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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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