state of frankling documentary interview with dr. john...
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STATE OF FRANKLING DOCUMENTARY
Interview with Dr. John Finger
Professor Emeritus, University of Tennessee
October 27, 2007
What drew these European settlers to the Watauga area?
I think the primary reason all the settlers came into Watauga, and some of the adjoining
areas, was the promise of acquiring land, and getting land either very cheaply or for no
price at all. I’ve always argued that land is the foremost incentive for American
development on the part of ordinary people, and the elites too. The acquisition of land
meant all kinds of economic gain that would be possible. So it was a natural progression
too, down from the Valley of Virginia. The Valley of Virginia had begun to fill up in the
1730s, maybe a little before that even. And because it was sort of a broad, natural
highway, that valley leading right into Upper East Tennessee, it was natural most people
would just continue on, regardless of any Indian boundaries, or any restrictions the
British Crown might try to impose upon them.
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Is there anything unique about that Watauga area or was it just the next stopping-
off spot?
I don’t think there was anything unique about the Watauga area. I think it was a very
attractive, natural area for agriculture, plenty of good water around there, enough level
ground in the valley’s around there, particularly around Sycamore Shoals in that area.
And I think it was simply a matter of some of the good land further up the valley and the
present good land in Southwestern Virginia having been taken already. And so, it was a
natural spillover.
Describe the backgrounds of the early settlers. There were a lot of different people
from a lot of different places there, if we could talk about that a bit.
It’s amazing how varied the backgrounds of these people was. Of course most of us are
familiar with the Scots-Irish. There are Scots-Irish associations throughout the United
States touting all the contributions that the Scots-Irish, and other Celtic cultures, made to
the early United States. And certainly the Scots-Irish were important to the early
settlement of Upper East Tennessee. But I view it really as kind of a mosaic of ethnic
groups. There were a lot of English that came in, particularly in the early years. In fact,
some historians say that the English, in the first five or ten years of the settlement of
Watauga and the Nolichucky area, probably constituted nearly sixty or seventy percent of
this early population. But there were other ethnic groups represented as well. John Sevier,
for example, was descended from French Huguenots. The Shelbys were descended from
Welsh. You even had some Germans at this early period, although they came in larger
numbers later on. So it really was, I think, a mosaic of all these different European
groups. One thing they seemed to have in common was that they were Western European.
And of course they had…most of these people that were coming in were not direct
immigrants from Europe, but their families had been in the American Colonies for at
least one or two generations in general. Very few came directly into the backcountry, at
least in the Upper East Tennessee area.
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Some of these people were obviously farmers, some of them hunters. There were a
number of things they were pursuing. Address that.
Besides the diversity and the ethnic background, a lot of these people were of differing
economic circumstances. You had a number of elites. Not elites like George Washington,
or people ranking that high, but what I would call, sort of, the middle rung of landed
elites who had the experience of owning property in one of the other colonies: Virginia,
Pennsylvania, South Carolina, or, maybe, North Carolina. And so, they were people of
some means, financial means, when they came into Upper East Tennessee. I’m not
suggesting they were extraordinary wealthy, or anything like that.
Even before the settlers came in, you had other groups like long hunters who were
considerably of lower economic status, who came into the area, not so much for the land,
but to hunt the animals, particularly the deer. And, they were part of a thriving
international trade in deerskins. I think one of their main contributions was, even though
they might not have been interested at that time in settling down, they did have a very
good eye for the land. So, they often would go back home, Daniel Boone would be a
good example of this, they would go back home to their friends and family in North
Carolina or Virginia, or wherever, and say, “Oh, the land down there by the Watauga is
really beautiful, it’s ripe for development, and some of you might consider pulling up
stakes and moving in that direction.” So, you had individuals such as this.
I think all too often, there’s a tendency in American history, when talking about the
frontier, especially, let’s say the frontier in Upper East Tennessee, there’s a tendency to
sort of ignore the fact that you had a lot of women and children coming along. Most of
these people were family men and women, and the women played a very important role
in the development of this society, as did the men, and the kids, as they were growing up,
got some sense of the kind of leadership that it took on the frontier in order to provide
some constructive leadership when they become adults themselves.
So there was a great economic diversity among these people. There was an ethnic
diversity, and then, of course, you had the gender diversity, and there were a fair number
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of blacks who came in as slaves with some of these individuals; although, the slave
holding institution was not anything like what would develop later on when you had
commercial agriculture and the planting of cotton and tobacco in the middle part of the
state.
These pioneers who moved in to the Watauga area, how were they challenging the
British authority?
One of the most interesting things about these people, to me, is that, yes, they came here
for land, that was the overwhelming incentive of almost all of these people, but they
overlooked or ignored the fact that this land was not legally available to them, because
immediately following the conclusion of the French and Indian war in 1763, the British
Government had passed the Proclamation of 1763 which, in effect, drew a line down the
crest of the Appalachian mountains, and said all white settlers need to be east of that line,
and to the west of that line, those lands will remain in the hands of Indians. And this was
because the British government recognized that a lot of the problems that had developed
in the backcountry had developed because of antagonisms between land hungry whites
and the established tribes that happened to be living there. So, they passed the
Proclamation of 1763 with, I think from the British point of view, very good intentions,
but people at all economic levels in the back country made it very clear that they were not
going to pay any attention to that, or, if they did, they would resort to some kind of
subterfuge to get around that fact that this area technically was closed to them.
One of the problems was that there were a number of whites living in the backcountry,
not the backcountry of Tennessee, but Virginia, and some other areas before the
Proclamation of 1763 had been passed. And, so, understandably, they felt like this was
working to their disadvantage and objected to being excluded, or expected to leave the
land that they had worked so hard on. The Crown, after 1763, did make some adjustments
in the proclamation line to accommodate some of these people, but then they found very
quickly, to their dismay, that not only were they accommodating the few people who had
already lived over the line, but that whole bunch of other people were coming in, as well,
who had never been there before and who simply ignored these lines. And, that was
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certainly the case with the people who came in to the Watauga area, because it didn’t take
a surveyor to know from the outset that they were well beyond the established line. But,
they weren’t any different from a number of other settlers a century to a century and a
half before them.
Again, I think it was simply the allure of getting land. Land was the primary means for
economic gain, and it’s through economic status that you gain social status, too. So, you
can talk about the people over in London, whether it’s the King or Parliament, somebody
else, coming up with all of these grand proclamations, but it’s not going to make any
difference when you got people over hear who are several thousand miles away from
England itself, who are determined to acquire their own property. There simply were not
enough British officials in North America to really enforce the proclamation. To me, it
has always been interesting that many of the relatively few British officials that were over
here, which should have been enforcing the law, who were sworn to enforce the law,
were themselves breaking the Proclamation of 1763. They were some of the largest
speculators in the American colonies. Lord Dunmore, the Royal Governor of Virginia,
was one of the foremost speculators in what became Kentucky. And so, if people like that
are going to ignore the Proclamation, then it’s understandable why ordinary people would
feel free to do that too.
Let’s explore the subterfuge that some of them were sneaking around.
The ways that people could get around the Proclamation of 1763 were so numerous that it
sort of staggers the imagination. Anyone with imagination could come up with some sort
of rationale for avoiding the impact of that Proclamation. For example, the people who
came down in to Watauga, when they ran into some flack from some British officials,
came up with the great idea of leasing their land from the Indians, because the
Proclamation specifically said that you were not allowed to purchase land from the
Indians. So, immediately they met with the local Indians, those who would be compliant,
and worked out a deal for a 10 year period, they could, for a nominal sum, “lease their
lands.” And, the local British officials knew that that was a subterfuge but that there
really wasn’t anything they could do at that time about it.
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Another way of skirting these regulations was when you had the periodic treaty
negotiations to adjust the Proclamation line, a lot of the surveyors were very
unscrupulous, or let’s say they lost some of their professional abilities as surveyors when
they ran these lines. And, perhaps foremost amongst these surveyors was the famous
John Donelson, who later became a brother-in-law of Andrew Jackson, and was part of
the Donelson family in the early history of Nashville. He ran a survey line after the
Treaty of Lockhaber and was off target for hundreds and hundreds of miles. And, there’s
no way that could have been an accident. Later, he said that the Indians they had with
them at the time gave them permission to violate, actually, what their orders were, and
run this line in such a way that it would accommodate some of the settlers who otherwise
would have been over the line. So, wherever you have a person of some imagination, he
or she is going to figure a way to get around this sort of thing.
Describe the Watauga Association. It was essentially North America’s first fully
functioning independent government? Discuss that a little bit.
One of the first things that the people of Watauga did, even before they actually worked
out the lease agreement with the Cherokees, was to organize themselves as a group in an
effort to provide some sort of order in their community, and to lay down some guidelines
for behavior there. And so, they simply got together as a group, which was in a fairly
long tradition of American political gatherings, even up to that time. They came up with
an association, which consisted of several elected officials, who basically would, with the
support of the community, govern that area. Very loosely govern the area. I think the
foremost reason the association was founded was to give outsiders some impression that
this was a real civil society that they were organizing there; that they weren’t just a bunch
of lawless individuals who were crossing a line and appropriating Indian lands on their
own.
But, the real reason behind the association, I think, was to come up with some organized
systems whereby the lands that each person chose for himself or his family, could be
acknowledged and written down in deed form, even though at that time, they were only
“leasing the lands.” [I say that] with quotation marks around it, because all of them
intended from the outset, that these lands would be theirs.
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So, I view it, basically, as a land holders’ association, which also performed the normal,
legal routine that you would expect in any community…would provide marriage licenses,
for example, would collect money from people in order to help sustain the minimal costs
of running the association. Coming up with a constitution, I guess that idea goes back to
the Mayflower Compact of 1620, when the pilgrims landed at Plymouth. Tried to
regularize their workings as a society, and also trying to persuade outsiders, particularly
officials, that they were law-abiding individuals.
It’s very interesting in their Articles of Agreement…one of the things that they said in
effect is, we don’t want any deadbeats and debtors here who are trying to escape what
they owe society back in the regular colonies. We are all upright individuals. So, it is as
some people claim, the first of these associations, at least west of the Appalachian
Mountains. Again, you could view the Mayflower Compact as the first of these. You had
earlier, some regulator associations in both South Carolina and North Carolina, which
were not very successful. But, west of the mountains, for certain, the Watauga
Association was the first that was organized and it was surprisingly effective for the years
it was in existence.
Could you kind of compress that and tell us that the Watauga Association was in a
nutshell?
Ok, the Watauga Association was basically an organization set up by the early migrants
into the Watauga valley. And they realized they needed some system of government.
They needed some system whereby they could register their land claims, and so they did
it basically themselves, and they came up with a very rough constitution, which,
unfortunately, has not been preserved to this day. So we can only infer about certain
things about the way it was set up. But, clearly to take care of the land claims and basic
law and order were the major objectives.
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Discuss a little bit about how the Wataugans and the Cherokee came to terms
allowing the Wataugans to settle the area. You’ve touched on that, but let’s take it a
nutshell.
The main problem, of course, for the Wataugans, besides being beyond the Proclamation
line, was that it was likely to cause problems with the Indians, at least with some of the
Cherokee. And so, if you’ve got a problem, and if you don’t want to go to war against the
Cherokee, obviously, you’ve got to work out some kind of agreement. And the first thing
to do when you want to make an agreement with an Indian, whether he’s Cherokee or
Apaches or Comanche or whatever, is you find a compliant Indian. And, they had enough
knowledge of some of the local Cherokee chiefs to seek out those individuals they
thought might be most willing to concede their right to continue living in the Watauga
region.
And so they picked these relatively few chiefs and indicated to them that they would
offer them some incentives, they were, in effect, bribed, and then they promised that the
Indians would receive so many of thousands of dollars or pounds in trading goods, or
whatever. And they promised to that it would be a limited lease, for 10 years. But,
obviously, if a person’s going to put in 10 years of labor on a piece of property, they are
not going to be interested in giving it up at the end of 10 years. So, what they were doing,
basically, was buying time and giving a pretense of law to their acquisition of this land.
We can’t buy it, but hey, what about a lease?
How would you describe the relationship between the settlers and the Indians?
Were they amicable? Did they interact everyday? What kind of relationship did
they have?
The relations between the settlers and the Indians in the early years were reasonably
amicable. There were a number of Indians who were unhappy about the lease to begin
with, but they weren’t going to press the issue too much because the number of people
living in Watauga, and then further south along the Nolichucky [River], the number was
not too great. But, they became more and more uneasy as more and more individuals,
white settlers, poured into this region. And a lot of the Indians pointed out, and correctly,
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“hey, uh, when we made this deal, and most of us weren’t even a part of this deal, the
assumption was that it applied only to those of you who were there at that time.” Not that
the population was going to continue to increase. And, of course, the more people you
have living in that area, the less game you are going to have to hunt in that area, either for
whites or for Indians, and the more objections Indians had to it.
As recently as 1761, just basically ten years before the Watauga Association, the
Cherokee had been at war with the backcountry people of South Carolina, North Carolina
and Virginia. So the Wataugans were always aware that there was potential trouble here.
And, the British agents who had authority over the Indians, really the liaison between the
Cherokee and the British Crown, had warned the Wataugans and others beyond Watauga,
that they were over the boundary line, and that regardless what the Indians may have said
about this subterfuge about leasing lands, it was still in violation of British law. So, I
think the Wataugans knew instinctively and rationally, as well, that at some point there
was going to be a showdown over the issue of the land and legality, and the expanding
white population that sometimes was not too careful in how it dealt with the Indians.
There were occasional killings on both sides. And on those occasions when a white, for
some unknown reason, or no reason at all, killed a Cherokee, somebody like James
Robertson, for example, who represented the Watauga, would have to go all the way
down to Choate1 to meet with the Indians there and say, “Gee, we’re really sorry that this
happened. We’ll try to work out some kind of settlement. This does not represent the
feelings or the activity of most white settlers here, and we want to maintain harmony with
you the best we can.”
And again, they would usually work hardest at convincing Indian leaders they already
knew were favorably disposed toward them. To me, one of the interesting consequences
is to all of this, is that eventually this contributed to a schism amongst the Cherokee
themselves. The Cherokee knew very well which of their leaders were basically signing
1The Cherokee capital located in East Tennessee. This area is now underwater and would have been near present day Fort Loudon.
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on with the whites, and which of their leaders were standing up for retention of their
lands. And so, this division amongst the Cherokee themselves, of course, became most
pronounced during the American Revolution.
You mentioned Robertson going down to placate the Cherokee and so forth. At this
early point, what was John Sevier’s place in all these activities, and what is it that
kind of thrust him into a leadership role?
John Sevier is a fascinating individual and, of course, he figures large in the history of the
Watauga, indeed of all of East Tennessee, and the new state of Tennessee, much later, as
well.
To me, it’s interesting that we’re not even sure when he came down to Tennessee. We
know that he and his father visited the north of Holston settlements sometime around
1770. We know that, at one time or another, in the early 1770 and 1772, he was among
the people on the Watauga River, although, apparently, he had not yet settled there. It
appears that he continued to retain some of his land holdings in Virginia, while he was
sort of figuring out the situation in Upper East Tennessee.
He was a very young man whenever he got here. He was born in 1745, and, so, if you
figure he got here in 1770, he was only 25 years old – [in] 1772, 27 years old. Frankly, at
the outset, he did not have the clout that some of the other people did. John Carter, for
example, James Robertson, Evan Shelby, and there were several others who were far
more prominent than Sevier in these early years. But, he proved himself to be a very able
person. He had a winning personality. I mean he had Politician’s personality. I don’t
know if you would consider that a winning personality, or not, is another matter. But he
instinctively related well to people. He had a sense of humor. He had actually served for a
time in the militia up in Virginia, even though he had been very young. The French and
Indian War had just concluded at the time that he turned eighteen. He was willing to do
whatever he needed to do to be of assistance in this new community in Watauga. His
name is recorded as a witness to some of the dealings with the Watauga leaders and the
Cherokee in the early days. Between 1772-1776, when the Revolutionary War really
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came to Tennessee, he gained more and more power as a leader. It’s not that he usurped
power or anything like that. He was already something of a leader. He was a Lieutenant
in the militia there in Watauga at the time they came under Indian attack in 1776.
His leadership continued in that he was “one of them.” He had the same aspirations that
they did. He was a bit more social than a lot of them. He could tell a good tale. He could
throw a good party. He was fearless when it came to fighting the Indians. Even before he
became renowned as an Indian fighter, in the later parts of the Revolution and afterwards,
he was already recognized as being one of their military leaders. He gained prominence
very, very quickly.
Do you have any thoughts as to what motivated him?
As to Sevier’s motivations for coming down to Watauga, I think he was most like
everybody else. I think he was looking for the main chance, which in those days, and in
that area, meant getting land, good arable land. He had been very successful in Virginia.
And for some reason or other, maybe it was also some element of adventure, a desire to
see some place new, but I think it was the attractiveness of the land that confirmed his
decision to remain in the Watauga area, and then later in the Nolichucky area as well.
What drove John Sevier to become such a renowned Indian fighter?
Sevier today, and even in his day when he was a mature adult, was renowned as an Indian
fighter, but it wasn’t like today when we have a certain ambition, like to go to college, or
to become a lawyer or a CPA, he didn’t decide “Hey, I wanna [sic] become a great Indian
fighter.” As with most of the people living in that area, he became an Indian fighter out of
necessity. And because he lived on the frontier, because he lived there illegally, he was
almost inevitably going to be involved in conflict. He was perfectly prepared for that. He
was willing to resort to force, as were most of the other men that lived in that area and in
those circumstances.
And I think it was simply the fact that his leadership skills, his abilities in convincing
others to follow him, those skills, in turn, made him be in the forefront of the attacks and
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the battles they had with Indians. Of course every time they won, they were going to be
looking at their commanding officer. As long as you keep winning battles as a
commanding officer, your renown is going to continue to grow. A lot of people, in some
years after Sevier, have counted up all of the encounters, military encounters he had with
the Cherokee Indians, and I think they say thirty-five or thirty-six, or something like that.
The number doesn’t really matter. It’s that he had a number of engagements, military
engagements with the Cherokee, and he came out on top in all of them. If you are a
frontiersman and you got a family and land that you want to protect, and you want to
protect your family and livelihood as well, then you are going to want somebody who can
represent you in a larger group, maybe go to the North Carolina capital and talk on your
behalf. There’s no one who is going to be better at doing that than John Sevier.
He was a settler of the Watauga region that was known as North Carolina. How did
he happen to have this commission as a Lieutenant in the Virginia military?
That was one of the questions I was sure I could handle. I did look up something about it,
and Carl Driver who did one of the early biographies of John Sevier, says it appears that
he did have a commission at one time in the Virginia militia, which would be
understandable, [as] he lived in Virginia and was, in fact, the founder of the town of New
Market, and, as such, he would have had a leadership role – maybe not as a Colonel but
as a Lieutenant in a militia unit. And there is that hazy period of time, perhaps for a
couple of years or so, when there’s an overlap of John Sevier living in Virginia and John
Sevier living in Upper East Tennessee. It appears quite likely he owned property and
went back and forth during that interim period. So, it could be a continuation of an earlier
commission, or it could be connected somehow in the fact that when the American
Revolution broke out, one of the communities in present day Tennessee, not Watauga,
but the so called north of Holston settlement was included in Virginia’s military militia
system. I don’t know whether he could have gotten a commission then or not. There was
another time throughout that period, as a matter of fact, when the Wataugans themselves
were trying to convince Virginia to bring them in that colony. It was pretty clear to most
people that Watauga was well south of wherever the Tennessee-Virginia boundary would
end up.
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How did the British use the Indians against the insurgent settlers?
The relations between the British and the Cherokee were very peculiar. The American
colonists, the people in Watauga, and other settlements in Southwestern Virginia always
claimed that the British incited the Cherokee to attack the settlers. That doesn’t appear to
be the case at all. First of all, the Indians had enough incentive on their own to attack the
settlers because of their increasing encroachment on Indian lands. But, it’s also clear
from documents that have become available in the last twenty to thirty years that [James]
Stewart, who was in charge of all of the Indian affairs in the South, and his agent among
the Cherokee, Alexander Cameron, warned the Cherokee against attacking the colonists
in the backcountry, even after the Revolution had gotten under way – and for very good
reason – the British believed that if the Cherokee were on the warpath against the settlers,
that they would inevitably kill a lot of loyalist settlers among the backcountry, as well as,
the ones who were supporting the so-called patriot cause. So they said from the outset,
and I’m convinced this is the case, they said from the outset, that before the Cherokee
took to the warpath, they should wait until the British army or other reinforcements got
into the southern colonies to back them up.
At that time, in the early stages of the war, the British was concentrating all of their
activities in the North, up in New York, and, particularly, in Massachusetts. It wasn’t
until later in the Revolutionary War that they did come down to the southern colonies.
The Cherokee simply disregarded what the British agents told them. In the case of the
Cherokee, I think one of the critical things was a visit paid to them by the delegation of
Indians north of the Ohio River, who were already fighting the Americans. I’m referring
primarily here to the Shawnee. These Indians, it was quite a delegation representing
prominent large tribes, their argument was that now is the time to strike at all of the
settlers in the backcountry, whether it was up in Pennsylvania or Ohio or down in
Virginia and North Carolina.
I think this was the encouragement that the Cherokee needed, so they simply disregarded
the advice of Cameron and Stewart. This was particularly the case after they had warned,
after Cameron and Stewart had warned the settlers that they needed to leave Watauga -
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that they were over the line. And, Cameron and Stewart weren’t sure that we can control
these Indians if you people don’t get out. The Wataugans had said initially that “we’re
loyal subjects,” which they were not, in most cases. Didn’t matter, they were willing to
say they were. “But we need a certain amount of time before we leave. Let us, we’ve got
crops in, let us get the crops out.” Cameron and Stuart had said, “Okay, the Cherokee
agree to that.” When they still didn’t leave, then they were given twenty days. Twenty or
thirty days, I don’t remember what. They were given a certain amount of time, limited
time. When they came up with an excuse again about not being able to get out in time
during that time period, it was extended. That time, the Cherokee had convinced
themselves that they were going to have to drive these people out by force. And that’s
when this delegation from the northern tribes had appeared on the scene.
Some warning was sent to the Wataugans, and the other settlers, in Upper East
Tennessee. Some people believe it was Nancy Ward, the famous beloved woman of the
Cherokee, who was married to a trader, had sent the warning. I think if these people, the
Wataugans, had half a brain, and they did, they knew that something like this was going
to happen. They were already building a fort to defend themselves, and the Cherokee
being equally rational, could see “if these people are building a fort here, they obviously
have no intention of leaving. So what they’ve been telling us is a pack of lies.”
And that’s how in July of 1776, you have the first open hostilities in the Tennessee
backcountry between the Cherokee and the Wataugans, and the people of Nolichucky and
any others who might happen to be in that region. In fact, the Cherokee launched multiple
attacks. In fact, Watauga was just one area that was attacked. But in each of those areas,
they were repulsed, and then what happened, predictably, was that the colonial
governments of Virginia, of North Carolina, South Carolina and even Georgia, decided
“we’re going to send militia troops into the backcountry to punish the Indians, since they
weren’t fighting in the north anyway, why not use them against the Indians.
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The result was the retaliation of the Indians by the colonial governments there in the
South, was massive, and all but a relatively few Indians led by Dragging Canoe, gave in
to the whites, consenting for the whites to continue living there. Agreed to the
negotiations of the Treaty of Long Island in 1777, where they gave up some more of their
land, and basically acknowledged the right of the Wataugans and other Tennesseans to
live there.
Knowing that you have the ability to edit, paste and cut, and all of that one other thing, I
should have mentioned in regard to the growing antagonism between the Cherokee and
the settlers…in 1775, as it became clear the colonies and the Mother Country were at
loggerheads, and that the British had things to concern themselves with, other than what
was happening in the remote backcountry, a speculator in North Carolina, by the name of
Richard Henderson, decided that that was the opportune time to buy up prime real estate
West of the Proclamation of 1763. He knew that the British weren’t going to be able to
do anything about it, at least not at that point. He, using people like James Robertson and
others in Watauga who were familiar with some of the Cherokee leaders, he met with
them in 1775, promised them something like 10,000 pounds of trading goods and outright
cash if they would make a cession of land to him. Again, it was in outright violation to
the Proclamation of 1763, which is kind of ironic, because Henderson, himself, was a
judge, a very prominent judge from North Carolina, who presumably was there to uphold
Imperial law. So, at Sycamore Shoals in March of 1775, you had large numbers of
Cherokee who were mingling with large numbers of frontiersmen, as Henderson held
these negotiations with the Cherokee leaders. Because he knew which buttons to push,
which leaders were going to be most agreeable to his entreaties, he was able to get the
majority of them, the majority of the leaders who were there, to agree to a purchase by
Henderson to over 20 million acres of land in what is today the central part of Kentucky
and Tennessee.
In addition to that, a narrower tract of land connecting this vast acreage in the interior
with the great valley of Virginia would be sort of a corridor going through Cumberland
Gap for the settlers. In quick order, after the treaty was approved by the Cherokee in 1775
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March, you have a growing influx of settlers coming in, mostly to present day Kentucky,
but also more in to the Watauga area, as well.
So, this was another demonstration, perhaps the most conclusive of all that they had do to
something, because this was going to be a never-ending process of whites acquiring vast
tracks of land and thousands and thousands of settlers encroaching on their land.
Now, the Cherokees did not actually live in central Tennessee or central Kentucky, but
they hunted in both of those areas. It was recognized by all the Indian groups as being,
probably, the best hunting country anywhere. Daniel Boone agreed when he first got
there. All of the long hunters who saw that area, not only commented on how great the
hunting was, but on how fertile the land was. I think that was one of the most decisive
factors in making the Indians determined to do something. That’s the context that John
Stewart and Cameron had so much difficulty in restraining the Cherokee. As I mentioned,
in 1776, the Cherokee did attack.
Describe Indian opposition to land sales.
There were a number of Indians at Sycamore Shoals who opposed selling land to Richard
Henderson, and probably the most noteworthy and famous is, Dragging Canoe, a young
war chief who warned the tribal counsel that other tribes who had done similar things,
selling off their land, were now gone forever. They had melted away he said “like balls of
snow under a warm sun.” So, the elder leaders of the Cherokee had enough respect for
him to get together and confer on their own, and to wait a day before they did finally
decided to go ahead with the sale; whereupon, Dragging Canoe famously stood up and
counseled and pointed off to the west where Kentucky was and he said to the whites,
“You may bought this land but you will find it is a dark and bloody ground.” That was a
forecast that proved to be absolutely correct within a couple of years during the American
Revolution.
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Describe briefly what led to the battle of Kings Mountain.
Kings Mountain was one of the more famous and important engagements in the
American Revolution, especially in the South. It has kind of an interesting background.
Lord Cornwalis was moving with his troops up from Georgia into the Carolina
backcountry, and when he got into North Carolina, with the idea of advancing further into
Virginia, he wanted to be sure his left flank, the flank that was over by the Blue Ridge
Mountains was secure. One of his trusted officers was a Major Patrick Ferguson, a
Scotsman, as the name would indicate, had a renowned fighting unit which was made up
of at that time, primarily, of loyalists from the backcountry of Carolina, people who
wanted to support the British empire in its continuing reign. Ferguson had heard a lot
about the Overmountain people, those living in the Watauga area, Nolichucky and
Southwestern Virginia, and he heard that they had had problems with his Indian allies,
particularly the Cherokee, and so he decided to send them a warning. He sent them a
prisoner who was from the Overmountain area back to meet with Evan Shelby, and to
warn Shelby and the other Overmountain people that if they dared interfere with the
British army’s progress up through the backcountry of North Carolina, he would punish
them severely. He would bring fire and sword among all of the inhabitants there.
John Sevier and Shelby met together to consider what to do in this situation, and they
concluded they really had no options except to take up arms, cross the mountains and
meet Ferguson and any other British unit that might be in that area, on the opposite side
of the mountains. That ultimately their security and the lands that they farmed depended
upon making a stand. They gathered a number of troops together at Sycamore Shoals,
which was a traditional gathering place for Indians and whites alike. They had troops
from Southwestern Virginia under William Campbell. They had other troops from the
North Carolina backcountry. They had Watauga people, Nolichucky people – anybody
they could spare showed up for this get together.
They decided they would leave a small force under Charles Robertson to defend the
home front while the rest of them crossed the mountain and tried to find Patrick
Ferguson. And they did this. On the North Carolina side they linked up with a number of
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North Carolina militia who were for the Patriot cause, and they moved as a group toward
Ferguson, who had already received from spies a warning that these frontiersmen were
approaching him, and because he had a smaller force, he retreated a short distance to
Kings Mountain, which is basically on the North Carolina/South Carolina line. It’s not
really a mountain at all; it’s kind of a hill – 60 to 70 feet high – but it seemed to be a
really good defensive position. And, he is supposed to have said to his officers and his
men, “I can defend this position against anyone, especially those people across the
mountains.”
As it turned out, he was wrong. The Overmountain Men, as they were called, appeared on
the scene. John Sevier was the leader of one unit, in his capacity of Brigadier General of
North Carolina militia. The overall Commander, sort of the titular Commander of the
Overmountain forces was William Campbell from Virginia. And they surrounded,
basically, the mountain and Campbell had warned them, had exhorted them, really, as
they were preparing to attack, he said that he wanted them “to yell and scream like devils
and give them hell.” “Yell and scream like Indians,” actually, and “give them hell.” And
they did just that. They headed straight up the mountain, the hill toward Ferguson’s
forces. They were repulsed under heavy fire and bayonet charges on three occasions, but
finally they gained the top, and very quickly won an overwhelming victory in which
Ferguson, himself, was killed, and a number of his men were also killed. And, the
Overmountain Men, in contrast, suffered a relatively low causality rate. I think there was
only about 28 to 30 Overmountain Men who were killed in this battle.
They retreated taking hundreds of prisoners, British prisoners, many of whom, most of
them were loyalist from the North Carolina backcountry. Some of them were accused of
having committed atrocities against the Patriot people in the backcountry, and, so, there
was a kind of kangaroo court that was held where 32 of them were sentenced to be
executed. Nine were actually executed before Sevier, and several other officers stepped in
and said to the effect, “That’s enough. We’ve made our point and we don’t need to
engage in the same kind of killing that our adversaries have done.”
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And, so, they retreated back over the mountains where Sevier, very quickly, went
on a raid against the Cherokee Indians, who were acting up again. And, the Battle of
Kings Mountain, itself, is the source of a lot of controversy. There are some historians
who say it was one of the most decisive battles in the American Revolution. I concede
that it was a significant battle, but I think it might be stretching it a bit to say it was one of
the decisive battles. But what it did do was to convince Cornwallis, who was still
advancing through North Carolina, to pause before he continued into Virginia. He had to
pause and regroup and sort of recalculate his strategy before going on, and, ultimately, a
year later, he was defeated at Yorktown, which was the last real battle in the American
Revolution. An argument can be made that delay that he had there in North Carolina, in
South Carolina, before advancing into Virginia was very significant in contributing to his
ultimate defeat. At the very least, it’s an important battle, and one in which the
Overmountain Men, including Wataugans like John Sevier, except at that time I think he
had just moved down to the Nolichucky, but he’s always a Wataugan in our hearts, I
guess. They had all played a very positive role in contributing to that victory.
How long was the battle?
The Battle of Kings Mountain didn’t last very long. I think it was something like 60, 65
or 70 minutes, perhaps, from the time that they opened fire and started up the mountain
until they achieved their final victory. I think when they got to the top the battle went
very quickly. There is simply was no way that there was – the people there at Kings
Mountain could, the British could hold out. And some of the captives, the British
captives, later said that they’d never seen so many tall and strong people coming at them
before. That may have been hindsight; I’m not sure!
Address why some say John Sevier is the hero of Kings Mountain.
There are some people who say John Sevier was the hero of Kings Mountain, and I think
there were a number of heroes. One reason maybe why people have focused on him was
because he was a Brigadier General of the militia; he was one of the leaders. William
Campbell probably deserves it a bit more than Sevier, although Sevier was heroic. Shelby
was heroic. The ordinary soldiers were heroic. Part of the view of Sevier as a hero comes
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from a look backwards in history by people later on looking at Sevier’s career and the
roles that he played – his varied roles in politics and in service. Certainly, he was right up
there. He was an inspiration to his men. He was never one to shirk being in the middle of
a battle. I think that is why he is probably called that sometimes. I could have mentioned
too that William Campbell didn’t live for very long after that, so he was kind of forgotten
– his role as the titular leader, at least – but he was the one who had exhorted them to
“shout like Indians and fight like devils.”
Why did John Sevier attack the middle towns of Cherokee Indians after the Battle
of Kings Mountain?
I think one of the reasons why John Sevier, shortly after the Battle of Kings Mountain,
attacked a number of the middle towns really on the eastern side of the Great Smoky
Mountains was that they had been receiving supplies from the British operating out of
Savannah and Charleston, and posed some kind of threat, especially if they moved with
the British Army up into North Carolina. And I think it was also just to make a general
point [technical difficulty interruption]
What was North Carolina Governor Martin’s reaction to the State of Franklin?
I’m sort of speculating about one of the reasons why I think John Sevier attacked the
middle towns of Cherokee Indians shortly after the Battle of Kings Mountain. I think it
probably had to do with supplies those Indians were from the British by way of both
Charleston and Savannah. Britain controlled those ports at different times. And I think
also that it was in assistance to those American forces that remained east of the mountain
after Sevier’s forces crossed back to the Watauga. It was one way of maybe dissuading
those middle towns from joining with Cornwallis’ forces as they moved ultimately
toward Georgia. But, I think even the rumor of hostility by any group of Cherokees by
that time was likely to draw the attention of Sevier.
Of course, a lot of people back in North Carolina were not happy when the State of
Franklin was organized, especially since North Carolina had just rescinded its cession of
what is today, Tennessee, to the Federal Government. And so, according to Governor
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Martin, the Franklinites, including John Sevier, were basically committing treason by
presuming to create a new state out of what was still part of North Carolina. Now, the
Federal Government wasn’t sure it was still part of North Carolina because it had been
granted something like one year to consider accepting that cession from North Carolina,
and that time was not up before North Carolina rescinded the offer. There was confusion
at the federal level and that was why the United States ultimately decided to recognize
this so-called State of Franklin. In the case of the people in Franklin, it was a matter of
trying to get support/recognition from the North Carolina legislature. And of course as
long as Martin is governor, they weren’t going to get it. And they didn’t get it even after
Martin was governor. But, North Carolina played a very shrewd game of dealing with the
State of Franklin. They decided early on not to resort to open military force but, basically,
to placate all of those people around John Sevier – by appointing people to official
positions in the North Carolina government –promising to give those people living in the
so-called State of Franklin their own counties and their own court of justice and
promising to remit some of the taxes, in other words, offering them some sort of
incentive to reaffirm their former allegiance to North Carolina. And they even indicated
to John Sevier that, at some point, he might be welcomed back into the fold, too.
So one of the interesting things about Franklin, I think, is that initially Sevier really didn’t
want anything to do with it. He was suspicious of it as were the authorities back in North
Carolina. He was involved in his own speculative schemes and he was afraid that this was
sort of a red herring, Franklin, which would mess up his speculative enterprises. People
who have looked closely into his career have concluded, I have to agree with them on
this, that Sevier finally concluded if he did not lend his support to Franklin, if he did not
serve in some high office, and, ultimately, he was governor, the only governor of
Franklin, he would lose his support from all of those people. And so, once he realized
that his popular support at that time in 1784, when Franklin was starting, he realized that
support was dependant upon assuming a real leadership role in Franklin. He was all for it.
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What was Governor Martin’s reaction to John Sevier’s involvement with the State
of Franklin?
Of course, Governor Martin of North Carolina was infuriated that someone like John
Sevier who had received so much recognition and support from North Carolina in so
many other ways would be heading up this State of Franklin. And he felt that that was
particularly treasonous and objectionable. And that was a view shared by some of the
later governors, as well. In fact, one of them in 1788 declared Sevier basically guilty of
treason and was the basis for Sevier’s arrest by John Tipton, one of his enemies in
Franklin, and for Sevier being taken back to face trial in North Carolina. But, what
happened was, by that time it was clear to everybody that North Carolina had basically
won without resorting to overt force. Sevier, they knew, was still enormously popular to
most of those inhabitants back across the mountains, and, basically, they just ignored him
when he was brought into court. I think it was kind of an embarrassment. I don’t think
they expected Tipton to actually arrest this guy and bring him over to face trial. And so
he was bonded out. Some of the tales are told say Sevier’s brothers or sons came across
the mountains and rescued him. That couldn’t have happened, really, as stories go
because there were too many North Carolina people over there who could have opposed
it. But, he was bailed out and basically disappeared and nobody in North Carolina
professed to have even noticed. And then later, they pardoned him, of course, and he
became one of the political leaders still in the state of North Carolina from area, from
where Franklin had been before.
Discuss the relationship between Tipton and Sevier and how it changed.
John Sevier’s relationship with John Tipton was a very interesting one. They had been
acquainted with one another for some time, had gotten along fine. They were both early
proponents of the State of Franklin, but at some point Tipton decided he was going to go
back and give his allegiance to North Carolina. So, he was the head of the group there,
this so-called State of Franklin, who refused to recognize Franklin and still gave
allegiance to the mother state. John Sevier as governor of Franklin was on the opposite
side, the leader of the opposite side. So, it was natural that any problems, no matter how
small, that might has existed have existed between the two men before might become
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exacerbated by this situation. And, Tipton was not the kind of person to go easy into the
night. He apprehended some of Sevier’s slaves and was holding them under guard as part
of a settlement, a judgment, that went against John Sevier, which actually led to Sevier’s
men surrounding Tipton’s place and engaging them in firing back and forth, and people
were killed. More people, Tipton’s friends, arrived on the scene and drove Sevier away.
So, there was, certainly, by the end of this period, deep animosity between these two
men.
When William Blount became governor of the Southwest Territory, one of the decisions
he had to make in regard to building up his own support network there in Upper East
Tennessee was, “do I defer to John Tipton or do I defer to John Sevier?” He basically
deferred to John Sevier, and gave him preferment over John Tipton, which didn’t go over
very well either with Tipton.
Discuss the issue of a pardon for John Sevier.
The pardon extended in North Carolina to John Sevier did not go unopposed in East
Tennessee. There were a number of people, and a number of people in the Eastern part of
North Carolina as well, who were appalled that this man, who led the breakaway State of
Franklin, should be given any kind of pardon or other preference. But, I think the state
authorities recognized that this was something that would work to their benefit as well as,
obviously, to Sevier’s
Discuss Sevier’s feud with Andrew Jackson.
The story of Andrew Jackson and John Sevier is one of the more interesting and
sometimes entertaining ones in the history of Tennessee. Apparently, they got along fine
with no problems at all, well into the 1790s, half of Tennessee had become a state, and,
of course, John Sevier was governor, the first governor of the state. The problem seemed
to have arisen in 1796, or thereabout, when Sevier refused to appoint Andrew Jackson to
a military position, as Major General of the Monroe District in West Tennessee – present
day Middle Tennessee. And, Jackson was not the sort of person to forgive or forget a
slight of that sort. And, so they had, they had a kind of falling out there where Sevier
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actually wrote a letter to a friend, which somehow wound up in Jackson’s possession,
which called Jackson a “pitiful, pettifogging lawyer,” which was about the harshest thing
anyone had said to Andrew Jackson in a long time, and Jackson understandably resented
it. And so, they exchanged words through letters and both were disposed at that time to
sort of smooth it over if they could and they did. And so, for several years after that, it
seemed like things are okay with them. In the meantime, Sevier served three terms as
Governor and he was term limited by the Constitution. He was term limited in 1801, went
out of office, and Archibald Roane came in as the new governor. In 1803, Sevier decided
he was going to run for governor again, he was now eligible to be a candidate again.
Roane was not disposed to give up the office, and Roane had been granted access to some
letters Andrew Jackson had in his possession, which implicated deeply John Sevier in an
unscrupulous land speculation scheme. It’s kind of ironic because Jackson was as much
of an unscrupulous land speculator as Sevier – maybe more so. So, this was played out in
the press, all of the things, illegal things, which Sevier had allegedly done during his
three terms as governor, and Sevier resented it. He was elected governor anyway, despite
the opposition of Jackson, Roane and some of the others.
The result of this was that you had this quarrel between these men that was not going to
end anytime soon. Part of Jackson’s responsibilities as a major judge in Tennessee was to
hold court periodically in Knoxville, and, lo and behold, one day they happened to come
across one another on the streets of Knoxville [and] words were exchanged, temperate
words, [and] threats were made. The next day, Jackson sent Sevier a formal challenge to
a dual. Sevier said, basically, “I would be glad to meet you in some other state but the
laws of Tennessee prevent us from holding a duel here.” It went back and forth like that
for several days and somehow, it’s difficult to tell if this was prearranged on the parts of
both, but Jackson and a small group of his supporters and Sevier and a coterie of his, met
over the line in Indian territory, which meant, technically, the laws of Tennessee would
not apply. The stories are a bit contradictory but it seems that Jackson and Sevier ranted
and raved at one another. They had their seconds there, which indicates there had been
some prior arrangement on that. Sevier got off his horse and went over and said
something to Jackson, who was apparently still on his horse, and the ruckus was so great
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that Sevier’s horse ran off with Sevier’s pistols, whereupon Jackson’s story goes – pulled
out his pistol after which Sevier leaped behind a tree for cover and Sevier’s second,
which was his son, pulled out his pistol on Jackson, and Jackson’s second pulled out his
pistol on Sevier’s son, and the great historian, Bob Remedy, says it was a ridiculous
situation.
After that, the two men had sort of a passive agreement to not have anything to do with
one another. Their friends kept them apart from one another, and there is no evidence that
they were ever on good terms after that, but there’s not any evidence, really, that they
exchanged inflammatory letters with one another. One of the great ironies, I think, of
Sevier’s life is how it ended. Jackson just gained fame from his role in the Creek War
with the Creek Indians in 1814, and then shortly after that, held a treaty conference where
they gave up a huge amount of land, which includes most of Alabama. And, shortly after
that, Jackson won a great victory at New Orleans; he was all of a sudden a national hero.
Sevier, in contrast, then in his late sixties, was in the House of Representatives
representing Tennessee and he got appointed as one of the surveyors of the Creeks’
cession of land. His final days were passed basically serving and legitimizing Andrew
Jackson’s contribution to the map of American expansion. He just got sick with a fever, I
guess, while he was doing the surveying and died at age seventy in 1815. So, even in
death, his death, at least, there was some kind of connection between the two men. Not a
connection Sevier would have appreciated, although there’s no evidence that he really
remarked upon the coincidence.
What kind of relationship did Sevier have with William Blount and other land
speculators?
Sevier was an important, even vital connection for land speculators, larger land
speculators, from North Carolina and other parts of the United States. He was easily one
of the most infamous, unscrupulous, entertaining speculators to ever come upon the
scene. When he was establishing himself as the first and only appointed governor of the
Southwest Territory, he [William Blount] made it a point to cultivate Sevier in part for
political reasons and in part because Sevier, like all of the other leaders of Tennessee
26
society, he had the best information on the best lands. And so, they struck up a kind of
alliance between Easterners and Westerners where the Easterners would provide the
money for the Westerners using their knowledge and their political power within their
own communities to locate at the best possible prices the best possible lands. So there is
no doubt that Sevier profited from this connection, and there is no doubt that Blount did,
he probably profited most of all. There is no doubt that James Robertson in Middle
Tennessee profited. Daniel Smith, another leader of Tennessee society profited. Virtually
all of the Donelsons did, almost all of the Donelsons. So virtually, it seems, every
political leader in Tennessee at that time took advantage of their positions and their
knowledge and their connection with these more wealthy individuals in the East to make
a fortune for themselves.
What was John Sevier’s relationship with the Indians like with regard to land
speculation? What about the Kirk incident?
Despite Sevier’s reputation as an Indian killer, it’s interesting that the Cherokee, while
they didn’t necessarily like the man, respected him, basically because of his strength.
Anytime you go up against an individual and that individual prevails, and if he does this
over and over again, if you’re sane, I think you develop at least a measure of grudging
respect for him. I think a number of Indians lost some of that respect when he excused
himself from a parley with some of the Cherokee chiefs in 1788, which allowed John
Kirk, who was a resident around the area near the Little Tennessee River, to kill those
Indian leaders. They had come in under a white flag of truce to negotiate and Kirk
obviously had permission from somebody to go ahead and tomahawk these Indian chiefs
for their role, real or alleged, in the killing of his family. Sevier’s argument was that he
was away at the time, but he had been there. He must have known what was going to
happen, and the officers under him must have known what was going to happen, and, so,
you can understand why a number of Indians would be upset by that.
As governor though, even though he still favored Indian cessions of land, and again was
foremost in the minds of Sevier and all the other Tennesseans, his letters do indicate that
he had a real concern that the Indians be treated properly. Now, this might be self-serving
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because he realized if they were unhappy with their treatment they might resort to
violence, but he often rebuked individuals, white people, for their mistreatment of Indians
for not according the Indians enough respect. So, right up to the time he died he was
always a frontiersman first and foremost in terms of getting as much of the Indian land as
possible, but, I believe once he came into office, the days of aggressive action probably
were over, that one could achieve those ends – acquiring land without trying to goad the
Indians into a war, a war that they would surely lose.
Did any of John Sevier’s policies contribute to the Trail of Tears, or was that all
Andrew Jackson?
If you look at Andrew Jackson and John Sevier in terms of their relationship with the
Indian tribes, they were identical in the sense that they both believed that the Indians
could give up most of their land – that they were not using the land the way civilized
should use their land. In Sevier’s day, that was a time when a possibility of an Indian war
was very likely. In Sevier’s days, he had to resort to resort to military force. There was
going to be brutality on both sides.
In Jackson’s case, that wasn’t true until the Creek War of 1813-1814. By that time,
Jackson was already in his forties or fifties, but by that time, Middle Tennessee had not
experienced any Indian wars, at all, for twenty years. And so, Jackson to support him the
might of the United States Government, as John Sevier did not. As President, of course,
Jackson had that authority behind him on an even high level. He could go ahead and
promote the removal of the Southeastern Indians, which he did, and it was a tragic
episode in American History. I think if John Sevier had been President in the late 1820s,
like Andrew Jackson, his attitude toward removal would have been exactly the same. He
would’ve encouraged Indian removal; he probably would have used the same argument
that it was in the Indians’ best interest to go. If he had been governor of Tennessee at that
time, he would have been like the governor in Jackson’s time in encouraging the Federal
Government in the removal. I think that is the one thing the two men had in common
throughout was the necessity of acquiring Indian land for expanding white populations.
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What influence, if any, did Sevier have on the whole concept of Manifest Destiny?
Regarding Manifest Destiny, I think Sevier exemplified it 45 years before the term was
even invented. I believe it came from a Democratic newspaperman in the 1840s that was
a kind of prelude to the Mexican War, but what he was doing he viewed as part of the
Manifest Destiny of white settlers on American frontiers. So, he would have bought in to
that term as well as the philosophy underlined.
What was John Sevier’s impact on the westward expansion movement?
I think John Sevier had a major impact on America’s westward movement. If you look at
his career, it was basically from the Western valley of Virginia down into East
Tennessee. It really didn’t go beyond East Tennessee except to speculate on some lands
in Middle Tennessee. But the process that he followed, the dynamics involved in his
career involved the acquisition of land and the dispossession of Indians. If this could be
done peacefully, that was fine, that was preferable. But, he was willing to resort to force
if that became necessary. So, I think we see John Sevier’s career repeated over and over
again by other individuals, individuals who had the right kinds of personalities, the right
kind of dynamism, the right kind of intelligence, to lead others into areas that did not
belong to the whites at that time, and, ultimately, to possess them. So, you can see it in
the far west, you can see it in the mid-west, you can see it throughout our history.
I don’t think he was necessarily the first of a kind, but I think he was, in many respects,
the first really illustrious example we have of that kind of process.
Do you think there was any chance Sevier could have been elected President?
Even for Tennessee politics he had a limited base. Especially by the time he finished his
third term as governor, Middle Tennessee was already passing East Tennessee’s
population – certainly by the time he came back in office as governor again. He never
had the same kind of support in Middle Tennessee that he did in the East. A lot of people,
a lot of leaders there knew him, had been associated with him back when they lived in the
East, but the concerns of Middle Tennessee were different, let’s say by the 1810s, from
those of East Tennessee. Sevier really did not have a great reputation, great in the sense
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of it being wide ranging in the nation as a whole. When he was appointed as a military
officer, given a commission, as Brigadier General, Washington was President at that
time, wrote a letter to Secretary of War Pickering, saying, “Why have you done this?
This man John Sevier is celebrated for nothing, as far as I know, except for murdering
Indians.” And then he went on to some other choice comments, which I thought was kind
of interesting that somebody like Washington would not have heard anything about
Sevier except in that context. So, no, I don’t think, even if he had played his cards right,
he could have been elected President. I think, too, his aspirations were more limited. I
think he was satisfied with the life he led. He was a family man, among other things. I
think he had basically everything that he wanted. He had the respect of the people who
knew him. He had enough money; he wasn’t wealthy. He had an enormous family, so I
assume marital life was okay. He was a popular man but his persona carried him only a
fairly short distance.
I think his personality was such that he was perfectly willing to assume leadership in a
situation where he felt confident. And in dealing with the Indians and leading his fellow
citizens in hardship, and all of that, he knew he could do this. He had the personality; he
had charisma. Most people loved him. He was referred to as Nolichucky Jack. And, he
threw good parties. Probably drank a little more that he should have, but that was not
uncommon at that time. He was a person who assumed whatever role he thought people
wanted him to play and expected him to play, and sometimes it didn’t necessarily work to
his advantage, like when he decided to go along with the creation of the State of Franklin.
And it’s significant that as soon as his term expired, the State of Franklin expired.
Any other comments about John Sevier?
John Sevier sacrificed a great deal at what was at the time a very old age, 69 and 70, to
go down and perform that service of surveying for the United States Government in
Alabama at a time when the weather was terrible, totally unsuited for anybody, especially
somebody in precarious health who was at that age. I think Sevier was the kind of person
who was always there. Oddly enough, like Washington was on a larger scale, some
authors have referred to Washington as “the indispensible man,” and I think he was. And
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in certain more narrowly defined circumstances, I think Sevier was at least viewed as an
indispensible man. “John, we need you to do this for us. You’ve got to help us out.” And,
I think he did. And I don’t think he did that because of self-esteem or anything like that,
except maybe the self-esteem that a person gets when he believes that did something that
he needed to do, but it wasn’t for glory.
When you read his letter, and I’m sure he had a secretary who some of them, they are
very well written, I think, and [they] get to the point readily. It was interesting, I was
going through some of the records, and in 1798, the United States was on the verge of
going to war with France, [and] he had a letter in there to somebody, I don’t remember
who, [and] he was talking about the diplomacy of the French Foreign Minister
Talleyrand, and he was very well informed, and I don’t know where he got that. There
were newspapers that he got, I’m sure, from Philadelphia, New York, places like that,
but, even so, it indicated that he had read them, at least, and some idea of what was going
on. So, he was aware of this larger world than we place him in, in East Tennessee. He
knew what was going on. Then, on the other hand, when he was a Congressman, he
served three terms and was actually elected to a forth when he died, there’s almost no
record of his doing anything. He was there, and the votes indicate he was there, and the
votes indicate he was there to vote this way or that way for this issue or another, but there
isn’t any record of his getting up to deliver a speech in favor of this or that. We know he
did vote for a declaration of war along with the so-called “war hawks” in 1812, but
amidst all of this verbiage that people in Congress spewed out, there’s nothing from
Sevier. He was intimidated, perhaps, by some of these people who were better educated
than he, although he was well enough educated, he had attended a couple of schools
when he was younger, or whether, simply, the day-to-day minutia of being in the House
of Representatives didn’t interest him that much.
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