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Virginia, we conceive, can claim this Country [Kentucky] with the greatest justice and propriety, its within the Limits of their Charter. They Fought and bled for it. And had it not been for the memorable Battle, at the Great Kanaway those vast regions had yet continued inaccessable.--The Harrodsburg Petition. June 7-15, 1776. It was fortunate for the Watauga settlers that the Indians and the whites were on the most peaceful terms with each other at the time the Watauga Valley was shown, by the running of the boundary line, to lie within the Indian reservation. With true American self reliance, the settlers met together for deliberation and counsel, and deputed James Robertson and John Been, as stated by Tennessee's first historian, "to treat with their landlords, and agree upon articles of accommodation and friendship. The attempt succeeded. For though the Indians refused to give up the land gratuitously, they consented, for a stipulated amount of merchandise, muskets, and other articles of convenience, to lease all the country on the waters of the Watauga." In addition to the land thus leased for ten years, several other tracts were purchased from the Indians by Jacob Brown, who reoccupied his former location on the Nolichucky. In taking this daring step, the Watauga settlers moved into the spotlight of national history. For the inevitable consequence of leasing the territory was the organization of a form of government for the infant settlement. Through his familiarity with the North Carolina type of "association," in which the settlers had organized for the purpose of "regulating" abuses, and his acquaintance with the contents of the "Impartial Relation," in which Husband fully expounded the principles and practices of this association, Robertson was peculiarly fitted for leadership in organizing this new government. The convention at which Articles of Association, unfortunately lost, were drawn up, is noteworthy as the first governmental assemblage of free-born American citizens ever held west of the Alleghanies. The government then established was the first free and independent government, democratic in spirit, representative in form, ever organized upon the American continent. In describing this mimic republic, the royal Governor of Virginia says: "They appointed magistrates, and framed laws for their present occasion, and to all intents and purposes, erected themselves into, though an inconsiderable, yet a separate State." The most daring spirit in this little state was the young John Sevier, of French Huguenot family (originally spelled Xavier), born in Augusta County, Virginia, on September 23, 1745. It was from Millerstown in Shenandoah County where he was living the uneventful life of a small farmer, that he emigrated (December, 1773) to the Watauga region. With his arrival there begins one of the most fascinating and romantic careers recorded in the varied arid stirring annals of the Old Southwest. In this daring and impetuous young fellow, fair-haired, blue-eyed, magnetic, debonair--of powerful build, splendid proportions, and athletic skill--we hold the gallant exemplar of the truly heroic life of the border. The story of his life, thrilling in the extreme, is rich in all the multi-colored elements which impart romance to the arduous struggle of American civilization in the opening years of the republic. The creative impulses in the Watauga commonwealth are hinted at by Dunmore, who serves, in the letter above quoted, that Watauga "sets a dangerous example to the people America, of forming governments distinct from and independent of his Majesty's authority." It is true that the experiment was somewhat limited. The organization of the Watauga association, which constituted a temporary expedient to meet a crisis in the affairs of a frontier community cut off by forest wilderness and mountain barriers from the reach of the arm of royal or provincial government, is not to be compared with the revolutionary assemblage at Boonesborough, May 23, 1775, or with the extraordinary demands for inde pendence in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, during the same month. Nevertheless the Watauga settlers defied both North Carolina and the Crown, by adopting the laws of Virginia and by ignoring Governor Josiah Martin's proclamation (March 26, 1774) "requiring the said settlers immediately to retire from the Indian Territories." Moreover, Watauga really was the parent of a series of mimic republics in the Old Southwest, gradually tending toward higher forms of organization, with a larger measure of individual liberty. Watauga, Transylvania, Cumberland, Franklin represent the evolving political genius of a free people under the creative leadership of three constructive minds--James Robertson, John Sevier, and Richard Henderson. Indeed, Watauga furnished to Judge Henderson precisely the "dangerous example" of which Dunmore prophetically speaks.
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