THE CUMBERLAND SETTLEMENTS

245 home in west-central Tennessee, on the bend of the Cumberland.

These "Cumberland settlements" were the third group of English-speaking colonists in the Southwest. Population thronged into the fertile district, with the usual proportion of undesirable frontier characters; and the settlers found it needful at once to provide a government. May 1, 1780, a convention of representatives at Nashboro adopted a constitution, which, however, was styled by the makers merely "a temporary method of restraining the licentious." A few days later, this "social compact" was signed by every adult male settler, 256 in number. It provided for a court of twelve "judges," chosen by manhood suffrage in the several stations. If dissatisfied with its representative, a station might at any time hold a new election (the modern "recall"). Like the early Watauga "commissioners," the "judges" exercised all powers of government. The constitution, however, expressly recognized the right of North Carolina to rule the district when she should be ready; and in 1783 that State organized the Cumberland settlements into Davidson County.

The

66

State"

land

A year later (1784) North Carolina ceded her western lands to the Continental Congress. The Westerners complained loudly that the mother-State had cast them off, and that the dilatory Congress was not ready to accept them. The three counties of of Frankeastern Tennessee (about Watauga) now numbered 10,000 people. August 23, 1784, a representative convention of forty delegates declared this district an independent State with the name Frankland ("Land of the Free"). A later convention adopted a constitution, and a full state government was set up, with Sevier as governor. But North Carolina "repealed" her cession (Congress not having acted); and after some years of struggle that rose even into war, she succeeded in restoring her authority over the district. (The first legislature of Frankland fixed a currency "in kind": a pound of sugar was to pass as one shilling; a fox or raccoon skin for two shillings; a gallon

of peach brandy for three shillings, and so on. Easterners laughed contemptuously at this "money which cannot be counterfeited," forgetting how their fathers had used like currency.)

Separatist tendencies

For some years, only feeble ties held the Western settlements to the Atlantic States. The men of the West made continuous efforts for Statehood; but these efforts were opposed both by Virginia and North Caroin the West lina and also by Congress. Then, at one time or another, in each of the three groups of settlements, these legitimate attempts merged obscurely into less justifiable plots for complete separation from the Eastern confederacy. For even this extreme phase of the movement, there was great provocation in the gross neglect shown by the East toward pressing needs in the West. The older States had just rebelled against the colonial policy of Great Britain, but they showed a strong inclination to retain a selfish policy toward their own "colonies." Even in the matter of protection against Indians, they hampered the frontier without giving aid. The Westerners made many petitions (1) to control directly their own militia; (2) to be divided into smaller counties with courts more accessible; and (3) to have a "court of appeal" established on their side neglect and of the mountains. Many a poor man found legal jealousy redress for wrong impossible because a richer opponent could appeal to a seaboard supreme court. These reasonable requests were refused by North Carolina, and granted only grudgingly by Virginia. More distant Eastern communities, too, notably New England, manifested a harsh jealousy of the West.

Eastern

for the

In particular the East long neglected to secure for the new West the right to use the lower Mississippi. For nearly all The demand its course, one bank of the Mississippi was American; but, by the treaties of 1783, toward the mouth both banks were Spain's. According to the commercial policy of past ages, Spain could close against us this commercial outlet. But the surplus farm produce of the West could not be carried to

mouth of the Mississippi

SEPARATIST MOVEMENTS IN THE SOUTHWEST

247

the East over bridlepaths. Without some route to the outside world, it was valueless; and the only possible route in that day was the huge arterial system of natural waterways to the Gulf. So, from the first, the backwoodsmen floated their grain and stock in flatboats down the smaller streams to the Ohio, and so on down the great central river to New Orleans. They encountered shifting shoals, hidden snags, treacherous currents, savage ambuscades, and the hardships and dangers of wearisome return on foot through the Indian-haunted forests. These natural perils the frontiersman accepted light-heartedly; but he was moved to bitter wrath, when his journey accomplished - fatal harm befell him at his port. He had to have "right of deposit" at New Orleans, in order to reship to ocean vessels. Spanish governors granted or withheld that privilege at pleasure to extort bribes or gratify a grudge.

Our government showed little eagerness in this life-ordeath matter; but the West seethed with furious demands for possession of the mouth of the Mississippi. How to get it mattered little. The Westerners would help Congress win it from Spain; or they were ready to try to win it by themselves, setting up, if need be, as a separate nation; or some of them were ready even to buy the essential privilege by putting their settlements under the Spanish flag. The last measure was never discussed publicly; but Sevier, Robertson, and Clark were all at some time concerned secretly in dubious negotiations with Spanish agents. American nationality was just in the making. It was natural for even good men to look almost exclusively to the welfare of their own section, and the action of these great leaders does not expose them to charges of lack of patriotism in any shameful sense, as would be the case in a later day. These men must not be confounded with a fellow like General Wilkinson, who while an American officer, took a pension from Spain for assisting her interests in the West. Still it was well that, about 1790, they were Statehood pushed aside by a new generation of immigrants, secured who were able to "think continentally." Virginia and

North Carolina, too, were finally persuaded to give up their claims. In 1792 Kentucky became a State of the Union, and, four years later, Tennessee was admitted. The remaining lands south of the Ohio that had been ceded by that time to the United States were then organized as the Mississippi Territory.

CHAPTER XIII

THE NORTHWEST: A NATIONAL DOMAIN

THE Southwest, we have seen, was a self-developed section. Except for Henderson's futile project, there was no paternalism. No statesman planned its settlements; no general directed the conquest of territory; no older government, State or Federal, fostered development. The land was won from savage man and savage nature by little bands of selfassociated backwoodsmen, piece by piece, from the Watauga to the Rio Grande, in countless bloody but isolated skirmishes, generation after generation. Settlement preceded governmental organization.

settlement

In the Northwest, settlement did not begin until after the Revolution, and government preceded settlement. The first colonists found (1) territorial divisions Government marked off, and the form of government largely precedes determined; (2) land surveys ready for the farmer; and (3) some military protection. All this was arranged in advance by the national government. This child of the nation, therefore, never showed the tendencies to separatism which we have noted in the Southwest.

territory

Six States could make no claim to any part of the West, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island; and the title of Conflicting South Carolina applied only to a strip of land claims to some twenty miles wide. But, as soon as the Western Revolution began, the other six States reasserted loudly old colonial claims to all the vast region between the mountains and the Mississippi. They planned to use these lands, too, in paying their soldiers and other war expenses, while the small States taxed themselves in hard cash for the war which was to win the territory from England.