Part 236

TENNESSEE: Start--------

TENNESSEE: The aboriginal inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SHAWANESE, and CHEROKEES.

TENNESSEE: A. D. 1629. Embraced in the Carolina grant to Sir Robert Heath.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1629.

TENNESSEE: A. D. 1663. Embraced in the Carolina grant to Monk, Shaftesbury and others.

See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1663-1670.

TENNESSEE: A. D. 1748. First English exploration from Virginia.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754.

TENNESSEE: A. D. 1768. The Treaty with the Six Nations at Fort Stanwix. Pretended cession of country south of the Ohio.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765-1768.

TENNESSEE: A. D. 1769-1772. The first settlers in the eastern valley. The Watauga commonwealth and its constitution.

"Soon after the successful ending of the last colonial struggle with France, and the conquest of Canada, the British king issued a proclamation forbidding the English colonists from trespassing on Indian grounds, or moving west of the mountains.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES: A. D. 1763.

But in 1768, at the treaty of Fort Stanwix, the Six Nations agreed to surrender to the English all the lands lying between the Ohio and the Tennessee.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765-1768.

This treaty was at once seized upon by the backwoodsmen as offering an excuse for settling beyond the mountains. However, the Iroquois had ceded lands to which they had no more right than a score or more other Indian tribes. … The great hunting-grounds between the Ohio and the Tennessee formed a debatable land, claimed by every tribe that could hold its own against its rivals. The eastern part of what is now Tennessee consists of a great hill-strewn, forest-clad valley, running from northeast to southwest, bounded on one side by the Cumberland, and on the other by the Great Smoky and Unaka Mountains; the latter separating it from North Carolina. In this valley arise and end the Clinch, the Holston, the Watauga, the Nolichucky, the French Broad, and the other streams, whose combined volume makes the Tennessee River. The upper end of the valley lies in southwestern Virginia, the headwaters of some of the rivers being well within that State; and though the province was really part of North Carolina, it was separated therefrom by high mountain chains, while from Virginia it was easy to follow the watercourses down the valley. Thus, as elsewhere among the mountains forming the western frontier, the first movements of population went parallel with, rather than across, the ranges. {3095} As in western Virginia the first settlers came, for the most part, from Pennsylvania, so, in turn, in what was then western North Carolina, and is now eastern Tennessee, the first settlers came mainly from Virginia, and, indeed, in great part, from this same Pennsylvanian stock. Of course, in each case there was also a very considerable movement directly westward. They were a sturdy race, enterprising and intelligent, fond of the strong excitement inherent in the adventurous frontier life. Their untamed and turbulent passions, and the lawless freedom of their lives, made them a population very productive of wild, headstrong characters; yet, as a whole, they were a God-fearing race, as was but natural in those who sprang from the loins of the Irish Calvinists. Their preachers, all Presbyterians, followed close behind the first settlers and shared their toil and dangers. … In 1769, the year that Boon first went to Kentucky, the first permanent settlers came to the banks of the Watauga, the settlement being merely an enlargement of the Virginia settlement, which had for a short time existed on the head-waters of the Holston, especially near Wolf Hills. At first the settlers thought they were still in the domain of Virginia, for at that time the line marking her southern boundary had not been run so far west. … But in 1771, one of the new-comers, who was a practical surveyor, ran out the Virginia boundary line some distance to the westward, and discovered that the Watauga settlement came within the limits of North Carolina. Hitherto the settlers had supposed that they themselves were governed by the Virginian law, and that their rights as against the Indians were guaranteed by the Virginian government; but this discovery threw them back upon their own resources. They suddenly found themselves obliged to organize a civil government. … About the time that the Watauga commonwealth was founded; the troubles in North Carolina came to a head. Open war ensued between the adherents of the royal governor, Tryon, on the one hand, and the Regulators, as the insurgents styled themselves, on the other, the struggle ending with the overthrow of the Regulators at the battle of Alamance.

See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1766-1771.

As a consequence of these troubles, many people from the back counties of North Carolina crossed the mountains, and took up their abode among the pioneers on the Watauga and upper Holston; the beautiful valley of the Nolichucky soon receiving its share of this stream of immigration. Among the first comers were many members of the class of desperate adventurers always to be found hanging round the outskirts of frontier civilization. … But the bulk of the settlers were men of sterling worth; fit to be the pioneer fathers of a mighty and beautiful state. … Such were the settlers of the Watauga, the founders of the commonwealth that grew into the State of Tennessee, who early in 1772 decided that they must form some kind of government that would put down wrong-doing and work equity between man and man. Two of their number already towered head and shoulders above the rest in importance and merit especial mention; for they were destined for the next thirty years to play the chief parts in the history of that portion of the Southwest which largely through their own efforts became the State of Tennessee. These two men, neither of them yet thirty years of age, were John Sevier and James Robertson. … With their characteristic capacity for combination, so striking as existing together with the equally characteristic capacity for individual self-help, the settlers determined to organize a government of their own. They promptly put their, resolution into effect early in the spring of 1772, Robertson being apparently the leader in the movement. They decided to adopt written articles of agreement, by which their conduct should be governed; and these were known as the Articles of the Watauga Association. They formed a written constitution, the first ever adopted west of the mountains, or by a community composed of American-born freemen. It is this fact of the early independence and self-government of the settlers along the head-waters of the Tennessee that gives to their history its peculiar importance. They were the first men of American birth to establish a free and independent community on the continent. … The first step taken by the Watauga settlers, when they had determined to organize, was to meet in general convention, holding a kind of folk-thing, akin to the New England town-meeting. They then elected a representative assembly, a small parliament or 'witanagemot,' which met at Robertson's station. Apparently the freemen of each little fort or palisaded village, each block-house that was the centre of a group of detached cabins and clearings, sent a member to this first frontier legislature. It consisted of thirteen representatives, who proceeded to elect from their number five—among them Sevier and Robertson—to form a committee or court, which should carry on the actual business of government, and should exercise both judicial and executive functions. This court had a clerk and a sheriff, or executive officer, who respectively recorded and enforced their decrees. … In fact, the dwellers, in this little outlying frontier commonwealth, exercised the rights of full statehood for a number of years; establishing in true American style a purely democratic government with representative institutions."

_T. Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, volume 1, chapter 7._

ALSO IN: _E. Kirke (pseudonym J. R. Gilmore), The Rear-Guard of the Revolution, chapters 2-6._

_J. Phelan, History of Tennessee, chapters 1-3._

TENNESSEE: A. D. 1776-1784. Annexation to North Carolina. Cession by that state to the Congress of the Confederation. Consequent revolt. Repeal of the act of cession.

"The Watauga people had hopes, when the articles of association were adopted, of being able eventually to form an independent government, governed as the older colonies were governed, by royal governors. When the disagreements between the colonies and the mother country arose, they modified their views to the new order of things, and regarded themselves as a distinct though as yet inchoate state. But their weakness … rendered the protection of some more powerful state necessary for their welfare. … They petitioned North Carolina for annexation in 1776. Their petition was granted. … The provincial congress of North Carolina met at Halifax in November, 1776, and [Robertson, Sevier and two others] were delegates from Washington District, Watauga settlement. … {3096} After the annexation of the Washington District the old form of government was allowed to stand until the spring of 1777. … In November of this year, 1777, the District of Washington became Washington County. … From 1777 until the disturbances of eight years later, the history of Tennessee was a part of the history of North Carolina. … The part played by the inhabitants of Tennessee in the war for independence was active, and in one instance [at King's Mountain] decisive. Their operations were chiefly of a desultory, guerrilla kind, under the leadership of Sevier … and Shelby." Sevier was also the leader in wars with the Indians, which were carried on with unsparing fierceness on both sides. "In the April session of 1784, the General Assembly of North Carolina, in accordance with the recommendation of Congress itself, as well as with the dictates of a far-seeing and enlightened statesmanship, imitated the example of Virginia and New York, and ceded to the United States all the territory which is now the State of Tennessee.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D.1781-1786.

This of course included all the settlements. The condition of the cession was its acceptance by Congress within two years. Until Congress should have accepted the ceded territory, the jurisdiction of North Carolina over it was to remain in every respect the same as heretofore. … When the question of cession was first broached, it was accepted by the four representatives of the western counties at Hillsboro, as well as by those who proposed it, as the natural and legitimate solution of a complex problem. No one apparently dreamed of opposition on the part of the settlers themselves. … There is no reason to think that the Watauga people had any objection to the cession. … The objection was against the manner of the cession and its conditions. … The main cause of complaint was that North Carolina had left them without any form of government for two years. … A storm of indignation swept through the entire settlement. … The people regarded themselves without government, and, true to the traditions of their race, they sought the solution of the difficulty in their own resources. … It is one of the noteworthy facts in the history of institutions that the possessors of English tradition always begin with the first primal germ of local self-government at hand, be it court leet, court of quarter sessions, township, county, school district, or military company, and build upward. The Watauga people had nothing so convenient as the militia companies, and they began with them as representing a more minutely varied constituency than the county court. Each company elected two representatives, and the representatives so elected in each county formed themselves into a committee, and the three committees of Washington, Sullivan, and Greene counties met as a kind of impromptu or temporary legislature, and decided to call a general convention to be elected by the people of the different counties. This convention met on the 23d of August, 1784, at Jonesboro. John Sevier was elected president, and Landon Carter secretary. … It is supposed that the convention which met at Jonesboro adopted the resolution to form a 'separate and distinct State, independent of the State of North Carolina.' … Provision was made for the calling of a future convention in which representation was to be according to companies. … The meeting adjourned, having fairly inaugurated the contest with North Carolina, which still claimed jurisdiction." Soon afterward the legislature of North Carolina repealed the act of cession, and "for a time it was supposed that this would terminate the agitation in favor of a new State."

_J. Phelan, History of Tennessee, chapters 5-10._

ALSO IN: _J. R. Gilmore, John Sevier as a Commonwealth Builder, chapter 2._

_J. G. M. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee, chapter 3._

TENNESSEE: A. D. 1780. The Battle of King's Mountain.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780-1781.

TENNESSEE: A. D. 1785. The organization of the State of Franklin.

"Toward the close of May [1785] the western lands being again under discussion [in Congress], a resolution was carried urging North Carolina to reconsider her act of the previous November, and once more cede to Congress her possessions beyond the mountains. Had the request been granted, there can be no doubt, the measure would have speedily brought peace and quiet to that distracted region. But North Carolina was too intent on bringing her rebellious subjects to terms to think for a moment of bestowing them with their lands and goods on Congress. Indeed, when the news of the request was carried into the district some months later, the malcontents expressed much surprise. They could not, they said, understand why Congress should apply to North Carolina; North Carolina had nothing to do with them. The parent State had, by her act of 1784, given them away. Congress did not take them under its protection. They belonged, therefore, to nobody, and while in this condition had called a convention, had framed a constitution, had formed a new State, had chosen for it a name, and elected a Legislature which was actually in session at the time the act of the 23d of May was passed. … Much of what they stated was strictly true. The delegates to the second convention had assembled early in 1785. These had given the State the name of Franklin, and had drawn up a constitution which they submitted to the people. It was expected that the men of the district would consider it carefully, and select delegates to a third convention, which should have full power to ratify or reject. The place fixed upon for the meeting of the convention was Greenville. But as there was then no printing-press nearer than Charleston or Richmond, and as much time must elapse before the constitution could become known to all, the delegates were not to convene till the 14th of November. Meanwhile the Legislature was to organize. Elections were held without delay; members were chosen after the manner in which the settlers had long been accustomed to elect representatives to the Assembly of the parent State, and these, meeting at Jonesboro, conducted their business with so much dispatch that on the last day of March they adjourned. Many acts were passed by them. But one alone excited general comment, and was the cause of unbounded merriment across the mountains. A list of articles at that time scarce to be met with in the State of Franklin would be a long one. But there would be no article in the list less plentiful than money. … When, therefore, the Legislature came to determine what should be the legal currency of the State, it most wisely contented itself with fixing the value of such articles as had, from time immemorial, been used as money. {3097} One pound of sugar, the law said, should pass for a shilling-piece; the skin of a raccoon or a fox for a shilling and threepence. A gallon of rye whiskey, it was thought, was worth twice that sum, while a gallon of peach-brandy or a yard of good nine hundred flax linen was each to pass for a three-shilling piece. Some difficulty was met with in selecting articles that could be easily carried from place to place and expressive of large values. It was, however, finally determined that a clean beaver-skin, an otter or a deer-skin, should each of them be the representative of six shillings. In this kind of money, the law further prescribed, the salary of every officer of the State, from the Governor down to the hangman, was to be paid. When this act became known in the East the wits were greatly amused. … In the belief that the new money could not be counterfeited they were much mistaken. Many bundles of what seemed to be otter-skins were soon passing about, which, on being opened, were found to be skins of raccoons with tails of otters sewed to them. … The name of the State has often been asserted to be Frankland, the land of the Franks, or Freemen. … But letters are extant from high officials of the State to Benjamin Franklin declaring that it was named after him."

_J. B. McMaster, History of the People of the United States, volume 1, chapter 3, with foot-note._

ALSO IN: _J. G. M. Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee, chapter 4._

TENNESSEE: A. D. 1785-1796. The troubled history and the fall of the state of Franklin. The rise of the state of Tennessee.

On receiving news of the organization of the independent state of Franklin, Governor Martin, of North Carolina, issued a proclamation which was skilfully addressed to the cooler judgment of the mountaineers and which "was not without its effect." But, although the adherents of North Carolina "gradually gained ground in the new commonwealth, a majority still clung to Sevier, and refused to recognize any government but the one they themselves had organized. In this opposition of parties, disorders sprang up which presently degenerated into lawlessness. Both governments claimed jurisdiction, and both sought to exercise it. The consequence was that both became inefficient. Party quarrels ensued; old friends became enemies; Tipton and his followers openly supported the claims of North Carolina; Sevier sought to maintain his authority as the executive officer of Franklin. This antagonistic spirit led to the commission of various outrages. … But in the midst of these inglorious quarrels, Governor Sevier did not neglect to defend from Indian aggressions the state over which he had been called to preside. … He was far less successful, however, in giving peace to the distracted state of Franklin. The continuance of intestine dissensions, and the nice balance of parties which took place in 1787, induced the people to refuse to pay taxes either to North Carolina or to the local government, until the supremacy of one or the other should be more generally acknowledged. In this state of affairs, with his government tottering to its downfall, Sevier earnestly appealed to North Carolina for a ratification of the independence of the state of Franklin, and to Franklin himself, and the governors of Georgia and Virginia, for counsel and assistance. Disappointed on all sides, he finally rested for support upon his immediate friends, conscious of the rectitude of his own intentions. … But the people were already weary of a feud which threatened, at every fresh outbreak, to end in bloodshed. In 1787 the last legislature of the state of Franklin held its session at Greenville. … The conciliatory measures of North Carolina presently disarmed the malecontents of all further arguments for opposing the reunion; and in February, 1788, the state of Franklin ceased to exist." Fierce conflicts between Sevier and Tipton and their hotter partisans still continued for some time; until, in October, Sevier was arrested for high treason and imprisoned at Morgantown. He escaped soon after, through the aid of his sons, was elected to the North Carolina senate, and was permitted to qualify for the seat on renewing his oath of allegiance. "His services were remembered and his faults forgotten." Meantime, settlements on the Cumberland, founded in 1779 by James Robertson, had prospered and grown strong, and Nashville, the chief among them, assumed its name in 1784, "in commemoration of the patriotic services of Colonel Francis Nash," of North Carolina, who fell in the battle of Germantown. In 1790, after ratifying the Federal Constitution, North Carolina, re-enacted the cession of her western territory, coinciding with the present state of Tennessee, to the United States, stipulating "that no regulation made or to be made by Congress shall tend to the emancipation of slaves." The "Territory southwest of the Ohio" was then organized, with William Blount for governor. Six years later (January, 1796), the population of the Territory having been ascertained by a census to be 67,000 free white inhabitants and 10,000 slaves, a constitution was adopted, the State of Tennessee was formed, with John Sevier for Governor, and, after some opposition in Congress, it was formally admitted to its place and rank as one of the United States of America. Its first Representative in the House was Andrew Jackson.

_W. H. Carpenter, History of Tennessee, chapters 13-17._

ALSO IN: _J. R. Gilmore, John Sevier as a Commonwealth-Builder, chapters 4-12._

TENNESSEE: A. D. 1785-1800. The question of the Free Navigation of the Mississippi. Discontent of the settlers and intrigues among them.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1785-1800.

TENNESSEE: A. D. 1813-1814. The Creek War.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1813-1814 (AUGUST-APRIL).

TENNESSEE: A. D. 1861 (JANUARY-MAY). The mode in which the state was dragged into Rebellion.

"The Legislature of Tennessee met on the 6th of January. On the 12th, a bill for the calling of a state convention [with the object of following the lead, in secession, which South Carolina had taken on the 20th of December was passed.]

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).

{3098}