Watauga--Haven of Liberty
The Regulators despaired of seeing better times and therefore quitted
the Province. It is said 1,500 departed since the Battle of Alamance and
to my knowledge a great many more are only waiting to dispose of their
plantations in order to follow them.
--Reverend Morgan Edwards, 1772.
The five years (1766-1771) which saw the rise, development, and ultimate
defeat of the popular movement known as the Regulation, constitute a
period not only of extraordinary significance in North Carolina but also
of fruitful consequences in the larger movements of westward expansion.
With the resolute intention of having their rulers "give account of
their stewardship," to employ their own words, the Sandy Creek
Association of Baptists (organized in 1758), in a series of papers known
as Regulators' Advertisements (1766-8) proceeded to mature, through
popular gatherings, a rough form of initiative and referendum. At
length, discouraged in its efforts, and particularly in the attempt to
bring county officials to book for charging illegal fees, this
association ceased actively to function. It was the precursor of a
movement of much more drastic character and formidable proportions,
chiefly directed against Colonel Edmund Fanning and his associates. This
movement doubtless took its name, "the Regulation," from the bands of
men already described who were organized first in North Carolina and
later in South Carolina, to put down highwaymen and to correct many
abuses in the back country, such as the tyrannies of Scovil and his
henchmen. Failing to secure redress of their grievances through legal
channels, the Regulators finally made such a powerful demonstration in
support of their refusal to pay taxes that Governor William Tryon of
North Carolina, in 1768, called out the provincial militia, and by
marching with great show of force through the disaffected regions,
succeeded temporarily in overawing the people and thus inducing them to
pay their assessments. [110]
The suits which had been brought by the Regulators against Edmund
Fanning, register, and Francis Nash, clerk, of Orange County, resulted
in both being "found guilty of taking too high fees." [111] Fanning
immediately resigned his commission as register; while Nash, who in
conjunction with Fanning had fairly offered in 1766 to refund to any one
aggrieved any fee charged by him which the Superior Court might hold
excessive, gave bond for his appearance at the next court. Similar suits
for extortion against the three Frohocks in Rowan County in 1769 met
with failure, however; and this outcome aroused the bitter resentment of
the Regulators, as recorded by Herman Husband in his "Impartial
Relation." During this whole period the insurrectionary spirit of the
people, who felt themselves deeply aggrieved but recognized their
inability to secure redress, took the form of driving local justices
from the bench and threatening court officials with violence.
An Impartial
RELATION
of the
First Rise and Cause
of the
Recent DIFFERENCES,
in
Publick AFFAIRS,
In the Province of North-Carolina; and of the past Tumults and Riots
that lately happened in that Province.
Containing most of the true and genuine Copies of Letters, Messages and
Remonstrances, between the Parties contending:------By which any
impartial Man may easily gather and see the true Ground and Reasons of
the dissatisfaction that universally reigns all over said Province in
more or less Degree.
Printed for the Compiler, 1770.
At the session of the Superior Court at Hillsborough, September 22,
1770, an elaborate petition prepared by the Regulators, demanding
unprejudiced juries and the public accounting for taxes by the sheriffs,
was handed to the presiding justice by James Hunter, a leading
Regulator. This justice was our acquaintance, Judge Richard Henderson,
of Granville County, the sole high officer in the provincial government
from the entire western section of the colony. In this petition occur
these trenchant words: "As we are serious and in good earnest and the
cause respects the whole body of the people it would be loss of time to
enter into arguments on particular points for though there are a few men
who have the gift and art of reasoning, yet every man has a feeling and
knows when he has justice done him as well as the most learned." [112]
On the following Monday (September 24th), upon convening of court, some
one hundred and fifty Regulators, led by James Hunter, Herman Husband,
Rednap Howell, and others, armed with clubs, whips, and cudgels, surged
into the court-room and through their spokesman, Jeremiah Fields,
presented a statement of their grievances. "I found myself," says Judge
Henderson, "under a necessity of attempting to soften and turn away the
fury of these mad people, in the best manner in my power, and as such
could well be, pacify their rage and at the same time preserve the
little remaining dignity of the court." [113]
During an interim, in which the Regulators retired for consultation,
they fell without warning upon Fanning and gave him such rough treatment
that he narrowly escaped with his life. The mob, now past control,
horsewhipped a number of leading lawyers and citizens gathered there at
court, and treated others, notably the courtly Mr. Hooper of Boston,
"with every mark of contempt and insult." Judge Henderson was assured by
Fields that no harm should come to him provided he would conduct the
court in accordance with the behest of the Regulators: namely, that no
lawyer, save the King's Attorney, should be admitted to the court, and
that the Regulators' cases should be tried with new jurors chosen by the
Regulators. With the entire little village terrorized by this campaign
of "frightfulness," and the court wholly unprotected, Judge Henderson
reluctantly acknowledged to himself that "the power of the judiciary was
exhausted." Nevertheless, he says, "I made every effort in my power
consistent with my office and the duty the public is entitled to claim
to preserve peace and good order." [114] Agreeing under duress to resume
the session the following day, the judge ordered an adjournment. But
being unwilling, on mature reflection, to permit a mockery of the court
and a travesty of justice to be staged under threat and intimidation, he
returned that night to his home in Granville and left the court
adjourned in course. Enraged by the judge's escape, the Regulators took
possession of the court-room the following morning, called over the
cases, and in futile protest against the conditions they were powerless
to remedy, made profane entries which may still be seen on the record:
"Damned rogues," "Fanning pays cost but loses nothing," "Negroes not
worth a damn, Cost exceeds the whole," "Hogan pays and be damned," and,
in a case of slander, "Nonsense, let them argue for Ferrell has gone
hellward." [115]
The uprising of these bold and resolute, simple and imperfectly educated
people, which had begun as a constitutional struggle to secure justice
and to prevent their own exploitation by dishonest lawyers of the county
courts, now gave place to open anarchy and secret incendiarism. [116] In
the dead of night, November 12th and 14th, Judge Henderson's barn,
stables, and dwelling house were fired by the Regulators and went up in
flames. Glowing with a sense of wrong, these misguided people, led on by
fanatical agitators, thus vented their indiscriminate rage, not only
upon their oppressors, but also upon men wholly innocent of injuring
them--men of the stamp of William Hooper, afterward signer of the
Declaration of Independence, Alexander Martin, afterward governor and
United States Senator, and Richard Henderson, popular representative of
the back country and a firm champion of due process of law. It is
perhaps not surprising in view of these events that Governor Tryon and
the ruling class, lacking a sympathy broad enough to ensure justice to
the oppressed people, seemed to be chiefly impressed with the fact that
a widespread insurrection was in progress, threatening not only life and
property, but also civil government itself. The governor called out the
militia of the province and led an army of well-nigh one thousand men
and officers against the Regulators, who had assembled at Alamance to
the number of two thousand. Tryon stood firm upon the demands that the
people should submit to government and disperse at a designated hour.
The Regulators, on their side, hoped to secure the reforms they desired
by intimidating the governor with a great display of force. The battle
was a tragic fiasco for the Regulators, who fought bravely, but without
adequate arms or real leadership. With the conclusion of this desultory
action, a fight lasting about two hours (May 16, 1771), the power of the
Regulators was completely broken. [117]
Among these insurgents there was a remarkable element--an element whose
influence upon the course of American history has been but imperfectly
understood--which now looms into prominence as the vanguard of the army
of westward expansion. There were some of the Regulators who, though
law-abiding and conservative, were deeply imbued with ideas of liberty,
personal independence, and the freedom of the soil. Through the
influence of Benjamin Franklin, with whom one of the leaders of the
group, Herman Husband, was in constant correspondence, the patriotic
ideas then rapidly maturing into revolutionary sentiments furnished the
inspiration to action. As early as 1766, the Sandy Creek leaders,
referred to earlier in this chapter, issued a call to each neighborhood
to send delegates to a gathering for the purpose of investigating the
question "whether the free men of this country labor under any abuses of
power or not." The close connection between the Sandy Creek men and the
Sons of Liberty is amply demonstrated in this paper wherein the Sons of
Liberty in connection with the "stamp law" are praised for "redeeming us
from Tyranny" and for having "withstood the lords in Parliament in
behalf of true liberty." [118] Upon the records of the Dutchman's Creek
Church, of "regular" Baptists, at the Forks of the Yadkin, to which
Daniel Boone's family belonged, may be found this memorable entry,
recognizing the "American Cause" well-nigh a year before the declaration
of independence at Philadelphia: "At the monthly meeting it was agreed
upon concerning the American Cause, if any of the brethren see cause to
join it they have the liberty to do it without being called to an
account by the church. But whether they join or do not join they should
be used with brotherly love." [119]
The fundamental reasons underlying the approaching westward hegira are
found in the remarkable petition of the Regulators of Anson County
(October 9, 1769), who request that "Benjamin Franklin or some other
known patriot" be appointed agent of the province in London to seek
redress at the source. They exposed the basic evil in the situation by
pointing out that, in violation of the law restricting the amount of
land that might be granted to each person to six hundred and forty
acres, much of the most fertile territory in the province had been
distributed in large tracts to wealthy landlords. In consequence "great
numbers of poor people are necessitated to toil in the cultivation of
the bad Lands whereon they hardly can subsist." [120] It was these poor
people, "thereby deprived of His Majesties liberality and Bounty," who
soon turned their gaze to the westward and crossed the mountains in
search of the rich, free lands of the trans-Alleghany region.
This feverish popular longing for freedom, stimulated by the economic
pressure of thousands of pioneers who were annually entering North
Carolina, set in motion a wave of migration across the mountains in
1769. Long before Alamance, many of the true Americans, distraught by
apparently irremediable injustices, plunged fearlessly into the
wilderness, seeking beyond the mountains a new birth of liberty, lands
of their own selection free of cost or quit-rents, and a government of
their own choosing and control. [121] The glad news of the rich valleys
beyond the mountains early lured such adventurous pioneers as Andrew
Greer and Julius Cæsar Dugger to the Watauga country. The glowing
stories, told by Boone, and disseminated in the back country by
Henderson, Williams, and the Harts, seemed to give promise to men of
this stamp that the West afforded relief from oppressions suffered in
North Carolina. During the winter of 1768-9 there was also a great rush
of settlers from Virginia into the valley of the Holston. A party from
Augusta County, led by men who had been delighted with the country
viewed seven years before when they were serving under Colonel William
Byrd against the Cherokees, found that this region, a wilderness on
their outward passage in 1768, was dotted with cabins on every spot
where the grazing was good, upon their return the following year.
Writing to Hillsborough on October 18, 1770, concerning the "many
hundred families" in the region from Green River to the branches of the
Holston, who refused to comply with the royal proclamation of 1763,
Acting-Governor Nelson of Virginia reports that "very little if any Quit
Rents have been received for His Majesty's use from that Quarter for
some time past"--the people claiming that "His Majesty hath been pleased
to withdraw his protection from them since 1763." [122]
In the spring of 1770, with the express intention of discovering
suitable locations for homes for himself and a number of others, who
wished to escape the accumulating evils of the times, James Robertson of
Orange County, North Carolina, made an arduous journey to the pleasing
valley of the Watauga. Robertson, who was born in Brunswick County,
Virginia, June 28, 1742, of excellent Scotch-Irish ancestry, was a
noteworthy figure of a certain type--quiet, reflective, conservative,
wise, a firm believer in the basic principles of civil liberty and the
right of local self-government. Robertson spent some time with a man
named Honeycut in the Watauga region, raised a crop of corn, and chose
for himself and his friends suitable locations for settlement. Lost upon
his return in seeking the mountain defiles traversed by him on the
outward journey, Robertson probably escaped death from starvation only
through the chance passing of two hunters who succored him and set him
upon the right path. On arriving in Orange he found political and social
conditions there much worse than before, many of the colonists declining
to take the obligatory oath of allegiance to the British Crown after the
Battle of Alamance, preferring to carve out for themselves new homes
along the western waters. Some sixteen families of this stamp, indignant
at the injustices and oppressions of British rule, and stirred by
Robertson's description of the richness and beauty of the western
country, accompanied him to Watauga shortly after the battle.
This vanguard of the army of westward advance, independent Americans in
spirit with a negligible sprinkling of Loyalists, now swept in a great
tide into the northeastern section of Tennessee. The men of Sandy Creek,
actuated by independent principles but out of sympathy with the anarchic
side of the Regulation, left the colony almost to a man. "After the
defeat of the Regulators," says the historian of the Sandy Creek
Association, "thousands of the oppressed, seeing no hope of redress for
their grievances, moved into and settled east Tennessee. A large
proportion of these were of the Baptist population. Sandy Creek Church
which some time previous to 1771, numbered 606, was afterward reduced to
fourteen members!" [123] This movement exerted powerful influence in
stimulating westward expansion. Indeed, it was from men of Regulating
principles--Boone, Robertson, and the Searcys--who vehemently condemned
the anarchy and incendiarism of 1770, that Judge Henderson received
powerful coöperation in the opening up of Kentucky and Tennessee. [124]
The several treaties concerning the western boundary of white
settlement, concluded in close succession by North Carolina, Virginia,
and the Crown with the Southern and Northern Indians, had an important
bearing upon the settlement of Watauga. The Cherokee boundary line, as
fixed by Governor Tryon (1767) and by John Stuart (1768), ran from Reedy
River to Tryon Mountain, thence straight to Chiswell's Mine, and thence
direct to the mouth of the Great Kanawha River. By the treaty at Fort
Stanwix (November 5, 1768), in the negotiation of which Virginia was
represented by Dr. Thomas Walker and Major Andrew Lewis, the Six Nations
sold to the Crown their shadowy claim to a vast tract of western
country, including in particular all the land between the Ohio and the
Tennessee Rivers. The news of the cession resulted in a strong
southwestward thrust of population, from the neighborhood of Abingdon,
in the direction of the Holston Valley. [125] Recognizing that hundreds
of these settlers were beyond the line negotiated by Stuart, but on
lands not yet surveyed, Governor Botetourt instructed the Virginia
commissioners to press for further negotiations, through Stuart, with
the Cherokees. Accordingly, on October 18, 1770, a new treaty was made
at Lochaber, South Carolina, by which a new line back of Virginia was
established, beginning at the intersection of the
North Carolina-Cherokee line (a point some seventy-odd miles east of
Long Island), running thence in a west course to a point six miles east
of Long Island, and thence in a direct course to the confluence of the
Great Kanawha and Ohio Rivers. At the time of the treaty, it was agreed
that the Holston River, from its intersection with the
North Carolina-Virginia line, and down the course of the same, should be
a temporary southern boundary of Virginia until the line should be
ascertained by actual survey. [126] A strong influx of population into
the immense new triangle thus released for settlement brought powerful
pressure to bear upon northern Tennessee, the point of least resistance
along the western barrier. Singularly enough, this advance was not
opposed by the Cherokees, whose towns were strung across the extreme
southeast corner of Tennessee.
When Colonel John Donelson ran the line in the latter part of 1771, The
Little Carpenter, who with other Indian chiefs accompanied the surveying
party, urged that the line agreed upon at Lochaber should break off at
the head of the Louisa River, and should run thence to the mouth
thereof, and thence up the Ohio to the mouth of the Great Kanawha. For
this increase in the territory of Virginia they of course expected
additional payment. As a representative of Virginia, Donelson agreed to
the proposed alteration in the boundary line; and accordingly promised
to send the Cherokees, in the following spring, a sum alleged by them to
have been fixed at five hundred pounds, in compensation for the
additional area. This informal agreement, it is believed, was never
ratified by Virginia; nor was the promised compensation ever paid the
Cherokees. [127]
Under the belief that the land belonged to Virginia, Jacob Brown with
one or two families from North Carolina settled in 1771 upon a tract of
land on the northern bank of the Nonachunheh (corruption, Nolichucky)
River. During the same year, an experimental line run westward from
Steep Rock and Beaver Creek by Anthony Bledsoe showed that upon the
extension of the boundary line, these settlers would fall within the
bounds of North Carolina. Although thus informally warned of the
situation, the settlers made no move to vacate the lands. But in the
following year, after the running of Donelson's line, Alexander Cameron,
Stuart's deputy, required "all persons who had made settlements beyond
the said line to relinquish them." Thus officially warned, Brown and his
companions removed to Watauga. [128] Cameron's order did not apply,
however, to the settlement north of the Holston River, south and east of
Long Island; and the settlement in Carter's Valley, north of the Holston
and west of the Long Island, although lying without the Virginia
boundary, strangely enough remained unmolested. The order was directed
at the Watauga settlers, who were seated south of the Holston River in
the Watauga Valley.
The plight in which the Watauga settlers now found themselves was truly
desperate; and the way in which they surmounted this apparently
insuperable difficulty is one of the most striking and characteristic
events in the pre-Revolutionary history of the Old Southwest. It
exhibits the indomitable will and fertile resource of the American
character at the margin of desperation. The momentous influence of the
Watauga settlers, inadequately reckoned hitherto by historians, was soon
to make itself powerfully felt in the first epochal movement of westward
expansion.