USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods 1584 1783, Volume I > Part 28
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diction of the North Carolina government. Accordingly un- der the leadership of Robertson they determined to set up a government of their own. This determination resulted in the Watauga Association, the first government erected beyond the Alleghanies and the first written constitution by native Americans. At a general meeting, the inhabitants qualified to take part in so important an undertaking chose thirteen repre- sentatives, apparently one for each block-house or palisaded village, to represent them in the first frontier legislature. These representatives met at Robertson's station and selected five commissioners, among whom were Robertson and John Sevier, destined to fame surpassing even the fame of Robert- son, to administer the government. The commissioners exer- cised both judicial and executive functions. They recorded wills, issued marriage licenses, made treaties with the In- dians, decided cases at law, punished criminals, and super- vised the morals of the community. In their judicial capacity they gave their constituents no cause to complain of the law's delay. An instance frequently cited as typical of their exer- cise of their judicial functions is that of a horse thief who was arrested on Monday, tried on Wednesday, and hanged on Friday. So sure and swift was their execution of the criminal law that some unruly citizens chose to flee to the Indians rather than submit to Watauga justice.
One of the first problems which the Watauga Association as an organized government had to solve was its relations with the Indians. The same year in which the association was formed, 1772, Virginia made a treaty with the Cherokee which fixed the southern boundary of that colony, 36°30' north latitude, as the dividing line between the whites and the Indians west of the Alleghanies. Thereupon Alexander Cameron, the British agent resident among the Cherokee, demanded that the Watauga settlers withdraw from their lands which, of course, fell within the Indian reservation. The settlers refused and in their refusal were supported by the Cherokee themselves who, reluctant to lose the trade of the whites, requested that they be allowed to remain provided they encroached no farther on the domains of the Indians. Accordingly a treaty was made by which the Indians leased their lands to the settlers for a period of eight years. This treaty established peaceful relations between the two races which continued until the outbreak of the Revolution.
The first result of the Revolution was to bring Watauga into closer relations with the mother colony. At the be-
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ginning of the dispute between the king and the colonies, the Watauga settlers, as was to be expected of men of their race, embraced the cause of the colonies, "resolved to adhere strictly to the rules and orders of the Continental Congress," and "acknowledged themselves indebted to the United Colonies their full proportion of the Continental expense." In 1775 they united with the settlers on the Nolichucky River to form Washington District,-the first political division to be honored with the name of Washington,-and the next year petitioned the North Carolina Provincial Council to be an- nexed to North Carolina and admitted to representation in the Provincial Congress. The petition was granted and on De- cember 3, 1776, John Sevier, the first representative from beyond the Alleghanies, took his seat in the Provincial Con- gress at Halifax just in time to participate in the formation of the first constitution of the independent State of North Carolina. The next year Washington District became Wash- ington County, a land office was opened, and a system of land grants similar to that of North Carolina was instituted. In spite of war the settlement continued to grow and in 1779 Sullivan County was erected out of Washington. Neverthe- less it seems not to have been contemplated that Washington County should remain permanently a part of North Carolina, for the Declaration of Rights, adopted in 1776, expressly provides that the clause which defines the boundaries of the State as extending from sea to sea, "shall not be construed so as to prevent the Establishment of one or more Govern- ments Westward of this State, by the consent of the Legis- lature."
By this time other settlements had been made even farther west than the Watauga, in which Richard Henderson, an eminent North Carolina jurist, was the moving spirit. Like many of his contemporaries, Henderson had become affected with the fever for western lands and had begun to dream of vast proprietaries beyond the mountains in which he was to play the part of a William Penn or of a Lord Baltimore. He had made the acquaintance of Boone whose good judgment, intelligence and character had so impressed him that in 1763 lie sent Boone to explore the region between the Cumberland and Kentucky rivers. During the next decade Boone prose- cuted his explorations with great vigor, perseverance and daring, but the story of his romantic career is too well known to need repetition here. In 1774, as a result of his work, Hen- derson organized at Hillsboro a land company, first called the
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Louisa Company, later the Transylvania Company, to pro- mote the settlement of this region. Prominent among the incorporators besides Henderson himself were Jolm Williams of Granville County, one of the first superior court judges of North Carolina under the Constitution of 1776, James Hogg, Nathaniel Hart and Thomas Hart of Orange County. In March, 1775, at Sycamore Shoals on Watauga River, Hen- derson and his associates negotiated a treaty with the Overhill Cherokee Indians by which the Indians sold to the Transyl- vania Company all the vast region between the Cumberland and Kentucky rivers, which Henderson named Transylvania.
Even before the treaty was completed, Daniel Boone had been sent forward to open a trail from the settlements on the Holston to the Kentucky River. This trail was the first regu- lar path into the western wilderness and is famous in the history of the frontier as the Wilderness Trail. Leading through the Cumberland Gap, it crossed the Cumberland, Laurel and Rockcastle rivers, and terminated on the Kentucky River. There on April 1, 1780, Boone began to lay the founda- tions of Boonesborough where he was joined twenty days later by Henderson with a party of forty mounted riflemen. At Boonesborough Henderson opened a land office and proceeded to issue grants and to organize a government for the colony of Transylvania.
These activities, however, were somewhat premature. The Transylvania purchase was in direct controvention of the king's proclamation of 1763, and neither the British nor the colonial authorities would recognize its validity. Since part of the new colony lay within Virginia and part within North Carolina, the governors of both colonies issued proclamations declaring Henderson's treaty with the Indians null and void. Governor Martin of North Carolina denounced it as a "daring unjust and unwarrantable Proceeding," forbade the com- pany "to prosecute so unlawful an Undertaking," and warned all persons that purchases of lands from the Transylvania Company were "illegal, null and void." Henderson and his associates the governor characterized as an "infamous com- pany of Land Pyrates." But in 1775 proclamations of royal governors had lost something of their former effectiveness, and Henderson and his company proceeded with their en- terprise in disregard of the two governors' prohibition. Fail- ing to secure recognition from the colonial governments, in September, 1775, the company sent James Hogg to Phila- delphia to appeal to the Continental Congress for admission
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into the ranks of the United Colonies as the fourteenth colony. But both Virginia and North Carolina, whether under royal rule or as independent states, were opposed to such a sur- render of their western lands, and they succeeded in secur- ing the rejection of the petition. After this rebuff, Hender- son's grandiose scheme collapsed. However in compensation for the "expence, risque and trouble" to which he and his associates had been put, in 1778 Virginia granted them 200,000 acres in that part of Transylvania which lay within her limits, and in 1783 North Carolina made a similar grant within her western territory. That part of Transylvania which fell within the limits of Virginia afterwards became the State of Kentucky; the rest together with Watauga became Tennessee.
In 1779, the indefatigable Henderson opened a land office at French Lick on Cumberland River and invited settlers to purchase grants. Among those who came was James Robert- son, who quickly became the leader of the new colony as he had been at Watauga. In 1780 on a high bluff at French Lick, Robertson built a block-house which he named Nashborough in honor of Abner Nash who had just been elected governor of North Carolina. Later it became Nashville. The early history of the Cumberland settlement resembles that of Wa- tauga. In the face of crop failures, Indian attacks and other hardships which threatened it with destruction, it was held together by the genius of Robertson, and on May 1, 1780, representatives from the several communities met and adopted a temporary plan of government which they called the Cumberland Association modeled after the Watauga As- sociation. It was to be effective only until the settlement could be organized as a county of North Carolina, which was done in 1783 when the Cumberland Association became David- son County with James Robertson as its first representative in the General Assembly.
The tracing of the development of these western settle- ments in a continuous story has carried us chronologically somewhat beyond the period of Tryon's administration in which they originated and to which we must now return. Tryon met his first Assembly at New Bern, May 3, 1765. He had already evolved in his own mind a really constructive program for the colony, part of which he laid before the Assembly. It embraced the fixing upon a permanent seat of government, the establishment of a postal system, the promo- tion of religion, the encouragement of education, and other progressive policies. The Assembly met his suggestions with
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favor, but before it could carry them into execution, North Carolina became involved in the Stamp Act quarrel, which was scarcely settled before the War of the Regulation broke out. Tryon's administration, therefore, began in storm and strife and closed in war and bloodshed. Yet to its credit, besides other measures which will be discussed elsewhere, must be placed the quieting of a gathering storm among the Cherokee Indians, the fixing upon a seat of government and the erection there of a suitable public building, and the crushing of a dan- gerous insurrection in the very heart of the province.
In spite of domestic violence and emigration the decade from 1765 to 1775 was a period of growth and improvement. In 1766 Tryon expressed the opinion that North Carolina was "settling faster than any [other colony] on the conti- nent; last autumn and winter," he added, "upwards of one thousand wagons passed thro' Salisbury with families from the northward, to settle in this province chiefly." All the back country, from Salisbury to the foot of the mountains, and beyond, was filling up "with a race of people, sightly, active, and laborious."
This influx of population brought on a troublesome situa- tion with the Cherokee Indians. As the settlers pushed west- ward they encroached more and more on the Cherokee lands, depriving the Lower Cherokee of their most valuable hunt- ing grounds. Daily contact between the two races produced conflicts and frequent bloodshed. Nor was the trouble con- fined to the Cherokee. A similar situation existed all along the borders of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and. Georgia. The complaints of the Cherokee, wrote John Stuart, "have been echoed through all the Nations." The Cherokee, the Creeks, and the other Indians of the Southern Depart- ment were alarmed and discontented, and ready upon the slightest provocation to take up the hatchet.
Peace could be preserved only by establishing plain and unmistakable boundaries and forbidding each race to encroach upon the territories of the other. John Stuart exerted him- self to secure adjustments in all the colonies in his depart- ment. In February, 1766, he wrote to Governor Tryon that "the fixing of a boundary Line is a measure necessary and essential to the preservation of peace with the Indian Na- tions." But Tryon hesitated to move because he had received no instructions bearing on this matter and had no money with which to defray expenses. Happily both these causes for delay were soon removed. The secretary of state for the
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colonies directed him to apply himself "in the most earnest measure" to remedy the complaints of the Indians and to prevent hostilities, and in November, 1766, the Assembly agreed to meet the expenses of the survey. In April, 1767, the Council unanimously advised Tryon to go in person to meet the Cherokee chiefs, and since this advice fell in with his own wishes, he decided to adopt it.
The commissioners to represent the colony in running the line were John Rutherford, Robert Palmer, and John Fro- hock. To escort himself and the commissioners Tryon ordered out a detachment of fifty men from the Rowan and Mecklen- burg militia which he put under the command of Colonel Hugh Waddell. Although he was going into a hostile country, among a savage and treacherous race, to settle a dispute which was about to bring on war, Tryon has been severely criticised for his action in ordering out these troops. And yet the only criticism of his conduct which can be justified by the facts should be aimed at his fool-hardiness in ventur- ing upon so dangerous an expedition with so weak an escort. At Salisbury he was joined by Alexander Cameron, deputy superintendent of Indian affairs in the Southern Department. The march westward from Salisbury was begun May 21, 1767. On June 1 Tryon met the Cherokee chiefs at "Tyger River camp," where after exchanging "talks" they came to an agreement as to the boundary. The survey was started June 4, which Tryon regarded as an especially auspicious date since it was the king's birthday. Rutherford, Palmer, Fro- hock, Cameron, and the Cherokee chiefs composed the sur- veying party. They began the line at a point on Reedy River where the South Carolina-Cherokee line, recently run, ter- minated and continued it fifty-three miles northward to a mountain which the surveyors named in honor of the governor. Tryon himself had already returned to Brunswick. He had made a favorable impression upon the Indians who named him "The Great Wolf." Upon his return to Brunswick he issued a proclamation setting out the line agreed upon, for- bidding any purchases of land from the Indians, and prohibit- ing the issuance of any grants within one mile of the boundary line. When the Assembly met in December it thanked the governor for "superintending in person" the running of this line and appropriated money for paying the expenses of the survey, which amounted to about £400.
Upon his return from this expedition Tryon turned his attention seriously to the erection of the public building at
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New Bern for which the Assembly of November, 1766, follow- ing his recommendation, had made an appropriation. Other governors had repeatedly urged the necessity for such action. "The Publick Records," wrote Governor Johnston, nearly twenty years before, "lye in a miserable condition, one part of them at Edenton near the Virginia Line in a place without Lock or Key; a great part of them in the Secretary's House at Cape Fear about Two Hundred Miles Distance from the other; Some few of 'em at the Clerk of the Council's House at Newbern, so that in whatever part of the Colony a man hap- pens to be, if he wants to consult any paper or record he must send some Hundred of Miles before he can come at it." In 1744 he told the Assembly that the unsatisfactory condition of public affairs and the "shamefull condition" of the laws, which were "left at the mercy of every ignorant transcriber and tossed about on loose scraps of paper," were largely due to "the want of a fixt place for the dispatch of publick busi- ness. It is impossible," he continued, "to finish any matter as it ought to be while we go on in this itinerant way. *
We have now tried every Town in the Colony and it is high time to settle somewhere." The soundness of this advice was indisputable, yet the Assembly did nothing. The trouble was the question could never be considered on its own merits. The act of 1746, fixing the capital at New Bern, was involved in the representation controversy and vetoed by the king upon the protest of the northern counties. In 1758, upon the recom- mendation of Governor Dobbs, the Assembly passed an act fixing the capital at Tower Hill, on the Neuse River about fifty miles above New Bern; but the Board of Trade claimed for the Crown the right to select the site for a capital and rebuked Dobbs for consenting to the act. Besides, after its passage it was found that Dobbs himself owned the land on which the town was to be located, and charges of speculation and corruption were so freely circulated that the Assembly itself asked the king to disallow the act.
Here the situation stood when the outburst of loyalty and good-feeling which followed the repeal of the Stamp Act gave Tryon a favorable opportunity for asking the Assembly for funds to erect a suitable public building at New Bern. The Assembly, in November, 1766, complied with the request, ap- propriating £5,000 for the purpose. A year later an addi- tional appropriation of £10,000 was made. The work begun in 1767 was finally completed in 1770. The building, though called the "Governor's Palace," contained in fact a residence
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THE TRYON PALACE
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for the governor, a hall for the' Assembly, a council chamber, and offices for the provincial officials. Built of brick and trimmed with marble, it was admittedly the handsomest pub- lic building in America. Its erection brought much undeserved odium upon Tryon. True it fastened a debt upon the province which it could ill afford at that time; nevertheless it is perti- nent to remark that this debt was incurred not by the gov- ernor but by representatives of the people. The governor merely expended the money which the Assembly voted. Nor can there be any doubt that the establishment of a permanent capital, the concentration of the public records in a central depository, and the erection of suitable executive offices and legislative halls greatly facilitated and improved the transac- tion of the public business.
While all this is undoubtedly true, yet it was an unfavor- able time for the Assembly to enter upon such an expensive enterprise. The eastern men, who controlled the Assembly and upon whom chiefly the burdens of the Stamp Act would have fallen, in their joy at being relieved of those burdens, forgot that other sections of the province had grievances of their own. The back counties were already deeply agitated over abuses in the administration of their local affairs and the inequalities in the system of taxation, and a wise administra- tion would not have given them an additional cause for dis- satisfaction. Their complaints were aimed not so much at the fact of erecting a provincial building as at the method adopted for raising the money. This method was the imposi- tion of a poll tax for three years which fell on rich and poor alike and was particularly burdensome in the back settlements where money was so scarce. They complained that "as the people in the lower counties are few in proportion to those in the back settlements, it [a poll tax] more immediately affects the many, and operates to their prejudice; for * a man that is worth £10,000 pays no more than a poor back set- tler that has nothing but the labour of his hands to depend upon for his daily support." The Regulators of Orange County, at a meeting held on August 2, 1768, told the sheriff, "We are determined not to pay the Tax for the next three years, for the Edifice or Governor's House. We want no such House, nor will we pay for it." Thus the erection of the "Governor's Palace" was closely connected with those two events, the Regulation and the Stamp Act, which hold so large a place in the history of North Carolina during the decade from 1765 to 1775 .
CHAPTER XVII
THE WAR OF THE REGULATION
The War of the Regulation is one of the most sharply controverted events in the history of North Carolina. The controversy, however, does not so much concern the facts, as in the case of the "Mecklenburg Declaration," as it does the conclusions to be drawn from them. One group of his- torians sees in the Regulators a devoted band of patriots who at Alamance fired the opening gun of the American Revolu- tion ; another sees only a mob, hating property and culture, de- lighting in violence and impatient of all legal restraints, whose success would have resulted not in the establishment of con- stitutional liberty but in the reign of anarchy. Neither view is correct; the former is based upon a misunderstanding of the American Revolution, the latter upon a misunderstanding of the Regulation.
The Regulation had its origin in the social and economic differences between the tidewater section and the "back coun- try" of North Carolina. These differences were largely the results of racial and geological divergencies. In the East, as has already been pointed out, the people were almost entirely of English ancestry; in the West, Scotch-Irish and Germans predominated. In the East an aristocratic form of society prevailed, based upon large plantations and slave labor; in the West, plantations were small, slaves were few in number, and the forms and ideals of society were democratic. Between the two sections stretched a sparsely settled region of pine forest which formed a natural barrier to intercourse. The East looked to Virginia and the mother country for its social, intellectual, and political standards ; for the West, Phil- adelphia was the principal center for the interchange of ideas, as well as of produce. With slight intercourse between them, the two sections felt but little sympathetic interest in each other. While the East had taken on many of the forms and luxuries of older societies, the West was still in the pioneer stage. Some old Regulators long afterwards declared that
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at the time of the Regulation there was not among all their acquaintances one who could boast a cabin with a plank floor, or who possessed a feather bed, a riding carriage, or a side saddle.
There was, however, one set of people in the "back coun- try" who aped the manners of the eastern aristocracy, and by their haughty bearings, selfish and mercenary spirit, and disregard of the sentiments if not the rights of the people, drew upon themselves an almost universal detestation and hatred. They were the public officials, who were a sufficiently numerous and compact group to form a distinct class. The people had but little or no voice in the choice of these officials and therefore no control over them. The colonial government was highly centralized. Provincial affairs were administered by officials chosen by the Crown, local affairs by officials chosen by the governor. Upon the recommendation of the assemblymen from each county, the governor in Council ap- pointed the county justices, who administered the local gov- ernment. The county justices nominated to the governor three freeholders from whom he selected the sheriff. The gov- ernor also appointed the registers and the officers of the mili- tia. There was a clerk of the pleas who farmed out the clerk- ships of the counties. Moreover these local officials controlled the Assembly. No law forbade multiple office-holding, and the assemblymen were also generally clerks, justices, and militia colonels, who formed what in modern political parlance we call "courthouse rings." Where these "rings" were com- posed of high-minded, patriotic men, as in most of the east- ern counties, government was honestly administered; but in the "back country" such officials were rare, local government was usually inefficient, often corrupt, and generally oppres- sive.
It was this system of centralized office-holding that pre- vented the Regulators' receiving prompt and effective redress of their grievances. Their grievances were excessive taxes, dishonest officials, and extortionate fees. Taxes were exces- sive because they were levied only on the poll so that the rich and the poor paid equal amounts. The scarcity of money in the "back country" added to the hardships of the system, for it frequently gave brutal and corrupt sheriffs and their depu- ties an excuse to proceed by distraint, collect an extra fee for so doing, and sell the unhappy taxpayer's property at less than its real value to some friend of the sheriff. The Regula- tors charged that the officers and their friends made a regular
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