scattered in the woods . . . it appeared that Nature
in the profusion of her Bounties, had Spread a feast for all that
lives, both for the Animal & Rational World, a Sight so delightful
to our View and grateful to our feelings almost Induced us, in
Immitation of Columbus in Transport to Kiss the Soil of Kentucky,
as he haild & Saluted the sand on his first setting his foot
on the Shores of America."
On
the journey Henderson was joined in Powell's Valley by Benjamin
Logan, afterward so famous in Kentucky annals, and a companion,
William Galaspy. At the Crab Orchard they left Henderson's party;
and turning their course westward finally pitched camp in the present
Lincoln County, where Logan subsequently built a fort. On Sunday,
April 16th, on Scaggs's Creek, Henderson records: "About 12
oClock Met James McAfee with 18 other persons Returning from Cantucky."
They advised Henderson of the "troublesomeness and danger"
of the Indians, says Robert McAfee junior: "but Henderson assured
them that he had purchased the whole country from the Indians, that
it belonged to him, and he had named it Transylvania . . . . Robt,
Samuel, and William McAfee and 3 others were inclined to return,
but James opposed it, alleging that Henderson had no right to the
land, and that Virginia had previously bought it. The former (6)
returned with Henderson to Boonesborough." Among those who
had joined Henderson's party was Abraham Hanks from Virginia, the
maternal grandfather of Abraham Lincoln; but alarmed by the stories
brought by Stewart and his party of fugitives, Hanks and Drake,
as recorded by William Calk on that day (April 13th), turned back.
At
last the founder of Kentucky with his little band reached the destined
goal of their arduous journeyings. Henderson's record on his birthday
runs: "Thursday the 20th [April] Arrived at Fort Boone on the
Mouth of Oter Creek Cantuckey River where we were Saluted by a running
fire of about 25 Guns; all that was then at Fort . . . . The men
appeared in high spirits & much rejoiced in our arrival."
It is a coincidence of historic interest that just one day after
the embattled farmers at Lexington and Concord "fired the shots
heard round the world," the echoing shots of Boone and his
sturdy backwoodsmen rang out to announce the arrival of the proprietor
of Transylvania and the birth of the American West.
You
are about a work of the utmost importance to the well-being of
this country in general, in which the interest and security of
each and every individual are inseparably connected .... Our peculiar
circumstances in this remote country, surrounded on all sides
with difficulties, and equally subject to one common danger, which
threatens our common overthrow, must, I think, in their effects,
secure to us an union of interests, and, consequently, that harmony
in opinion, so essential to the forming good, wise and wholesome
laws.—Judge Richard Henderson: Address to the Legislature
of Transylvania, May 23, 1775.
The
independent spirit displayed by the Transylvania Company, and Henderson's
procedure in open defiance of the royal governors of both North
Carolina and Virginia, naturally aroused grave alarm throughout
these colonies and South Carolina. "This in my Opinion,"
says Preston in a letter to George Washington (January 31, 1775),
"will soon become a serious Affair, & highly deserves the
Attention of the Government. For it is certain that a vast Number
of People are preparing to go out and settle on this Purchase; and
if once they get fixed there, it will be next to impossible to remove
them or reduce them to Obedience; as they are so far from the Seat
of Government. Indeed it may be the Cherokees will support them."
Governor Martin of North Carolina, already deeply disturbed in anticipation
of the coming revolutionary cataclysm, thundered in what was generally
regarded as a forcible-feeble proclamation (February 19, 1775) against
"Richard Henderson and his Confederates" in their "daring,
unjust and unwarrantable proceedings." In a letter to Dartmouth
he denounces "Henderson the famous invader" and dubs the
Transylvania Company "an infamous Company of land Pyrates."
Officials
who were themselves eager for land naturally opposed Henderson's
plans. Lord Dunmore, who in 1774, as we have seen, was heavily interested
in the Wabash Land Company engineered by William Murray, took the
ground that the Wabash purchase was valid under the Camden-Yorke
decision. This is so stated in the records of the Illinois Company.
Likewise under Murray's control. But although the "Ouabache
Company," of which Dunmore was a leading member, was initiated
as early as May 16, 1774, the purchase of the territory was not
formally effected until October 18, 1775—too late to benefit
Dunmore, then deeply embroiled in the preliminaries to the Revolution.
Under the cover of his agent's name, it is believed, Dunmore, with
his "passion for land and fees," illegally entered tracts
aggregating thousands of acres of land surveyed by the royal surveyors
in the summer of 1774 for Dr. John Connolly. Early in this same
year, Patrick Henry, who, as already pointed out, had entered large
tracts in Kentucky in violation of Virginia's treaty obligations
with the Cherokees, united with William Byrd 3d, John Page, Ralph
Wormley, Samuel Overton, and William Christian, in the effort to
purchase from the Cherokees a tract of land west of Donelson's line,
being firmly persuaded of the validity of the Camden-Yorke opinion.
Their agent, William Kenedy, considerably later in the year, went
on a mission to the Cherokee towns, and upon his return reported
that the Indians might be induced to sell. When it became known
that Judge Henderson had organized the Transylvania Company and
anticipated Patrick Henry and his associates, Colonel Arthur Campbell,
as he himself states, applied to several of the partners of the
Transylvania Company on behalf of Patrick Henry, requesting that
Henry be taken in as a partner. It was afterward stated, as commonly
understood among the Transylvania proprietors, that both Patrick
Henry and Thomas Jefferson desired to become members of the company;
but that Colonel Richard Henderson was instrumental in preventing
their admission "lest they should supplant the Colonel [Henderson]
as the guiding spirit of the company."
Fully
informed by Preston's elaborate communication on the gravity of
the situation, Dunmore acted energetically, though tardily, to prevent
the execution of Henderson's designs. On March 21st Dunmore sent
flying through the back country a
proclamation, demanding the immediate relinquishment of the
territory by "one Richard Henderson and other disorderly persons,
his associates," and "in case of refusal, and of violently
detaining such possession, that he or they be immediately fined
and imprisoned. This proclamation, says a peppery old chronicler,
may well rank with the one excepting those arch traitors and rebels,
Samuel Adams and John Hancock, from the mercy of the British monarch.
In view of Dunmore's confidence in the validity of the Camden-Yorke
decision, it is noteworthy that no mention of the royal proclamation
of 1763 occurs in his broadside; and that he bases his objection
to the Transylvania purchase upon the king's instructions that all
vacant lands "within this colony" be laid off in tracts,
from one hundred to one thousand acres in extent, and sold at public
auction. This proclamation which was enclosed, oddly enough, in
a letter of official instructions to Preston warning him not to
survey any lands "beyond the line run by Colonel Donaldson,"
proved utterly ineffective. At the same time, Dunmore despatched
a pointed letter to Oconostota, Atta-kulla-kulla,
Judge's Friend, and other Cherokee chieftains, notifying them that
the sale of the great tract of land below the Kentucky was illegal
and threatening them with the king's displeasure if they did not
repudiate the sale.
News
of the plans which Henderson had already matured for establishing
an independent colony in the trans-Alleghany wilderness, now ran
like wild-fire through Virginia. In a letter to George Washington
(April 9, 1775), Preston ruefully says: "Henderson I hear has
made the Purchase & got a Conveyance of the great and Valluable
Country below the Kentucky from the Cherokees. He and about 300
adventurers are gone out to take Possession, who it is said intends
to set up an independent Government & form a Code of Laws for
themselves. How this may be I cant say, but I am affraid the steps
taken by the Government have been too late. Before the Purchase
was made had the Governor interfered it is believed the Indians
would not have sold."
Meanwhile
Judge Henderson, with strenuous energy, had begun to erect a large
stockaded fort according to plans of his own. Captain
James Harrod with forty-two men was stationed at the settlement
he had made the preceding year, having arrived there before the
McAfees started back to Virginia; and there were small groups of
settlers at Boiling Spring, six miles southeast of Harrods settlement,
and at St. Asaph's, a mile west of the present Stanford. A representative
government for Transylvania was then planned. When the frank and
gallant Floyd arrived at the Transylvania Fort on May 3d, he "expressed
great satisfaction," says Judge Henderson, "on being informed
of the plan we proposed for Legislation & sayd he must most
heartily concur in that & every other measure we should adopt
for the well Govern'g or good of the Community in Gen'l." In
reference to a conversation with Captain James Harrod and Colonel
Thomas Slaughter of Virginia, Henderson notes in his diary (May
8th): "Our plan of Legislation, the evils pointed out—the
remedies to be applyed &c &c &c were Acceeded to without
Hesitation. The plann was plain & Simple—'twas nothing
novel in its essence a thousand years ago it was in use, and found
by every year's experience since to be unexceptionable. We were
in four distinct settlem'ts. Members or delegates from every place
by free choice of Individuals they first having entered into writings
solemnly binding themselves to obey and carry into Execution Such
Laws as representatives should from time to time make, Concurred
with, by A Majority of the Proprietors present in the Country."
In
reply to inquiries of the settlers, Judge Henderson gave as his
reason for this assembling of a Transylvania Legislature that "all
power was derived from the people." Six days before the prophetic
arrival of the news of the Battle of Lexington and eight days before
the revolutionary committee of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina,
promulgated their memorable Resolves establishing laws for independent
government, the pioneers assembled on the green beneath the mighty
plane-tree at the Transylvania Fort. In his wise and statesmanlike
address to this picturesque convention of free Americans (May 23,
1775), an address which Felix
Walker described as being "considered equal to any of like
kind ever delivered to any deliberate body in that day and time,"
Judge Henderson used these memorable words:
"You,
perhaps, are fixing the palladium, or placing the first corner
stone of an edifice, the height and magnificence of whose superstructure
. . . can only become great in proportion to the excellence of
its foundation . . . . If any doubt remain amongst you with respect
to the force or efficiency of whatever laws you now, or hereafter
make, be pleased to consider that ALL POWER IS ORIGINALLY IN THE
PEOPLE; MAKE AND THEIR INTEREST, THEREFORE, BY IMPARTIAL AND BENEFICENT
LAWS, AND YOU MAY BE SURE OF THEIR INCLINATION TO SEE THEM ENFORCED."
An
early writer, in speaking of the full blooded democracy of these
"advanced" sentiments, quaintly comments: "If Jeremy
Bentham had been in existence of manhood, he would have sent his
compliments to the President of Transylvania." This, the first
representative body of American freemen which ever convened west
of the Alleghanies, is surely the most unique colonial government
ever set up on this continent. The proceedings of this backwoods
legislature—the democratic leader ship of the principal proprietor;
the prudence exhibited in the laws for protecting game, breeding
horses, etc.; the tolerance shown in the granting of full religious
liberty—all display the acumen and practical wisdom of these
pioneer law-givers. As the result of Henderson's tactfulness, the
proprietary form of government, thoroughly democratized in tone,
was complacently accepted by the backwoods men. From one who, though
still under royal rule, vehemently asserted that the source of all
political power was the people, and that "laws derive force
and efficiency from our mutual consent," Western democracy
thus born in the wilderness was "taking its first political
lesson." In their answer to Henderson's assertion of freedom
from alien authority the pioneers unhesitatingly declared: "That
we have an absolute right, as a political body, without giving umbrage
to Great Britain, or any of the colonies, to form rules for the
government of our little society, cannot be doubted by any sensible
mind and being without the jurisdiction of, and not answerable to
any of his Majesty's courts, the constituting tribunals of justice
shall be a matter of our first contemplation . . . ." In the
establishment of a constitution for the new colony, Henderson with
paternalistic wisdom induced the people to adopt a legal code based
on the laws of England. Out of a sense of self-protection he reserved
for the proprietors only one prerogative not granted them by the
people, the right of veto. He clearly realized that if this power
were given up, the delegates to any convention that might be held
after the first would be able to assume the claims and rights of
the proprietors.
A
land-office was formally opened, deeds were issued, and a store
was established which supplied the colonists with powder, lead,
salt, osnaburgs, blankets, and other chief necessities of pioneer
existence. Writing to his brother Jonathan from Leestown, the bold
young George Rogers Clark, soon to plot the downfall of Transylvania,
enthusiastically says (July 6, 1775): "A richer and more Beautifull
Cuntry than this I believe has never been seen in America yet. Col.
Henderson is hear and Claims all ye Country below Kentucke. If his
Claim Should be good, land may be got Reasonable Enough and as good
as any in ye World." Those who settled on the south side of
Kentucky River acknowledged the validity of the Transylvania purchase;
and Clark in his Memoir says: "the Proprietors at first took
great pains to Ingratiate themselves in the fav'r of the people."
In
regard to the designs of Lord Dunmore, who, as noted above, had
illegally entered the Connolly grant on the Ohio and sought to outlaw
Henderson, and of Colonel William Byrd 3d, who, after being balked
in Patrick Henry's plan to anticipate the Transylvania Company in
effecting a purchase from the Cherokees, was supposed to have tried
to persuade the Cherokees to repudiate the "Great Treaty,"
Henderson defiantly says: "Whether Lord Dunmore and Colonel
Byrd have interfered with the Indians or not, Richard Henderson
is equally ignorant and indifferent. The utmost result of their
efforts can only serve to convince them of the futility of their
schemes and possibly frighten some few faint-hearted persons, naturally
prone to reverence great names and fancy everything must shrink
at the magic of a splendid title."
Prompted
by Henderson's desire to petition the Continental Congress then
in session for recognition as the fourteenth colony, the Transylvania
legislature met again on the first Thursday in September and elected
Richard Henderson and John Williams, among others, as delegates
to the gathering at Philadelphia. Shortly afterward the Proprietors
of Transylvania held a meeting at Oxford, North Carolina (September
25, 1775), elected Williams as the agent of the colony, and directed
him to proceed to Boonesborough there to reside until April, 1776.
James Hogg, of Hillsborough, chosen as Delegate to represent the
Colony in the Continental Congress, was despatched to Philadelphia,
bearing with him an elaborate memorial prepared by the President,
Judge Henderson, petitioning the Congress "to take the infant
Colony of Transylvania into their protection."
Almost
immediately upon his arrival in Philadelphia, James Hogg was presented
to "the famous Samuel and John Adams." The latter warned
Hogg, in view of the efforts then making toward reconciliation between
the colonies and the king, that "the taking under our protection
a body of people who have acted in defiance of the King's proclamation,
will be looked on as a confirmation of that independent spirit with
which we are daily reproached." Jefferson said that if his
advice were followed, all the use the Virginians should make of
their charter would be "to prevent any arbitrary or oppressive
government to be established within the boundaries of it";
and that it was his wish "to see a free government established
at the back of theirs [Virginia's] properly united with them."
He would not consent, however, that Congress should acknowledge
the colony of Transylvania, until it had the approbation of the
Virginia Convention. The quit-rents imposed by the company were
denounced in Congress as a mark of vassalage; and many advised a
law against the employment of negroes in the colony. "They
even threatened us with their opposition," says Hogg, with
precise veracity, "if we do not act upon liberal principles
when we have it so much in our power to render ourselves immortal."
To
this short war may be properly attributed all the kind feelings
and fidelity to treaty stipulations manifested by the Cherokees
ever afterwards. General Rutherford instilled into the Indians
so great a fear of the whites, that never afterwards were they
disposed to engage in any cruelty, or destroy any of the property
of our frontier men.—David L. Swain: The Indian War of
1776.
During
the summer of 1775 the proprietors of Transylvania were confronted
with two stupendous tasks—that of winning the favor and support
of the frontiersmen and that of rallying the rapidly dwindling forces
in Kentucky in defense of the settlements. Recognizing the difficulty
of including Martin's Station, because of its remoteness, with the
government provided for Transylvania, Judge Henderson prepared a
plan of government for the group of settlers located in Powell's
Valley. In a letter to Martin (July 30th), in regard to the recent
energetic defense of the settlers at that point against the Indians,
Henderson says: "Your spirited conduct gives me much pleasure
. . . . Keep your men in heart if possible, NOW IS OUR TIME, THE
INDIANS MUST NOT DRIVE US." The gloom which had been occasioned
by the almost complete desertion of the stations at Harrodsburg,
the Boiling Spring, and the Transylvania Fort or Boonesborough was
dispelled with the return of Boone, accompanied by some thirty persons,
on September 8th, and of Richard Callaway with a considerable party
on September 26th. The crisis was now passed; and the colony began
for the first time really to flourish. The people on the south side
of the Kentucky River universally accepted proprietary rule for
the time being. But the seeds of dissension were soon to be sown
among those who settled north of the river, as well as among men
of the stamp of James
Harrod, who, having preceded Henderson in the establishment
of a settlement in Kentucky, naturally resented holding lands under
the Transylvania Company.
The
great liberality of this organization toward incoming settlers had
resulted in immense quantities of land being taken up through their
land-office. The ranging, hunting, and road-building were paid for
by the company; and the entire settlement was furnished with powder,
lead, and supplies, wholly on credit, for this and the succeeding
year. "Five hundred and sixty thousand acres of land are now
entered," reports Floyd on December 1st, "and most of
the people waiting to have it run out." After Dunmore, having
lost his hold upon the situation, escaped to the protection of a
British vessel, the Fowey, Colonel Preston continued to prevent
surveys for officers' grants within the Transylvania territory;
and his original hostility to Judge Henderson gave place to friendship
and support. On December 1st, Colonel John Williams, resident agent
of the Transylvania Company, announced at Boonesborough the long-contemplated
and widely advertised advance in price of the lands, from twenty
to fifty shillings per hundred acres, with surveying fees of four
dollars for tracts not exceeding six hundred and forty acres. At
a meeting of the Transylvania legislature, convened on December
21st, John Floyd was chosen surveyor general of the colony, Nathaniel
Henderson was placed in charge of the Entering Office, and Richard
Harrison given the post of secretary. At this meeting of the legislature,
the first open expression of discontent was voiced in the "Harrodsburg
Remonstrance," questioning the validity of the proprietors'
title, and protesting against any increase in the price of lands,
as well as the taking up by the proprietors and a few other gentlemen
of the best lands at the Falls of the Ohio. Every effort was made
to accommodate the remonstrants, who were led by Abraham Hite. Office
fees were abolished, and the payment of quit-rents was deferred
until January 1, 1780. Despite these efforts at accommodation, grave
doubts were implanted by this Harrodsburg Remonstrance in the minds
of the people; and much discussion and discontent ensued.
By
midsummer, 1775, George Rogers Clark, a remarkably enterprising
and independent young pioneer, was "engrossing all the land
he could" in Kentucky. Upon his return to Virginia, as he relates,
he "found there was various oppinions Respecting Henderson
claim. many thought it good, others douted whether or not Virginia
coud with propriety have any pretentions to the cuntrey." Jefferson
displayed a liberal attitude toward the claims of the Transylvania
proprietors; and Patrick Henry openly stated that, in his opinion,
"their claim would stand good." But many others, of the
stamp of George Mason and George Washington, vigorously asserted
Virginia's charter rights over the Western territory." This
sharp difference of opinion excited in Clark's mind the bold conception
of seizing the leadership of the country and making terms with Virginia
under threat of secession. With the design of effecting some final
disposition in regard to the title of the Transylvania proprietors,
Judge Henderson and Colonel Williams set off from Boonesborough
about May 1st, intending first to appeal to the Virginia Convention
and ultimately to lay their claims before the Continental Congress.
"Since they have gone," reports Floyd to Preston, "I
am told most of the men about Harrodsburg have re-assumed their
former resolution of not complying with any of the office rules
whatever. Jack Jones, it is said, is at the head of the party &
flourishes away prodigiously." John Gabriel Jones was the mere
figurehead in the revolt. The real leader, the brains of the conspiracy,
was the unscrupulous George Rogers Clark. At Clark's instance, an
eight-day election was held at Harrodsburg (June 7-15), at which
time a petition to the Virginia Convention was drawn up; and Clark
and Jones were elected delegates. Clark's plan, the scheme of a
bold revolutionist, was to treat with Virginia for terms; and if
they were not satisfactory, to revolt and, as he says, "Establish
an Independent Government" . . . "giving away great part
of the Lands and disposing of the Remainder." In a second petition,
prepared by the self-styled "Committee of West Fincastle"
(June 20th), it was alleged that "if these pretended Proprietors
have leave to continue to act in their arbitrary manner out the
controul of this colony [Virginia] the end must be evident to every
well wisher to American Liberty."
The
contest which now ensued between Richard
Henderson and George Rogers Clark, waged upon the floor of the
convention and behind the scenes, resulted in a conclusion that
was inevitable at a moment in American history marked by the signing
of the Declaration of Independence. Virginia, under the leader ship
of her new governor, Patrick Henry, put an end to the proprietary
rule of the Transylvania
Company. On December 7th such part of Transylvania as lay within
the chartered limits of Virginia was erected by the legislature
of that colony into the County of Kentucky. The proprietary form
of government with its "marks of vassalage," although
liberalized with the spirit of democracy, was unendurable to the
independent and lawless pioneers, already intoxicated with the spirit
of freedom swept in on the first fresh breezes of the Revolution.
Yet it is not to be doubted that the Transylvania Company, through
the courage and moral influence of its leaders, made a permanent
contribution to the colonization of the West, which, in providential
timeliness and effective execution, is without parallel in our early
annals.
While
events were thus shaping themselves in Kentucky—events which made
possible Clark's spectacular and meteoric campaign in the Northwest
and ultimately resulted in the establishment of the Mississippi
instead of the Alleghanies as the western boundary of the Confederation—the
pioneers of Watauga were sagaciously laying strong the foundations
of permanent occupation. In September, 1775, North Carolina, through
her Provincial Congress, provided for the appointment in each district
of a Committee of Safety, to consist of a president and twelve other
members. Following the lead thus set, the Watauga
settlers assumed for their country the name of "Washington
District"; and proceeded by unanimous vote of the people to
choose a committee of thirteen, which included James
Robertson and John
Sevier. This district was organized "shortly after October,
1775, according to Felix
Walker; and the first step taken after the election of the committee
was the organization of a court, consisting of five members. Felix
Walker was elected clerk of the court thus organized, and held the
position for about four years. James Robertson and John Sevier,
it is believed, were also members of this court. To James Robertson
who, with the assistance of his colleagues, devised this primitive
type of frontier rule—a true commission form of government,
on the "Watauga Plan"—is justly due distinctive recognition
for this notable inauguration of the independent democracy of the
Old Southwest. The Watauga settlement was animated by a spirit of
deepest loyalty to the American cause. In a memorable
petition these hardy settlers requested the Provincial Council
of North Carolina not to regard them as a "lawless mob,"
but to "annex" them to North Carolina without delay. "This
committee (willing to become a party in the present unhappy contest)",
states the petition, which must have been drafted about July 15,
1776, "resolved (which is now on our records), to adhere strictly
to the rules and orders of the Continental Congress, and in open
committee acknowledged themselves indebted to the united colonies
their full proportion of the Continental expense."
While
these disputes as to the government of the new communities were
in progress an additional danger threatened the pioneers. For a
whole year the British had been plying the various Indian tribes
from the lakes to the gulf with presents, supplies, and ammunition.
In the Northwest bounties had actually been offered for American
scalps. During the spring of 1776 plans were concerted, chiefly
through Stuart and Cameron, British agents among the Southern Indians,
for uniting the Loyalists and the Indians in a crushing attack upon
the Tennessee settlements and the back country of North Carolina.
Already the frontier of South Carolina had passed through the horrors
of Indian uprising; and warning of the approaching invasion had
been mercifully sent the Holston settlers by Atta-kulla-kulla's
niece, Nancy
Ward, the "Pocahontas of the West"—doubtless
through the influence of her daughter, who loved Joseph Martin.
The settlers, flocking for refuge into their small stockaded forts,
waited in readiness for the dreaded Indian attacks, which were made
by two forces totaling some seven hundred warriors.
On
July 20th, warned in advance of the approach of the Indians, the
borderers, one hundred and seventy in all, marched in two columns
from the rude breastwork, hastily thrown up at Eaton's Station,
to meet the Indians, double their own number, led by The
Dragging Canoe. The scouts surprised one party of Indians, hastily
poured in a deadly fire, and rushed upon them with such impetuous
fury that they fled precipitately. Withdrawing now toward their
breastwork, in anticipation of encountering there a larger force,
the backwoodsmen suddenly found themselves attacked in their rear
and in grave danger of being surrounded. Extending their own line
under the direction of Captain James Shelby, the frontiersmen steadily
met the bold attack of the Indians, who, mistaking the rapid extension
of the line for a movement to retreat, incautiously made a headlong
onslaught upon the whites, giving the war-whoop and shouting: "The
Unakas are running!" In the ensuing hot conflict at close quarters,
in some places hand to hand, the Indians were utterly routed—The
Dragging Canoe being shot down, many warriors wounded, and thirteen
left dead upon the field.
On
the day after Thompson, Cocke, Shelby, Campbell, Madison, and their
men were thus winning the battle of the Long Island "flats,"
Robertson, Sevier, and their little band of forty-two men were engaged
in repelling an attack, begun at sunrise, upon the Watauga
fort near the Sycamore
Shoals. This attack, which was led by Old Abraham, proved abortive;
but as the result of the loose investment of the log fortress, maintained
by the Indians for several weeks, a few rash venturers from the
fort were killed or captured, notably a young boy who was carried
to one of the Indian towns and burned at the stake, and the wife
of the pioneer settler, William
Been, who was rescued from a like fate by the intercession of
the humane and noble Nancy
Ward. It was during this siege, according to constant tradition,
that a frontier lass, active and graceful as a young doe, was pursued
to the very stockade by the fleet-footed savages. Seeing her plight,
an athletic young officer mounted the stockade at a single leap,
shot down the foremost of the pursuers, and leaning over, seized
the maiden by the hands and lifted her over the stockade. The maiden
who sank breathless into the arms of the young officer, John
Sevier, was "Bonnie Kate Sherrill"—who, after
the fashion of true romance, afterward became the wife of her gallant
rescuer.
While
the Tennessee settlements were undergoing the trials of siege and
attack, the settlers on the frontiers of Rowan were falling beneath
the tomahawk of the merciless savage. In the first and second weeks
of July large forces of Indians penetrated to the outlying settlements;
and in two days thirty-seven persons were killed along the Catawba
River. On July 13th, the bluff old soldier of Rowan, General Griffith
Rutherford, reported to the council of North Carolina that "three
of our Captains are killed and one wounded"; and that he was
setting out that day with what men he could muster to relieve Colonel
McDowell, ten men, and one hundred and twenty women and children,
who were "besieged in some kind of a fort." Aroused to
extraordinary exertions by these daring and deadly blows, the governments
of North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia instituted
a joint campaign against the Cherokees. It was believed that, by
delivering a series of crushing blows to the Indians and so conclusively
demonstrating the overwhelming superiority of the whites, the state
governments in the Old Southwest would convince the savages of the
futility, of any attempt ever again to oppose them seriously.
Within
less than a week after sending his despatches to the council Rutherford
set forth at the head of twenty-five hundred men to protect the
frontiers of North Carolina and to overwhelm the foe. Leading the
South Carolina army of more than eighteen hundred men, Colonel Andrew
Williamson directed his attack against the lower Cherokee towns;
while Colonel Samuel Jack led two hundred Georgians against the
Indian towns at the heads of the Chattahoochee and Tugaloo Rivers.
Assembling a force of some sixteen hundred Virginians, Colonel William
Christian rendezvoused in August at the Long Island of Holston,
where his force was strengthened by between three and four hundred
North Carolinians under Colonels Joseph Williams and Love, and Major
Winston. The various expeditions met with little effective opposition
on the whole, succeeding everywhere in their design of utterly laying
waste the towns of the Cherokees. One serious engagement occurred
when the Indians resolutely challenged Rutherford's advance at the
gap of the Nantahala Mountains. Indian women—heroic Amazons
disguised in war-paint and armed with the weapons of warriors and
the courage of despair—fought side by side with the Indian braves
in the effort to arrest Rutherford's progress and compass his defeat.
More than forty frontiersmen fell beneath the deadly shots of this
truly Spartan band before the final repulse of the savages.
The
most picturesque figures in this overwhelmingly successful campaign
were the bluff old Indian-fighter, Griffith Rutherford, wearing
"a tow hunting shirt, dyed black, and trimmed with white fringe"
as a uniform; Captain Benjamin Cleveland, a rude paladin of gigantic
size, strength, and courage; Lieutenant William Lenoir (Le Noir),
the gallant and recklessly brave French Huguenot, later to win a
general's rank in the Revolution; and that militant man of God,
the Reverend James Hall, graduate of Nassau Hall, stalwart and manly,
who carried a rifle on his shoulder and, in the intervals between
the slaughter of the savages, preached the gospel to the vindictive
and bloodthirsty backwoodsmen. Such preaching was sorely needed
on that campaign—when the whites, maddened beyond the bounds
of self-control by the recent ghastly murders, gladly availed themselves
of the South Carolina bounty offered for fresh Indian scalps. At
times they exultantly displayed the reeking patches of hair above
the gates of their stockades; at others, with many a bloody oath,
they compelled their commanders either to sell the Indian captives
into slavery or else see them scalped on the spot. Twenty years
afterward Benjamin Hawkins relates that among Indian refugees in
extreme western Georgia the children had been so terrorized by their
parents' recitals of the atrocities of the enraged borderers in
the campaign of 1776, that they ran screaming from the face of a
white man.
March
31, 1760. Set out this day, and after running some distance, met
with Col. Richard Henderson, who was running the line between
Virginia and North Carolina. At this meeting we were much rejoiced.
He gave us every information we wished, and further informed us
that he had purchased a quantity of corn in Kentucky, to be shipped
at the Falls of Ohio, for the use of the Cumberland settlement.
We are now without bread, and are compelled to hunt the buffalo
to preserve life.—John Donelson: Journal of a Voyage,
intended by God's permission, in the good boat Adventure, from
Fort Patrick Henry, on Holston River, to the French Salt Springs
on Cumberland River.
To
the settlements in Tennessee and Kentucky, which they had seized
and occupied, the pioneers held on with a tenacious grip which never
relaxed. From these strongholds, won through sullen and desperate
strokes, they pushed deeper into the wilderness, once again to meet
with undimmed courage the bitter onslaughts of their resentful foes.
The crushing of the Cherokees in 1776 relieved the pressure upon
the Tennessee settlers, enabling them to strengthen their hold and
prepare effectively for future eventualities; the possession of
the gateway to Kentucky kept free the passage for Western settlement;
Watauga and its defenders continued to offer a formidable barrier
to British invasion of the East from Kentucky and the Northwest
during the Revolution; while these Tennessee frontiersmen were destined
soon to set forth again to invade a new wilderness and at frightful
cost to colonize the Cumberland.
The
little chain of stockades along the farflung frontier of Kentucky
was tenaciously held by the bravest of the race, grimly resolved
that this chain must not break. The Revolution precipitated against
this chain wave after wave of formidable Indian foes from the Northwest
under British leadership. At the very time when Grifth Rutherford
set out for the relief of McDowell's Fort, a marauding Indian band
captured by stealth near the Transylvania Fort, known as Boone's
Fort (Boonesborough), Elizabeth and Frances Callaway, and Jemima
Boone, the daughters of Richard Callaway and Daniel Boone, and rapidly
marched them away toward the Shawanoe towns on the Ohio. A relief
party, in two divisions, headed respectively by the young girls'
fathers, and composed among others of the lovers of the three girls,
Samuel Henderson, John Holder, and Flanders Callaway, pursued them
with almost incredible swiftness. Guided by broken twigs and bits
of cloth surreptitiously dropped by Elizabeth Callaway, they finally
overtook the unsuspecting savages, killed two of them, and rescued
the three maidens unharmed. This romantic episode—which gave
Fenimore Cooper the theme for the most memorable scene in one of
his Leatherstocking Tales had an even more romantic sequel in the
subsequent marriage of the three pairs of lovers.
This
bold foray, so shrewdly executed and even more sagaciously foiled,
was a true precursor of the dread happenings of the coming neighborhood
of the stations; and relief was felt when the Transylvania Fort,
the great stockade planned by Judge Henderson, was completed by
the pioneers (July, 1776). Glad tidings arrived only a few days
later when the Declaration of Independence, read aloud from the
Virginia Gazette, was greeted with wild huzzas by the patriotic
backwoodsmen. During the ensuing months occasional invasions were
made by savage bands; but it was not until April 24, 1777, that
Henderson's "big fort" received its first attack, being
invested by a company of some seventy-five savages. The twenty-two
riflemen in the fort drove off the painted warriors, but not before
Michael Stoner, Daniel Boone, and several others were severely wounded.
As he lay helpless upon the ground, his ankle shattered by a bullet,
Boone was lifted by Simon Kenton and borne away upon his shoulders
to the haven of the stockade amid a veritable shower of balls. The
stoical and taciturn Boone clasped Kenton's hand and gave him the
accolade of the wilderness in the brief but heartfelt utterance;
"You are a fine fellow." On July 4th of this same year
the fort was again subjected to siege, when two hundred gaudily
painted savages surrounded it for two days. But owing to the vigilance
and superb markmanship of the defenders, as well as to the lack
of cannon by the besieging force, the Indians reluctantly abandoned
the siege, after leaving a number dead upon the field. Soon afterward
the arrival of two strong bodies of prime riflemen, who had been
hastily summoned from the frontiers of North Carolina and Virginia,
once again made firm the bulwark of white supremacy in the West.
Kentucky's
terrible year, 1778, opened with a severe disaster to the white
settlers—when Boone with thirty men, while engaged in making
salt at the "Lower Salt Spring," was captured in February
by more than a hundred Indians, sent by Governor Hamilton of Detroit
to drive the white settlers from "Kentucke." Boone remained
in captivity until early summer, when, learning that his Indian
captors were planning an attack in force upon the Transylvania Fort,
he succeeded in effecting his escape. After a break-neck journey
of one hundred and sixty miles, during which he ate but one meal,
Boone finally arrived at the big fort on June 20th. The settlers
were thus given ample time for preparation, as the long siege did
not begin until September 7th. The fort was invested by a powerful
force flying the English flag—four hundred and forty-four savages
gaudy in the vermilion and ochre of their war-paint, and eleven
Frenchmen, the whole being commanded by the French-Canadian, Captain
Dagniaux de Quindre, and the great Indian Chief, Black-fish who
had adopted Boone as a son. In the effort to gain his end de Quindre
resorted to a dishonorable stratagem, by which he hoped to outwit
the settlers and capture the fort with but slight loss. "They
formed a scheme to deceive us," says Boone, "declaring
it was their orders, from Governor Hamilton, to take us captives,
and not to destroy us; but if nine of us would come out and treat
with them, they would immediately withdraw their forces from our
walls, and return home peacably." Transparent as the stratagem
was, Boone incautiously agreed to a conference with the enemy; Callaway
alone took the precaution to guard against Indian duplicity. After
a long talk, the Indians proposed to Boone, Callaway, and the seven
or eight pioneers who accompanied them that they shake hands in
token of peace and friendship. As picturesquely described by Daniel
Trabue:
"The
Indians sayed two Indians must shake hands with one white man
to make a Double or sure peace at this time the Indians had hold
of the white men's hands and held them. Col. Calloway objected
to this but the other Indians laid hold or tryed to lay hold of
the other hand but Colonel Calloway was the first that jerked
away from them but the Indians seized the men two Indians holt
of one man or it was mostly the case and did their best to hold
them but while the man and Indians was a scuffling the men from
the Fort agreeable to Col. Calloway's order fired on them they
had a dreadful skuffel but our men all got in the fort safe and
the fire continued on both sides."
During
the siege Callaway, the leader of the pioneers, made a wooden cannon
wrapped with wagon tires, which on being fired at a group of Indians
"made them scamper perdidiously." The secret effort of
the Indians to tunnel a way underground into the fort, being discovered
by the defenders, was frustrated by a countermine. Unable to outwit,
outfight, or outmaneuver the resourceful Callaway, de Quindre finally
withdrew on September 16th, closing the longest and severest attack
that any of the fortified stations of Kentucky had ever been called
upon to withstand.
The
successful defense of the Transylvania Fort, made by these indomitable
backwoodsmen who were lost sight of by the Continental Congress
and left to fight alone their battles in the forests, was of national
significance in its results. Had the Transylvania Fort fallen, the
northern Indians in overwhelming numbers, directed by Hamilton and
led by British officers, might well have swept Kentucky free of
defenders and fallen with devastating force upon the exposed settlements
along the western frontiers of North Carolina, Virginia, and Pennsylvania,
This defense of Boonesborough, therefore, is deserving of commemoration
in the annals of the Revolution, along with Lexington and Bunker's
Hill. Coupled with Clark's meteoric campaign in the Northwest and
the subsequent struggles in the defense of Kentucky, it may be regarded
as an event basically responsible for the retention of the trans-Alleghany
region by the United States. The bitter struggles, desperate sieges,
and bloody reprisals of these dark years came to a close with the
expeditions of Clark and Logan in November, 1782, which appropriately
concluded the Revolution in the West by putting a definite end to
all prospect of formidable invasion of Kentucky.
In
November, 1777, "Washington District," the delegates of
which had been received in the preceding year by the Provincial
Congress of North Carolina, was formed by the North Carolina General
Assembly into Washington County; and to it were assigned the boundaries
of the whole of the present state of Tennessee. While this immense
territory was thus being definitely included within the bounds of
North Carolina, Judge
Henderson on behalf of the Transylvania
Company was making a vigorous effort to secure the reestablishment
of its rights from the Virginia Assembly. By order of the Virginia
legislature, an exhaustive investigation of the claims of the Transylvania
Company was therefore made, hearings being held at various points
in the back country. On July 18, 1777, Judge Henderson presented
to the peace commissioners for North Carolina and Virginia at the
Long Island treaty ground an elaborate memorial in behalf of the
Transylvania Company, which the commissioners unanimously refused
to consider, as not coming under their jurisdiction. Finally, after
a full and impartial discussion before the Virginia House of Delegates,
that body declared the Transylvania purchase void. But in consideration
of "the very great expense [incurred by the company] in making
the said purchase, and in settling the said lands, by which the
commonwealth is likely to receive great advantage, by increasing
its inhabitants, and establishing a barrier against the Indians,"
the House of Delegates granted Richard Henderson and Company two
hundred thousand acres of land situated between the Ohio and Green
rivers, where the town of Henderson, Kentucky, now stands. With
this bursting of the Transylvania bubble and the vanishing of the
golden dreams of Henderson and his associates for establishing the
fourteenth American colony in the heart of the trans-Alleghany,
a first romantic chapter in the history of Westward expansion comes
to a close.
But
another and more feasible project immediately succeeded. Undiscouraged
by Virginia's confiscation of Transylvania, and disregarding North
Carolina's action in extending her boundaries over the trans-Alleghany
region lying within her chartered limits, Henderson, in whom the
genius of the colonizer and the ambition of the speculative capitalist
were found in striking conjunction, was now inspired to repeat,
along broader and more solidly practical lines, the revolutionary
experiment of Transylvania. It was not his purpose, however, to
found an independent colony; for he believed that millions of acres
in the Transylvania purchase lay within the bounds of North Carolina,
and he wished to open for colonization, settlement, and the sale
of lands, the vast wilderness of the valley of the Cumberland supposed
to lie within those confines. But so universal was the prevailing
uncertainty in regard to boundaries that it was necessary to prolong
the North Carolina-Virginia line in order to determine whether or
not the Great French Lick, the ideal location for settlement, lay
within the chartered limits of North Carolina.
Judge
Henderson's comprehensive plans for the promotion of an extensive
colonization of the Cumberland region soon began to take form in
vigorous action. Just as in his Transylvania project Henderson had
chosen Daniel Boone, the ablest of the North Carolina pioneers,
to spy out the land and select sites for future location, so now
he chose as leader of the new colonizing party the ablest of the
Tennessee pioneers, James
Robertson. Although he was the acknowledged leader of the Watauga
settlement and held the responsible position of Indian agent for
North Carolina, Robertson was induced by Henderson's liberal offers
to leave his comparatively peaceful home and to venture his life
in this desperate hazard of new fortunes. The advance party of eight
white men and one negro, under Robertson's leadership, set forth
from the Holston settlement on February 6, 1779, to make a preliminary
exploration and to plant corn "that bread might be prepared
for the main body of emigrants in the fall." After erecting
a few cabins for dwellings and posts of defense, Robertson plunged
alone into the wilderness and made the long journey to Post St.
Vincent in the Illinois, in order to consult with George Rogers
Clark, who had entered for himself in the Virginia Land Office several
thousand acres of land at the French Lick. After perfecting arrangements
with Clark for securing "cabin rights" should the land
prove to lie in Virginia, Robertson returned to Watauga to take
command of the migration.
Toward
the end of the year two parties set out, one by land, the other
by water, for the wonderful new country on the Cumberland of which
Boone and Scaggs and Mansker had brought back such glowing descriptions.
During the autumn Judge Henderson and other commissioners from North
Carolina, in conjunction with commissioners from Virginia, had been
running out the boundary line between the two states. On the very
day—Christmas, 1779—that Judge Henderson reached the site
of the Transylvania Fort, now called Boonesborough, the swarm of
colonists from the parent hive at Watauga, under Robertson's
leadership, reached the French
Lick and on New Year's Day, 1780, crossed the river on the ice
to the present site of Nashville.
The
journal of the other party, which, as has been aptly said, reads
like a chapter from one of Captain Mayne Reid's fascinating novels
of adventure, was written by Colonel John Donelson, the father-in-law
of Andrew Jackson. Setting out from Fort Patrick Henry on Holston
River, December 22, 1779, with a flotilla consisting of about thirty
flatboats, dugouts, and canoes, they encountered few difficulties
until they began to run the gauntlet of the Chickamauga towns on
the Tennessee. Here they were furiously attacked by the Indians,
terrible in their red and black war-paint; and a well-filled boat
lagging in the rear, with smallpox on board, was driven to shore
by the Indians. The occupants were massacred; but the Indians at
once contracted the disease and died by the hundreds. This luckless
sacrifice of "poor Stuart, his family and friends," while
a ghastly price to pay, undoubtedly procured for the Cumberland
settlements comparative immunity from Indian forays until the new-comers
had firmly established themselves in their wilderness stronghold.
Eloquent of the granite endurance and courageous spirit of the typical
American pioneer in its thankfulness for sanctuary, for reunion
of families and friends, and for the humble shelter of a log cabin,
is the last entry in Donelson's diary (April 24, 1780):
"This
day we arrived at our journey's end at the Big Salt Lick, where
we have the pleasure of finding Capt. Robertson and his company.
It is a source of satisfaction to us to be enabled to restore
to him and others their families and friends, who were intrusted
to our care, and who, some time since, perhaps, despaired of ever
meeting again. Though our prospects at present are dreary, we
have found a few log cabins which have been built on a cedar bluff
above the Lick by Capt. Robertson and his company."
In
the midst of the famine during this terrible period of the "hard
winter," Judge Henderson was sorely concerned for the fate
of the new colony which he had projected, and immediately proceeded
to purchase at huge cost a large stock of corn. On March 5, 1780,
this corn, which had been raised by Captain Nathaniel Hart, was
"sent from Boonesborough in perogues [pettiaugers or flatboats]
under the command of William Bailey Smith . . . . This corn was
taken down the Kentucky River, and over the Falls of Ohio, to the
mouth of the Cumberland, and thence up that river to the fort at
the French Lick. It is believed have been the only bread which the
settlers had until it was raised there in 1781." There is genuine
impressiveness in this heroic triumphing over the obstacles of obdurate
nature and this paternalistic provision for the exposed Cumberland
settlement—the purchase by Judge Henderson, the shipment by
Captain Hart, and the transportation by Colonel Smith, in an awful
winter of bitter cold and obstructed navigation, of this indispensable
quantity of corn purchased for sixty thousand dollars in depreciated
currency.
Upon
his arrival at the French Lick, shortly after the middle of April,
Judge Henderson at once proceeded to organize a government for the
little community. On May 1st articles of association were drawn
up; and important additions thereto were made on May 13th, when
the settlers signed the complete series. The original document,
still preserved, was drafted by Judge Henderson, being written throughout
in his own handwriting; and his name heads the list of two hundred
and fifty and more signatures. The "Cumberland
Compact," as this paper is called, is fundamentally a mutual
contract between the copartners of the Transylvania Company and
the settlers upon the lands claimed by the company. It represents
the collective will of the community; and on account of the careful
provisions safeguarding the rights of each party to the contract
it may be called a bill of rights. The organization of this pure
democracy was sound and admirable—another notable early example
of the commission form of government. The most remarkable feature
of this backwoods constitution marks Judge Henderson as a pioneer
in the use of the political device so prominent today, one hundred
and forty years later—the "recall of judges." In
the following striking clause this innovation in government was
recognized thus early in American history as the most effective
means of securing and safeguarding justice in a democracy:
"As
often as the people in general are dissatisfied with the doings
of the Judges or Triers so to be chosen, they may call a new selection
in any of the said stations, and elect bothers in their stead,
having due respect to the number now agreed to be elected at each
station, which persons so to be chosen shall have the same power
with those in whose room or place they shall or may be chosen
to act."
A
land-office was now opened, the entry-taker being appointed by Judge
Henderson, in accordance with. the compact; and the lands, for costs
of entry, etc., were registered for the nominal fee of ten dollars
per thousand acres. But as the Transylvania Company was never able
to secure a "satisfactory and indisputable title," the
clause resulted in perpetual nonpayment. In 1783, following the
lead of Virginia in the case of Transylvania, North Carolina declared
the Transylvania Company's purchase void, but granted the company
in compensation a tract of one hundred and ninety thousand acres
in Powell's Valley. As compensation, the grants of North Carolina
and Virginia were quite inadequate, considering the value of the
service in behalf of permanent western colonization rendered by
the Transylvania company.
James
Robertson was chosen as presiding officer of the court of twelve
commissioners, and was also elected commander-in-chief of the military
forces of the eight little associated settlements on the Cumberland.
Here for the next two years the self-reliant settlers under Robertson's
wise and able leadership successfully repelled the Indians in their
guerrilla warfare, firmly entrenched themselves in their forest-girt
stronghold, and vindicated their claim to the territory by right
of occupation and conquest. Here sprang up in later times a great
and populous city—named, strangely enough, neither for Henderson,
the founder, nor for Robertson and Donelson, the leaders of the
two colonizing parties, but for one having no association with its
history or origins, the gallant North Carolinian, General Francis
Nash, who was killed at the Battle of Germantown.
With
the utmost satisfaction I can acquaint you with the sudden and
favorable turn of our public affairs. A few days ago destruction
hung over our heads. Cornwallis with at least 1500 British and
Tories waited at Charlotte for the reinforcement of 1000 from
Broad River, which reinforcement has been entirely cut off, 130
killed and the remainder captured. Cornwallis immediately retreated,
and is now on his way toward Charleston, with part of our army
in his rear. . . —Elizabeth Maxwell Steel: Salisbury,
October 25, 1780.
So
thoroughly had the Cherokees been subdued by the devastations of
the campaign of 1776 that for several years thereafter they were
unable to organize for a new campaign against the backwoodsmen along
the frontiers of North Carolina and Tennessee. During these years
the Holston settlers principally busied themselves in making their
position secure, as well as in setting their house in order by severely
punishing the lawless Tory element among them. In 1779 the Chickamaugas,
with whom The Dragging
Canoe and his irreconcilable followers among the Cherokees had
joined hands after the campaign of 1776, grew so bold in their bloody
forays upon small exposed settlements that North Carolina and Virginia
in conjunction despatched a strong expedition against them. Embarking
on April 10th at the mouth of Big Creek near the present Rogersville,
Tennessee, three hundred and fifty men led by Colonel Evan
Shelby descended the Tennessee to the fastnesses of the Chickamaugas.
Meeting with no resistance from the astonished Indians, who fled
to the shelter of the densely wooded hills, they laid waste the
Indian towns and destroyed the immense stores of goods collected
by the British agents for distribution among the red men. The Chickamaugas
were completely quelled; and during the period of great stress through
which the Tennessee frontiersmen were soon to pass, the Cherokees
were restrained through the wise diplomacy of Joseph Martin, Superintendent
of Indian affairs for Virginia.
The
great British offensive against the Southern colonies, which were
regarded as the vulnerable point in the American Confederacy, was
fully launched upon the fall of Charleston in May, l780. Cornwallis
established his headquarters at Camden; and one of his lieutenants,
the persuasive and brilliant Ferguson, soon rallied thousands of
Loyalists in South Carolina to the British standard. When Cornwallis
inaugurated his campaign for cutting Washington wholly off from
the Southern colonies by invading North Carolina, the men upon the
western waters realized that the time had come to rise, in defense
of their state and in protection of their homes. Two hundred Tennessee
riflemen from Sullivan County, under Colonel Isaac
Shelby, were engaged in minor operations in South Carolina conducted
by Colonel Charles McDowell; and conspicuous among these engagements
was the affair at Musgrove's Mill on August 18th when three hundred
horsemen led by Colonel James Williams, a native of Granville County,
North Carolina, Colonel Isaac Shelby, and Lieutenant-Colonel Clark
of Georgia repulsed with heavy loss a British force of between four
and five hundred.
These
minor successes availed nothing in face of the disastrous defeat
of Gates by Cornwallis at Camden on August 16th and the humiliating
blow to Sumter at Rocky Mount on the following day. Ferguson hotly
pursued the frontiersmen, who then retreated over the mountains;
and from his camp at Gilbert Town he despatched a threatening message
to the Western leaders, declaring that if they did not desist from
their opposition to the British arms and take protection under his
standard, he would march his army over the mountains and lay their
country waste with fire and sword. Stung to action, Shelby hastily
rode off to consult with Sevier
at his log castle near Jonesboro; and together they matured a plan
to arouse the mountain men and attack Ferguson by surprise. In the
event of failure, these wilderness free-lances planned to leave
the country and find a home with the Spaniards in Louisiana.
At
the original place of rendezvous, the Sycamore
Shoals of the Watauga, the overmountain men gathered on September
25th. There an eloquent sermon was preached to them by that fiery
man of God, the Reverend Samuel Doak, who concluded his discourse
with a stirring invocation to the sword of the Lord and of Gideon—a
sentiment greeted with the loud applause of the militant frontiersmen.
Here and at various places along the march they were joined by detachments
of border fighters summoned to join the expedition—Colonel
William Campbell, who with some reluctance had abandoned his own
plans in response to Shelby's urgent and repeated message, in command
of four hundred hardy frontiersmen from Washington County, Virginia;
Colonel Benjamin Cleveland, with the wild fighters of Wilkes known
as "Cleveland's Bulldogs"; Colonel Andrew Hampton, with
the stalwart riflemen of Rutherford; Major Joseph Winston, the cousin
of Patrick Henry, with the flower of the citizenry of Surry; the
McDowells, Charles and Joseph, with the bold borderers of Burke;
Colonels Lacy and Hill, with well-trained soldiers of South Carolina;
and Brigadier-General James Williams, leading the intrepid Rowan
volunteers.
Before
breaking camp at Quaker Meadows, the leading officers in conference
chose Colonel William Campbell as temporary officer of the day,
until they could secure a general officer from headquarters as commander-in-chief.
The object of the mountaineers and big-game hunters was, in their
own terms, to pursue Ferguson, to run him down, and to capture him.
In pursuance of this plan, the leaders on arriving at the ford of
Green River chose out a force of six hundred men, with the best
mounts and equipment; and at daybreak on October 6th this force
of picked mounted riflemen, followed by some fifty "foot-cavalry"
eager to join in the pursuit, pushed rapidly on to the Cowpens.
Here a second selection took place; and Colonel Campbell, was again
elected commander of the detachment, now numbering some nine hundred
and ten horsemen and eighty odd footmen, which dashed rapidly on
in pursuit of Ferguson.
The
British commander had been apprised of the coming of the over-mountain
men. Scorning to make a forced march and attempt to effect a junction
with Cornwallis at Charlotte, Ferguson chose to make a stand and
dispose once for all of the barbarian horde whom he denounced as
mongrels and the dregs of mankind. After despatching to Cornwallis
a message asking for aid, Ferguson took up his camp on King's
Mountain, just south of the North Carolina border line, in the
present York County, South Carolina. Here, after his pickets had
been captured in silence, he was surprised by his opponents. At
three o'clock in the afternoon of October 7th the mountain hunters
treed their game upon the heights.
The
battle which ensued presents an extraordinary contrast in
the character of the combatants and the nature of the strategy and
tactics. Each party ran true to form—Ferguson repeating Braddock's
suicidal policy of opposing bayonet charges to the deadly fusillade
of riflemen, who in Indian fashion were carefully posted behind
trees and every shelter afforded by the natural inequalities of
the ground. In the army of the Carolina and Virginia frontiersmen,
composed of independent detachments recruited from many sources
and solicitous for their own individual credit, each command was
directed in the battle by its own leader. Campbell—like Cleveland,
Winston, Williams, Lacey, Shelby, McDowell, Sevier, and Hambright—personally
led his own division; but the nature of the fighting and the peculiarity
of the terrain made it impossible for him, though the chosen commander
of the expedition, actually to play that role in the battle. The
plan agreed upon in advance by the frontier leaders was simple enough—to
surround and capture Ferguson's camp on the high plateau. The more
experienced Indian fighters, Sevier
and Shelby,
unquestionably suggested the general scheme which in any case would
doubtless have been employed by the frontiersmen; it was to give
the British "Indian play"—namely to take cover everywhere
and to fire from natural shelter. Cleveland, a Hercules in strength
and courage who had fought the Indians and recognized the wisdom
of Indian tactics, ordered his men, as did some of the other leaders,
to give way before a bayonet charge, but to return to the attack
after the charge had spent its force.
"My
brave fellows," said Cleveland, "every man must consider
himself an officer, and act from his own judgment. Fire as quick
as you can, and stand your ground as long as you can. When you can
do no better, get behind trees, or retreat; but I beg you not to
run quite off. If we are repulsed, let us make a point of returning
and renewing the fight; perhaps we may have better luck in the second
attempt than in the first."
The
plateau upon which Ferguson was encamped was the top of an eminence
some six hundred yards long and about two hundred and fifty yards
from one base across to the other; and its shape was that of an
Indian paddle, varying from one hundred and twenty yards at the
blade to sixty yards at the handle in width. Outcropping boulders
upon the outer edge of the plateau afforded some slight shelter
for Ferguson's force; but, unsuspicious of attack, Ferguson had
made no abatis to protect his camp from the assault to which it
was so vulnerable because of the protection of the timber surrounding
it on all sides. As to the disposition of the attacking force, the
center to the northeast was occupied by Cleveland with his "Bulldogs,"
Hambright with his South Fork Boys from the Catawba (now Lincoln
County, North Carolina), and Winston with his Surry riflemen; to
the south were the divisions of Joseph McDowell, Sevier, and Campbell;
while Lacey's South Carolinians, the Rowan levies under Williams,
and the Watauga borderers under Shelby were stationed upon the north
side. Ferguson's forces consisted of Provincial Rangers, one hundred
and fifty strong, and other well-drilled Loyalists, between eight
and nine hundred in number; but his strength was seriously weakened
by the absence of a foraging party of between one and two hundred
who had gone off on the morning the battle occurred. Shelby's men,
before getting into position, received a hot fire, the opening shots
of the engagement. This inspired Campbell, who now threw off his
coat, to shout encouraging orders to his men posted on the side
of the mountain opposite to Shelby's force. When Campbell's Virginians
uttered a series of piercing shouts, the British officer, De Peyster,
second in command, remarked to his chief: "These things are
ominous—these are the damned yelling boys."
The
battle, which lasted some minutes short of an hour, was waged with
terrific ferocity. The Loyalist militia, whenever possible, fired
from the shelter of the rocks; while the Provincial Corps, with
fixed bayonets, steadily charged the frontiersmen, who fired at
close range and then rapidly withdrew to the very base of the mountain.
After each bayonet charge the Provincials coolly withdrew to the
summit, under the accumulating fire of the returning mountaineers,
who quickly gathered in their rear. Owing to their elevated location,
the British, although using the rapid-fire breech-loading rifle
invented by Ferguson himself, found their vision deflected, and
continually fired high, thus suffering from nature's handicap, refraction.
The militia, using sharpened butcher-knives which Ferguson had taught
them to utilize as bayonets, charged against the mountaineers; but
their fire, in answer to the deadly fusillade of the expert squirrel-shooters,
was belated, owing to the fact that they could not fire while the
crudely improvised bayonets remained inserted in their pieces. The
Americans, continually firing upward, found ready marks for their
aim in the clearly delineated outlines of their adversaries, and
felt the fierce exultation which animates the hunter who has tracked
to its lair and surrounded wild game at bay.
The
leaders of the various divisions of the mountaineers bore themselves
with impetuous bravery, recklessly rushing between the lines of
fire and with native eloquence, interspersed with profanity, rallying
their individual commands again and again to the attack. The valiant
Campbell scaled the rugged heights, loudly encouraging his men to
the ascent. Cleveland, resolutely facing the foe, urged on is Bulldogs
with the inspiriting words: "Come, boys; let's try 'em again.
We'll have better luck next time." No sooner did Shelby's men
reach the bottom of the hill, in retreating before a charge, than
their commander, fiery and strenuous, ardently shouted: "Now
boys, quickly reload your rifles, and let's advance upon them, and
give them another hell of a fire." The most deadly charge,
led by De Peyster himself, fell upon Hambright's South Fork boys;
and one of their gallant officers, Major Chronicle, waving his military
hat, was mortally wounded, the command, "Face to the hill!",
dying on his lips. These veteran soldiers, unlike the mountaineers,
firmly met the shock of the charge, and a number of their men were
shot down or transfixed; but the remainder, reserving their fire
until the charging column was only a few feet away, poured in a
deadly volley before retiring. The gallant William Lenoir, whose
reckless bravery made him a conspicuous target for the enemy, received
several wounds and emerged from the battle with his hair and clothes
torn by balls. The ranking American officer, Brigadier General James
Williams, was mortally wounded while "on the very top of the
mountain, in the thickest of the fight"; and as he momentarily
revived, his first words were: "For God's sake, boys, don't
give up the hill." Hambright, sorely wounded, his boot overflowing
with blood and his hat riddled with three bullet holes, declined
to dismount, but pressed gallantly forward, exclaiming in his "Pennsylvania
Dutch": "Huzza, my prave poys, fight on a few minutes
more, and the pattle will be over!" On the British side, Ferguson
was supremely valorous, rapidly dashing from one point to another,
rallying his men, oblivious to all danger. Wherever the shrill note
of his silver whistle sounded, there the fighting was hottest and
the British resistance the most stubborn. His officers fought with
the characteristic steadiness of the British soldier; and again
and again his men charged headlong against the wavering and fiery
circle of the frontiersmen.
Ferguson's
boast that "he was on King's Mountain, that he was king of
the Mountain, and God Almighty could not drive him from it"
was doubtless prompted, less by a belief in the impregnability of
his position, than by a desperate desire to inspire confidence in
his men. His location was admirably chosen for defense against attack
by troops employing regulation tactics; but, never dreaming of the
possibility of sudden investment, Ferguson had erected no fortifications
for his encampment. His frenzied efforts on the battlefield seem
like a mad rush against fate; for the place was indefensible against
the peculiar tactics of the frontiersmen. While the mountain flamed
like a volcano and resounded with the thunder of the guns, a steady
stricture was in progress. The lines were drawn tighter and tighter
around the trapped and frantically struggling army; and at last
the fall of their commander, riddled with bullets, proved the tragic
futility of further resistance. The game was caught and bagged to
a man. When Winston, with his fox-hunters of Surry, dashed recklessly
through the woods, says a chronicler of the battle, and the last
to come into position:
Flow'd
in, and settling, circled all the lists,then
From all the circle of the hills death sleeted in upon the doomed.
The
battle was decisive in its effect—shattering the plans of Cornwallis,
which till then appeared certain of success. The victory put a full
stop to the invasion of North Carolina, which was then well under
way. Cornwallis abandoned his carefully prepared campaign and immediately
left the state. After ruthlessly hanging nine prisoners, an action
which had an effectively deterrent effect upon future Tory murders
and depredations, the patriot force quietly disbanded. The brilliant
initiative of the buckskin-clad borderers, the strenuous energy
of their pursuit, the perfection of their surprise—all reinforced
by the employment of ideal tactics for meeting the given situation
—were the controlling factors in this overwhelming victory
of the Revolution. The pioneers of the Old Southwest—the independent
and aggressive yeomanry of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina—had
risen in their might. Without the aid or authority of blundering
state governments, they had created an army of frontiersmen, Indian-fighters,
and big-game hunters which had found no parallel or equal on the
continent since the Battle
of the Great Kanawha.
(More
on the Battle of King's Mountain.)
Designs
of a more dangerous nature and deeper die seem to glare in the
western revolt .... I have thought proper to issue this manifesto,
hereby warning all persons concerned in the said revolt . . .
that the honour of this State has been particularly wounded, by
seizing that by violence which, in time, no doubt, would have
been obtained by consent, when the terms of separation would have
been explained or stipulated, to the mutual sat'isfaction of the
mother and new State . . . . Let your proposals be consistent
with the honour of the State to accede to, which by your allegiance
as good citizens, you cannot violate and I make no doubt but her
generosity, in time, will meet your wishes.—Governor Alexander
Martin: Manifesto against the State of Franklin, April 25, 1785.
To
the shrewd diplomacy of Joseph Martin, who held the Cherokees in
check during the period of the King's Mountain campaign, the settlers
in the valleys of the Watauga and the Holston owed their temporary
immunity from Indian attack. But no sooner did Sevier
and his over-mountain men return from the battle-field of King's
Mountain than they were called upon to join in an expedition
against the Cherokees, who had again gone on the war-path at the
instigation of the British. After Sevier with his command had defeated
a small party of Indians at Boyd's Creek in December, the entire
force of seven hundred riflemen, under the command of Colonel Arthur
Campbell, with Major Joseph Martin as subordinate, penetrated to
the heart of the Indian country, burned Echota, Chilhowee, Settiquo,
Hiawassee, and seven other principal villages, and destroyed an
immense amount of property and supplies. In March, suspecting that
the arch-conspirators against the white settlers were the Cherokees
at the head waters of the Little Tennessee, Sevier
led one hundred and fifty horsemen through the devious mountain
defiles and struck the Indians a swift and unexpected blow at Tuckasegee,
near the present Webster, North Carolina. In this extraordinarily
daring raid, one of his most brilliant feats of arms, Sevier lost
only one man killed and one wounded; while upon the enemy he inflicted
the loss of thirty killed, took many more prisoners, burned six
Indian towns, and captured many horses and supplies. Once his deadly
work was done, Sevier with his bold cavaliers silently plunged again
into the forest whence he had so suddenly emerged, and returned
in triumph to the settlements.
Disheartened
though the Indians were to see the smoke of their burning towns,
they sullenly remained averse to peace; and they did not keep the
treaty made at Long Island in July, 1781. The Indians suffered from
very real grievances at the hands of the lawless white settlers
who persisted in encroaching upon the Indian lands. When the Indian
ravages were resumed, Sevier
and Anderson, the latter from Sullivan County, led a punitive expedition
of two hundred riflemen against the Creeks and the Chickamaugas;
and employing the customary tactics of laying waste the Indian towns,
administered stern and salutary chastisement to the copper-colored
marauders.
During
this same period the settlers on the Cumberland were displaying
a grim fortitude and stoical endurance in the face of Indian attack
forever memorable in the history of the Old Southwest. On the night
of January 15, 1781, the settlers at Freeland's Station, after a
desperate resistance, succeeded in beating off the savages who attacked
in force. At Nashborough on April 2d, twenty of the settlers were
lured from the stockade by the artful wiles of the savages; and
it was only after serious loss that they finally won their way back
to the protection of the fort. Indeed, their return was due to the
fierce dogs of the settlers, which were released at the most critical
moment, and attacked the astounded Indians with such ferocity that
the diversion thus created enabled the settlers to escape from the
deadly trap. During the next two years the history of the Cumberland
settlements is but the gruesome recital of murder after murder of
the whites, a few at a time, by the lurking Indian foe. Robertson's
dominant influence alone prevented the abandonment of the sorely
harassed little stations. The arrival of the North Carolina commissioners
for the purpose of laying off bounty lands and settlers' preemptions,
and the treaty of peace concluded at the French Lick on November
5 and 6, 1783, gave permanence and stability to the Cumberland settlements.
The lasting friendship of the Chickasaws was won; but the Creeks
for some time continued to harass the Tennessee pioneers. The frontiersmen's
most formidable foe, the Cherokees, stoically, heroically fighting
the whites in the field, and smallpox, syphilis, and drunkenness
at home, at last abandoned the unequal battle. The treaty at Hopewell
on November 28, 1785, marks the end of an era—the Spartan yet
hopeless resistance of the intrepid red men to the relentless and
frequently unwarranted expropriation by the whites of the ancient
and immemorial domain of the savage.
The
skill in self-government of the isolated people beyond the mountains,
and the ability they had already demonstrated in the organization
of "associations," received a strong stimulus on June
2, 1784, when the legislature of North Carolina ceded to the Congress
of the United States the title which that state possessed to the
land west of the Alleghanies. Among the terms of the Cession Act
were these conditions: that the ceded territory should be formed
into a separate state or states; and that if Congress should not
accept the lands thus ceded and give due notice within two years,
the act should be of no force and the lands should revert to North
Carolina. No sooner did this news reach the Western settlers than
they began to mature plans for the organization of a government
during the intervening twelve months. Their exposed condition on
the frontiers, still harassed by the Indians, and North Carolina's
delay in sending goods promised the Indians by a former treaty,
both promoted Indian hostility; and these facts, combined with their
remote location beyond the mountains, rendering them almost inaccessible
to communication with North Carolina—all rendered the decision
of the settlers almost inevitable. Moreover, the allurements of
high office and the dazzling dreams of ambition were additional
motives sufficiently human in themselves to give driving power to
the movement toward independence.
At
a convention assembled at Jonesborough on August 23, 1784, delegates
from the counties of Washington, Sullivan, and Greene characteristically
decided to organize an "Association." They solemnly declared
by resolution: "We have a just and undeniable right to petition
to Congress to accept the session made by North Carolina, and for
that body to countenance us for forming ourselves into a separate
government, and to frame either a permanent or temporary constitution,
agreeably to a resolve of Congress . . . ." Meanwhile, Governor
Martin, largely as the result of the prudent advice of North Carolina's
representative in Congress, Dr. Hugh Williamson, was brought to
the conclusion that North Carolina, in the passage of the cession
act, had acted precipitately. This important step had been taken
without the full consideration of the people of the state. Among
the various arguments advanced by Williamson was the impressive
contention that, in accordance with the procedure in the case of
other states, the whole expense of the huge Indian expeditions in
1776 and the heavy militia aids to South Carolina and Georgia should
be credited to North Carolina as partial fulfilment of her continental
obligations before the cession should be irrevocably made to the
Federal government. Williamson's arguments proved convincing; and
it was thus primarily for economic reasons of far reaching national
importance that the assembly of North Carolina (October 22 to November
25, 1784) repealed the cession act made the preceding spring.
Before
the news of the repeal of the cession act could reach the western
waters, a second convention met at Jonesborough on December 17th.
Sentiment at this time was much divided, for a number of the people,
expecting the repeal of the cession act, genuinely desired a continued
allegiance to North Carolina. Of these may well have been John
Sevier, who afterward declared to Joseph Martin that he had
been "Draged into the Franklin measures by a large number of
the people of this country." The principal act of this convention
was the adoption of a temporary constitution for six months and
the provision for a convention to be held within one year, at the
expiration of which time this constitution should be altered, or
adopted as the permanent constitution of the new state. The scholars
on the western waters, desiring to commemorate their aspirations
for freedom, chose as the name of the projected new state: "Frankland"—the
Land of the Free. The name finally chosen, however, perhaps for
reasons of policy, was "Franklin,"
in honor of Benjamin Franklin. Meanwhile, in order to meet the pressing
needs for a stable government along the Tennessee frontier, the
North Carolina assembly, which repealed the cession act, created
out of the four western counties the District of Washington, with
John Haywood as presiding judge and David Campbell as associate,
and conferred upon John
Sevier the rank of brigadier general of the new district. The
first week in December Governor Martin sent to Sevier his military
commission; and replying to Joseph Martin's query (December 31,
1784, prompted by Governor Martin) as to whether, in view of the
repeal of the cession act, he intended to persist in revolt or await
developments, Sevier gave it out broadcast that "we shall pursue
no further measures as to a new State."
Owing
to the remoteness of the Tennessee settlements and the difficulty
of appreciating through correspondence the atmosphere of sentiment
in Franklin, Governor Martin realized the necessity of sending a
personal representative to discover the true state of affairs in
the disaffected region beyond the mountains. For the post of ambassador
to the new government, Governor Martin selected a man distinguished
for mentality and diplomatic skill, a pioneer of Tennessee and Kentucky,
Judge
Richard Henderson's brother, Colonel Samuel Henderson. Despite
Sevier's disavowal of any further intention to establish a new state,
the governor gave Colonel Henderson elaborate written instructions,
the purport of which was to learn all that he could about the political
complexion of the Tennessee frontiersmen, the sense of the people,
and the agitation for a separate commonwealth. Moreover, in the
hope of placating the leading chieftains of the Cherokees, who had
bitterly protested against the continued aggressions and encroachments
upon their lands by the lawless borderers, he instructed Colonel
Henderson also to learn the temper and dispositions of the Indians,
and to investigate the case of Colonel James Hubbardt who was charged
with the murder of Untoola of Settiquo, a chief of the Cherokees.
When
Colonel Henderson arrived at Jonesborough, he found the third Franklin
legislature in session, and to this body he presented Governor Martin's
letter of February 27, 1785. In response to the governor's request
for an "account of the late proceedings of the people in the
western country," an extended reply was drafted by the new
legislature; and this letter, conveyed to Governor Martin by Colonel
Henderson, in setting forth in detail the reasons for the secession,
made the following significant statement: "We humbly thank
North Carolina for every sentiment of regard she has for us, but
are sorry to observe, that as it is founded upon principles of interest,
as is aparent from the tenor of your letter, we are doubtful, when
the cause ceases which is the basis of that affection, we shall
lose your esteem." At the same time (March 22nd), Sevier,
who had just been chosen Governor of the State
of Franklin, transmitted to Governor Martin by Colonel Henderson
a long letter, not hitherto published in any history of the period,
in which he outspokenly says:
"It
gives me great pain to think there should arise any Disputes between
us and North Carolina, & I flatter myself when North Carolina
states the matter in a fair light she will be fully convinced
that necessity and self preservation have Compelled Us to the
measures we Have taken, and could the people have discovered that
No. Carolina would Have protected and Govern'd them, They would
have remained where they were; but they perceived a neglect and
Coolness, and the Language of Many of your most leading members
Convinced them they were Altogether Disregarded."
Following
the issuance of vigorous manifestos by Martin (April 25th) and Sevier
(May 15th), the burden of the problem fell upon Richard Caswell,
who in June succeeded Martin as Governor of North Carolina.
Meantime
the legislature of the over-mountain men had given the name of Franklin
to the new state, although for some time it continued to be called
by many Frankland, and its adherents Franks. The legislature had
also established an academy named after Governor Martin, and had
appointed (March 12th) William Cocke as a delegate to the Continental
Congress, urging its acceptance of the cession. In the Memorial
from the Franklin legislature to the Continental Congress, dealing
in some detail with North Carolina's failure to send the Cherokees
some goods promised them for lands acquired by treaty, it is alleged:
"She
[North Carolina] immediately stoped the goods she had promised
to give the Indians for the said land which so exasperated them
that they begun to commit hostalities on our frontiers in this
situation we were induced to a declaration of Independence not
doubting we should be excused by Congress . . . as North Carolina
seemed quite regardless of our interest and the Indians daily
murdering our friends and relations without distinction of age
or sex."
Sympathizing
with the precarious situation of the settlers, as well as desiring
the cession, Congress urged North Carolina to amend the repealing
act and execute a conveyance of the western territory to the Union.
Among
the noteworthy features of the Franklin
movement was the constitution prepared by a committee, headed
by the Reverend Samuel Houston of Washington County, and presented
at the meeting of the Franklin legislature, Greeneville, November
14, 1785. This eccentric constitution was based in considerable
part upon the North Carolina model; but it was "rejected in
the lump" and the constitution of North Carolina, almost unchanged,
was adopted. Under this Houston constitution, the name "Frankland"
was chosen for the new state. The legislature was to consist of
but a single house. In a section excluding from the legislature
"ministers of the gospel, attorneys at law, and doctors of
physics," those were declared ineligible for office who were
of immoral character or guilty of "such flagrant enormities
as drunkenness, gaming, profane swearing, lewdness, Sabbath-breaking
and such like," or who should deny the existence of God, of
heaven, and of hell, the inspiration of the Scriptures, or the existence
of the Trinity. Full religious liberty and the rights of conscience
were assured—but strict orthodoxy was a condition for eligibility
to office. No one should be chosen to office who was "not a
scholar to do the business." This remarkable document, which
provided for many other curious innovations in government, was the
work of pioneer doctrinaires—Houston, Campbell, Cocke, and Tipton—and
deserves study as a bizarre reflection of the spirit and genius
of the western frontiersmen.
The
liberal policy of Martin, followed by the no less conciliatory attitude
of his successor, Caswell, for the time proved wholly abortive.
However, Martin's appointment of Evan
Shelby in Sevier's place as brigadier, and of Jonathan
Tipton as colonel of his county, produced disaffection among
the Franks; and the influence of Joseph Martin against the new government
was a powerful obstacle to its success. At first the two sets of
military, civil, and judicial officers were able to work amicably
together; and a working-basis drawn up by Shelby and Sevier, although
afterward repudiated by the Franklin legislature, smoothed over
some of the rapidly accumulating difficulties. The persistent and
quiet assertion of authority by North Carolina, without any overt
act of violence against the officers of Franklin state, revealed
great diplomatic skill in Governors Martin and Caswell. It was doubtless
the considerate policy of the latter, coupled with the defection
from Sevier's cause of men of the stamp of Houston and Tipton, after
the blundering and cavalier rejection of their singular constitution,
which undermined the foundations of Franklin. Sevier himself later
wrote with considerable bitterness: "I have been faithfull,
and my own breast acquits myself that I have acted no part but what
has been Consistent with honor and justice, tempered with Clemency
and mercy. How far our pretended patriots have supported me as their
pretended chiefe magistrate, I leave the world at large to Judge."
Arthur Campbell's plans for the formation of a greater Franklin,
through the union of the people on the western waters of Virginia
with those of North Carolina, came to nought when Virginia in the
autumn of 1785 with stern decisiveness passed an act making it high
treason to erect an independent government within her limits unless
authorized by the assembly. Sevier, however, became more fixed in
his determination to establish a free state, writing to Governor
Caswell: "We shall continue to act independent and would rather
suffer death, in all its various and frightful shapes, than conform
to anything that is disgraceful." North Carolina, now proceeding
with vigor (November, 1786), fully reassumed its sovereignty and
jurisdiction over the mountain counties, but passed an act of pardon
and oblivion, and in many ways adopted moderate and conciliatory
measures.
Driven
to extremities, Cocke and Sevier in turn appealed for aid and advice
to Benjamin Franklin, in whose honor the new state had been named.
In response to Cocke, Franklin wrote (August 12, 1786): "I
think you are perfectly right in resolving to submit them [the Points
in Dispute] to the Decision of Congress and to abide by their Determination."
Franklin's views change in the interim; for when, almost a year
later, Sevier asks him for counsel, Franklin has come to the conclusion
that the wisest move for Sevier was not to appeal to Congress, but
to endeavor to effect some satisfactory compromise with North Carolina
(June 30, 1787):
"There
are only two Things that Humanity induces me to wish you may succeed
in: The Accomodating your Misunderstanding with the Government
of North Carolina, by amicable Means; and the Avoiding an Indian
war, by preventing Encroaching on their Lands . . . . The Inconvenience
to your People attending so remote a Seat of Government, and the
difficulty to that Government in ruling well so remote a People,
would I think be powerful Inducements with it, to accede to any
fair & reasonable Proposition it may receive from you towards
an Accommodation."
Despite
Sevier's frenzied efforts to achieve independence—his treaty with
the Indians, his sensational plan to incorporate the Cherokees into
the new state, his constancy to an ideal of revolt against others
in face of the reality of revolt against himself, his struggle,
equivocal and half-hearted, with the North Carolina authorities
under Tipton—despite all these heroic efforts, the star of
Franklin swiftly declined. The vigorous measures pursued by General
Joseph Martin, and his effective influence focussed upon a movement
already honey-combed with disaffection, finally turned the scale.
To the Franklin leaders he sent the urgent message: "Nothing
will do but a submission to the laws of North Carolina." Early
in April, 1788, Martin wrote to Governor Randolph of Virginia: "I
returned last evening from Green Co. Washington destrict, North
Carolina, after a tower through that Co'ntry, and am happy to inform
your Excellency that the late unhappy dispute between the State
of North Carolina, and the pretended State of Franklin is subsided."
Ever brave, constant, and loyal to the interest of the pioneers,
Sevier had originally been drawn into the movement against his best
judgment. Caught in the unique trap, created by the passage of the
cession act and the sudden volte-face of its repeal, he struggled
desperately to extricate himself. Alone of all the leaders, the
governor of ill-starred Franklin remained recalcitrant.
The
people of this region have come to realize truly upon what part
of the world and upon which nation their future happiness and
security depend, and they immediately infer that their interest
and prosperity depend entirely upon the protection and liberality
of your government.—John Sevier to Don Diego de Gardoqui,
September 12, 1788.
From
the early settlements in the eastern parts of this Continent to
the late & more recent settlements on the Kentucky in the
Rest the same difficulties have constantly occurred which now
oppress you, but by a series of patient sufferings, manly and
spirited exertions and unconquerable perseverance, they have been
altogether or in great measure subdued.—Governor Samuel
Johnston to James Robertson and Anthony Bledsoe, January 29, 1788.
A
strange sham-battle, staged like some scene from opera bouffe, in
the bleak snow-storm of February, 1788, is really the prelude to
a remarkable drama of revolt in which Sevier,
Robertson,
Bledsoe, and the Cumberland stalwarts play the leading roles. On
February 27th, incensed beyond measure by the action of Colonel
John Tipton in harboring some of his slaves seized by the sheriff
under an execution issued by one of the North Carolina courts, Sevier
with one hundred and fifty adherents besieged Tipton with a few
of his friends in his home on Sinking Creek. The siege was raised
at daybreak on February 29th by the arrival of reinforcements under
Colonel Maxwell from Sullivan County; and Sevier, who was unwilling
to precipitate a conflict, withdrew his forces after some desultory
firing, in which two men were killed and several wounded. Soon afterward
Sevier sent word to Tipton that on condition his life be spared
he would submit to North Carolina. On this note of tragi-comedy
the State
of Franklin appeared quietly to expire. The usually sanguine
Sevier, now thoroughly chastened, sought shelter in the distant
settlements— deeply despondent over the humiliating failure
of his plans and the even more depressing defection of his erstwhile
friends and supporters The revolutionary designs and separatist
tendencies which he still harbored were soon to involve him in a
secret conspiracy to give over the State of Franklin into the protection
of a foreign power.
The
fame of Sevier's martial exploits and of his bold stroke for independence
had long since gone abroad, astounding even so famous an advocate
of liberty as Patrick Henry and winning the sympathy of the Continental
Congress. One of the most interested observers of the progress of
affairs in the State of Franklin was Don
Diego de Gardoqui, who had come to America in the spring of
1785, bearing a commission to the American Congress as Spanish charge
d'affaires (Encargados de Negocios) to the United States. In the
course of his negotiations with Jay concerning the right of navigation
of the Mississippi River, which Spain denied to the Americans, Gardoqui
was not long in discovering the violent resentment of the Western
frontiersmen, provoked by Jay's crass blunder in proposing that
the American republic, in return for reciprocal foreign advantages
offered by Spain, should waive for twenty-five years her right to
navigate the Mississippi. The Cumberland traders had already felt
the heavy hand of Spain in the confiscation of their goods at Natchez;
but thus far the leaders of the Tennessee frontiersmen had prudently
restrained the more turbulent agitators against the Spanish policy,
fearing lest the spirit of retaliation, once aroused, might know
no bounds. Throughout the entire region of the trans-Alleghany,
a feeling of discontent and unrest prevailed—quite as much
the result of dissatisfaction with the central government which
permitted the wholesale restraint of trade, as of resentment against
the domination of Spain.
No
sooner had the shrewd and watchful Gardoqui,
who was eager to utilize the separatist sentiment of the western
settlements in the interest of his country, learned of Sevier's
armed insurrection against the authority of North Carolina than
he despatched an emissary to sound the leading men of Franklin and
the Cumberland settlements in regard to an alliance. This secret
emissary was Dr. James White, who had been appointed by the United
States Government as Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern
Department on November 29, 1786. Reporting as instructed to Don
Estevan Miro, governor of Louisiana, White, the corrupt tool
of Spain, stated concerning his confidential mission that the leaders
of "Frankland" and "Cumberland district" had
"eagerly accepted the conditions" laid down by Gardoqui:
to take the oath of allegiance to Spain, and to renounce all submission
or allegiance whatever to any other sovereign or power. Satisfied
by the secret advices received, the Spanish minister reported to
the home authorities his confident belief that the Tennessee backwoodsmen,
if diplomatically handled, would readily throw in their lot with
Spain.
After
the fiasco of his siege of Tipton's home, Sevier had seized upon
the renewal of hostilities by the Cherokees as a means of regaining
his popularity. This he counted upon doing by rallying his old comrades-in-arms
under his standard and making one of his meteoric, whirlwind onslaughts
upon their ancient Indian foe. The victory of this erstwhile popular
hero, the beloved "Nolichucky Jack of the Border," over
the Indians at a town on the Hiwassee "so raised him in the
esteem of the people on the frontier," reports Colonel Maxwell,
"that the people began [once more] to flock to his standard."
Inspirited by this good turn in his fortunes, Sevier readily responded
to Dr. White's overtures.
Alarmed
early in the year over the unprovoked depredations and murders by
the Indians in several Tennessee counties and on the Kentucky road,
Sevier, Robertson,
and Anthony Bledsoe had persuaded Governor Samuel Johnston of North
Carolina to address Gardoqui
and request him to exert his influence to prevent further acts of
savage barbarity. In letters to Governor Johnston, to Robertson,
and to Sevier, all of date April 18th, Gardoqui expressed himself
in general as being "extremely surprised to know that there
is a suspicion that the good government of Spain is encouraging
these acts of barbarity." The letters to Robertson and Sevier,
read between the lines as suggestive reinforcements of Spain's secret
proposals, possess real significance. The letter to Sevier contains
this dexterously expressed sentiment: "His Majesty is very
favorably inclined to give the inhabitants of that region all the
protection that they ask for and, on my part, I shall take very
great pleasure in contributing to it on this occasion and other
occasions."
This
letter, coupled with the confidential proposals of Dr. White, furnished
a convenient opening for correspondence with the Spaniards; and
in July Sevier wrote to Gardoqui
indicating his readiness to accede to their proposals. After secret
conferences with men who had supported him throughout the vicissitudes
of his ill-starred state, Sevier carefully matured his plans. The
remarkable letter of great length which he wrote to Gardoqui on
September 12, 1788, reveals the conspiracy in all its details and
presents in vivid colors the strong separatist sentiment of the
day. Sevier urgently petitions Gardoqui for the loan of a few thousand
pounds, to enable him to "make the most expedient and necessary
preparations for defense"; and offers to repay the loan within
a short time "by sending the products of this region to the
lower ports." Upon the vital matter of "delivering"
the State of Franklin to Spain, he forthrightly says:
"Since
my last of the 18th of July, upon consulting with the principal
men of this country, I have been particularly happy to find that
they are equally disposed and ready as I am to accept your propositions
and guarantees. You may be sure that the pleasing hopes and ideas
which the people of this country hold with regard to the probability
of an alliance with, and commercial concessions from, you are
very ardent, and that we are unanimously determined on that score.
The people of this region have come to realize truly upon what
part of the world and upon which nation their future happiness
and security depend, and they immediately infer that their interest
and prosperity depend entirely upon the protection and liberality
of your government. . . . Being the first from this side of the
Appalachian Mountains to resort in this way to your protection
and liberality, we feel encouraged to entertain the greatest hope
that we shall be granted all reasonable aid by him who is so amply
able to do it, and to give the protection and help that is asked
of him in this petition. You know our delicate situation and the
difficulties in which we are in respect to our mother State which
is making use of every strategem to impede the development and
prosperity of this country . . . . Before I conclude, it may be
necessary to remind you that there will be no more favorable occasion
than the present one to put this plan into execution. North Carolina
has rejected the Constitution and moreover it seems to me that
a considerable time will elapse before she becomes a member of
the Union, if that event ever happens."
Through
Miro, Gardoqui
was simultaneously conducting a similar correspondence with General
James Wilkinson. The object of the Spanish conspiracy, matured as
the result of this correspondence, was to seduce Kentucky from her
allegiance to the United States. Despite the superficial similarity
between the situation of Franklin and Kentucky, it would be doing
Sevier and his adherents a capital injustice to place them in the
category of the corrupt Wilkinson and the malodorous Sebastian.
Moreover, the secessionists of Franklin, as indicated in the above
letter, had the excuse of being left virtually without a country.
On the preceding August 1st, North Carolina had rejected the Constitution
of the United States; and the leaders of Franklin, who were sorely
aggrieved by what they regarded as her indifference and neglect,
now felt themselves more than ever out of the Union and wholly repudiated
by the mother state. Again, Sevier had the embittered feeling resultant
from outlawry. Because of his course in opposing the laws and government
of North Carolina and in the killing of several good citizens, including
the sheriff of Washington County, by his forces at Sinking Creek,
Sevier,
through the action of Governor Johnston of North Carolina, had been
attainted of high treason. Under the heavy burden of this grave
charge, he felt his hold upon Franklin relax. Further, an atrocity
committed in the recent campaign under Sevier's leadership—Kirk's
brutal murder of Corn
Tassel, a noble old Indian, and other chieftains, while under
the protection of a flag of truce—had placed a bar sinister
across the fair fame of this stalwart of the border. Utter desperation
thus prompted Sevier's acceptance of Gardoqui's offer of the protection
of Spain.
John
Sevier's son, James, bore the letter of September 12th to Gardoqui.
By a strangely ironic coincidence, on the very day (October 10,
1788) that Gardoqui wrote to Miro, recommending to the attention
of Spain Dr. White and James Sevier, the emissaries of Franklin,
with their plans and proposals, John Sevier was arrested by Colonel
Tipton at the Widow Brown's in Washington County, on the charge
of high treason. He was handcuffed and borne off, first to Jonesborough
and later to Morganton. But his old friends and former comrades-in-arms,
Charles and Joseph McDowell, gave bond for his appearance at court;
and Morrison, the sheriff, who also had fought at King's
Mountain, knocked the irons from his wrists and released him
on parole. Soon afterward a number of Sevier's devoted friends,
indignant over his arrest, rode across the mountains to Morganton
and silently bore him away, never to be arrested again. In November
an act of pardon and oblivion with respect to Franklin was passed
by the North Carolina Assembly. Although Sevier was forbidden to
hold office under the state, the passage of this act automatically
operated to clear him of the alleged offense of high treason. With
affairs in Franklin taking this turn, it is little wonder that Gardoqui
and Miro
paid no further heed to Sevier's proposal to accept the protection
of Spain. Sevier's continued agitation in behalf of the independence
of Franklin inspired Governor Johnston with the fear that he would
have to be "proceeded against to the last extremity."
But Sevier's opposition finally subsiding, he was pardoned, given
a seat in the North Carolina assembly, and with extraordinary consideration
honored with his former rank of brigadier-general.
When
Dr. White reported to Miro that the leaders of "Frankland"
had eagerly accepted Gardoqui's
conditions for an alliance with Spain, he categorically added: "With
regard to Cumberland district, what I have said of Frankland applies
to it with equal force and truth." James
Robertson and Anthony Bledsoe had but recently availed themselves
of the good offices of Governor Johnston of North Carolina in the
effort to influence Gardoqui to quiet the Creek Indians. The sagacious
and unscrupulous half breed Alexander McGillivray had placed the
Creeks under the protection of Spain in 1784; and shortly afterward
they began to be regularly supplied with ammunition by the Spanish
authorities. At first Spain pursued the policy of secretly encouraging
these Indians to resist the encroachments of the Americans, while
she remained on outwardly friendly terms with the United States.
During the period of the Spanish conspiracy, however, there is reason
to believe that Miro
endeavored to keep the Indians at peace with the borderers, as a
friendly service, intended to pave the way for the establishment
of intimate relations between Spain and the dwellers in the trans-Alleghany.
Yet his efforts cannot have been very effective; for the Cumberland
settlements continued to suffer from the ravages and depredations
of the Creeks, who remained "totally averse to peace, notwithstanding
they have had no cause of offence"; and Robertson and Bledsoe
reported to Governor Caswell (June 12, 1787): "It is certain,
the Chickasaws inform us, that Spanish traders offer a reward for
scalps of the Americans." The Indian atrocities became so frequent
that Robertson
later in the summer headed a party on the famous Coldwater Expedition,
in which he severely chastised the marauding Indians. Aroused by
the loss of a number of chiefs and warriors at the hands of Robertson's
men, and instigated, as was generally believed, by the Spaniards,
the Creeks then prosecuted their attacks with renewed violence against
the Cumberland settlements.
Unprotected
either by the mother state or by the national government, unable
to secure free passage to the Gulf for their products, and sorely
pressed to defend their homes, now seriously endangered by the incessant
attacks of the Creeks, the Cumberland leaders decided to make secret
overtures to McGillivray, as well as to communicate to Miro,
through Dr. White, their favorable inclination toward the proposals
of the one country which promised them protection. In a letter which
McGillivray wrote to Miro (transmitted to Madrid, June 15, 1788)
in regard to the visit of Messrs. Hackett and Ewing, two trusty
messengers sent by Robertson and Bledsoe, he reports that the two
delegates from the district of Cumberland had not only submitted
to him proposals of peace but "had added that they would throw
themselves into the arms of His Majesty as subjects, and that Kentucky
and Cumberland are determined to free themselves from their dependence
on Congress, because that body can not protect either their property,
or favor their commerce, and they therefore believe that they no
longer owe obedience to a power which is incapable of protecting
them." Commenting upon McGillivray's communication, Miro said
in his report to Madrid (June 15, 1788): "I consider as extremely
interesting the intelligence conveyed to McGillivray by the deputies
on the fermentation existing in Kentucky, with regard to a separation
from the Union. Concerning the proposition made to McGillivray by
the inhabitants of Cumberland to become the vassals of His Majesty,
I have refrained from returning any precise answer."
In
his long letter of reply to Robertson and Bledsoe, McGillivray agreed
to make peace between his nation, the Creeks, and the Cumberland
settlers. This letter was most favorably received and given wide
circulation throughout the West. In a most ingratiating reply, offering
McGillivray a fine gun and a lot in Nashville, Robertson throws
out the following broad suggestion, which he obviously wishes McGillivray
to convey to Miro:
"In all probability we cannot long remain in our present state,
and if the British or any commercial nation who may be in possession
of the mouth of the Mississippi would furnish us with trade, and
receive our produce there cannot be a doubt but the people on the
west side of the Appalachian mountains will open their eyes to their
real interest." Robertson actually had the district erected
out of the counties of Davidson, Sumner, and Tennessee given the
name of "Miro" by the Assembly of North Carolina in November,
1788—a significant symbol of the desires of the Cumberland
leaders. In a letter (April 23, 1789), Miro, who had just received
letters from Robertson (January 29th) and Daniel Smith (March 4th)
postmarked "District of Miro," observes: "The bearer,
Fagot, a confidential agent of Gen. Smith, informed me that the
inhabitants of Cumberland, or Miro, would ask North Carolina for
an act of separation the following fall, and that as soon as this
should be obtained other delegates would be sent from Cumberland
to New Orleans, with the object of placing that territory under
the domination of His Majesty. I replied to both in general terms."
Robertson,
Bledsoe, and Smith were successful in keeping secret their correspondence
with McGillivray and Miro;
and few were in the secret of Sevier's effort to deliver the State
of Franklin to Spain. Joseph Martin was less successful in his negotiations;
and a great sensation was created throughout the Southern colonies
when a private letter from Joseph Martin to McGillivray (November
8, 1788) was intercepted. In this letter Martin said: "I must
beg that you write me by the first opportunity in answer to what
I am now going to say to you . . . . I hope to do honor to any part
of the world I settle in, and am determined to leave the United
States, for reasons that I can assign to you when we meet, but durst
not trust it to paper." The general assembly of Georgia referred
the question of the intercepted letter to the governor of North
Carolina (January 24, 1789); and the result was a legislative investigation
into Martin's conduct. Eleven months later, the North Carolina assembly
exonerated him. From the correspondence of Joseph Martin and Patrick
Henry, it would appear that Martin, on Henry's advice, had acted
as a spy upon the Spaniards, in order to discover the views of McGillivray,
to protect the exposed white settlements from the Indians, and to
fathom the designs of the Spaniards against the United States.
The
sensational disclosures of Martin's intercepted letter had no deterrent
effect upon James
Robertson in the attempted execution of his plan for detaching
the Cumberland settlements from North Carolina. History has taken
no account of the fact that Robertson and the inhabitants now deliberately
endeavored to secure an act of separation from North Carolina. In
the event of success, the next move planned by the Cumberland leaders,
as we have already seen, was to send delegates to New Orleans for
the purpose of placing the Cumberland region under the domination
of Spain.
A
hitherto unknown letter, from Robertson to (Miro),
dated Nashville, September 2, 1789, proves that a convention of
the people was actually held—the first overt step looking to
an alliance with Spain. In this letter Robertson says:
"I
must beg your Excellency's permission to take this early opportunity
of thanking you for the honor you did me in writing by Mr. White.
"I
still hope that your Government, and these Settlements, are destined
to be mutually friendly and usefull, the people here are impressed
with the necessity of it.
"We
have just held a Convention; which has agreed that our members
shall insist on being Seperated from North Carolina.
"Unprotected,
we are to be obedient to the new Congress of the United States;
but we cannot but wish for a more interesting Connection.
"The
United States afford us no protection. The district of Miro is
daily plundered and the inhabitants murdered by the Creeks, and
Cherokees, unprovoked.
"For
my own part, I conceive highly of the advantages of your Government."
A
serious obstacle to the execution of the plans of Robertson and
the other leaders of the Cumberland settlements was the prompt action
of North Carolina. In actual conformity with the wishes of the Western
people, as set forth in the petition of Robertson and Hayes, their
representatives, made two years earlier, the legislature of North
Carolina in December passed the second act of cession, by which
the Western territory of North Carolina was ceded to the United
States. Instead of securing an act of separation from North Carolina
as the preparatory step to forming what Robertson calls "a
more interesting connection" with Spain, Robertson and his
associates now found themselves and the transmontane region which
they represented flung bodily into the arms of the United States.
Despite the unequivocal offer of the calculating and desperate Sevier
to "deliver" Franklin to Spain, and the ingenious efforts
of Robertson and his associates to place the Cumberland region under
the domination of Spain, the Spanish court by its temporizing policy
of evasion and indecision definitely relinquished the ready opportunities
thereby afforded, of utilizing the powerful separatist tendencies
of Tennessee for the purpose of adding the empire upon the Western
waters to the Spanish domain in America.
The
year 1790 marks the end of an era the heroic age of the pioneers
of the Old Southwest. Following the acceptance of North Carolina's
deed of cession of her Western lands to the Union (April 2, 1790)
the Southwest Territory was erected on May 26th; and William Blount,
a North Carolina gentleman of eminence and distinction, was appointed
on June 8th to the post of governor of the territory. Two years
later (June 1, 1792) Kentucky was admitted into the Union.
It
is a remarkable and inspiring circumstance, in testimony of the
martial instincts and unwavering loyalty of the transmontane people,
that the two men to whom the Western country in great measure owed
its preservation, the inciting and flaming spirits of the King's
Mountain campaign, were the unopposed first choice of the people
as leaders in the trying experiment of Statehood—John
Sevier of Tennessee and Isaac
Shelby of Kentucky. Had Franklin possessed the patient will
of Kentucky, she might well have preceded that region into the Union.
It was not, however, until June 1, 1796, that Tennessee, after a
romantic and arduous struggle, finally passed through the wide-flung
portals into the domain of national statehood.
- End
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