Conquest of the Old Southwest - Chapters XV-XVII



CHAPTER XV.
TRANSYLVANIA--A WILDERNESS COMMONWEALTH

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." 



CHAPTER XVI.
THE REPULSE OF THE RED MEN

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.



CHAPTER XVII.
THE COLONIZATION OF THE CUMBERLAND

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 to-day, 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.