While the orders of Hillsborough were drawing the colonies together in common opposition to the king and Parliament, the western pioneers of North Carolina were striving to redress the shameful abuses in the civil service which Tryon and the assembly had refused to remedy.
The War of the Regulation has no direct connection with the Revolution. It was neither religious nor political in character. It was essentially a peasants' rising on account of economic wrongs. Hermon Husband sympathized deeply with the aggrieved people, and by wise methods did what he could to relieve them from oppression; but, contrary to the popular view, he was rather a peacemaker than a leader of rebellion.
There was little self-government in the colony. Power was centralized in the hands of the governor and a few leaders. So in the western counties, the spoils of office were shared by corrupt "rings." The "grievances of the Regulators were excessive taxes, dishonest sheriffs, and extortionate fees."
Taxes were apportioned according to polls, every adult white man and every black man or woman being rated as a taxable. Thus, relatively, the burden bore more heavily upon the poor than upon the rich. Money was so scarce that often the people were unable to pay the tax when demanded without borrowing the sum needed from the local broker. The sheriff as tax-collector usually refused to grant the delay necessary for this purpose, but proceeded at once to distrain on the delinquent's property, exacting a fee for the service.
The property seized was then carried to Hillsborough and sold, sometimes to a friend of the officer, "for much less than its value. The Regulators charged that officers played into each other's hands for this pur-pose, and there were men in Hillsborough who made large sums by dealing in such business." Moreover, the sheriffs were often dishonest. In 1767 even Governor Tryon declared that because of the "illjudged lenity" of the treasurers these officials "have embezzled more than one-half of the public money ordered to be raised and collected by them"; and in 1770 an official report shows that they were in arrears to the amount of more than £66,000, counting some £15,000 due for that year.
The fee system was scandalously abused. Fees of lawyers and officials were established by law, but in spirit the law was violated by ingeniously resolving a "service for which a fixed fee was due into two or more services," and demanding the fee for each. The people believed that the courts connived at the extortion and that, by collusion, cases were postponed in order to increase the costs.
Furthermore, the people of the back country suffered greatly from the lack of courts. They demanded that the counties should be subdivided so that the number of county courts might be increased. Often, they had to travel from thirty to sixty miles to attend the sessions. Judicial business was so much behind that in April 1766, Tryon wrote that there were about one thousand cases on the docket of the Halifax superior court, and no civil causes had been tried in any court in the province since November.
Tryon and the eastern members of the assembly sympathized with the placemen and declined to grant the needed reforms. At length, the people resolved to take the law into their own hands. Outbreaks of mob violence took place in 1765; in some places, taxes were refused in 1766; and in that year, the first organized effort to bring the officials to account was made. The larger movement, known as the Regulation, extended from 1768 to May 1771, when it was mercilessly put down in the battle of the Alamance. In the next year, despairing of gaining justice, a large number of pioneers crossed the mountains to carve out new homes in the wilderness of Tennessee.
The Regulation thus has its place in the expansion of the nation, but it is not the beginning of the Revolution. Among the leaders in the war for independence were the very men who commanded the militia against the Regulators, while the majority of the latter were Tories. Still, the uprising that took place at all is largely due to the policy of Tryon, and in another way, it influenced the Revolution. "The struggle was a grand object lesson to the whole country. It set the people to thinking of armed resistance. Failure as it was, it showed how weak the British army would be in a hostile country. It taught the North Carolina troops who served with Tryon to appreciate the feelings of such an army. The two campaigns of Tryon developed the military organization of the province. When the Revolution began, it was only necessary that this organization should be put in motion."
Before the arrival of the Regulators from North Carolina, events of vast import for the future nation were taking place beyond the Alleghanies. There, in the valleys of Kentucky and Tennessee, American institutions were being planted, the foundations of new states were being laid. In the face of perils and hardships not less appalling than those endured by their ancestors at Jamestown and Plymouth, bold pioneers were forming "associations" for self-government, not less significant than the Mayflower compact. Long before the French and Indian War, cheap arable lands were becoming scarce east of the mountains, and the westward march of settlement had already passed beyond the Blue Ridge to the rich valley of the Shenandoah. As early as 1738, the Virginia assembly had created Augusta County, bounded on the east by the Blue Ridge, and west and northwest by "the utmost limits of Virginia."
Gradually, interest was awakened in the opening of the West to colonization. Between the Monongahela and the Kanawha were located the lands granted to the Ohio Company in 1749, and from this time onward, numerous schemes for western settlement were formed. Franklin's plan of union in 1754 would have wisely placed general control of Indian affairs in the hands of the governor and council. They were to "make all purchases from Indians, for the crown, of lands not now within the bounds of particular colonies, or that shall not be within their bounds when some of them are reduced to more convenient dimensions."
Not long after the Albany convention, Franklin prepared a project for planting two colonies under charters from the crown. These were to have "liberal privileges and powers of government"; for "extraordinary privileges and liberties, with lands on easy terms, are strong inducements to people to hazard their persons and fortunes in settling new countries." These colonies were to be seated, one on the Scioto, and the other in what is now northwestern Pennsylvania and northeastern Ohio. In 1756, Pownall communicated Franklin's scheme to the Duke of Cumberland, together with a plan of his own for two barrier colonies, to protect Virginia and New England respectively. He informed the duke that the "English settlements, as they are at present circumstanced, are absolutely at a stand; they are settled up to the mountains, and in the mountains there is nowhere together, land sufficient for a settlement large enough to subsist by itself and to defend itself, and preserve a communication with the present settlements. If the English would advance one step further, or cover themselves where they are, it must be at once, by one large step over the mountains, with a numerous and military colony."
In 1755, Samuel Hazard, a Philadelphia merchant, proposed to get a grant of land for "an ample colony," and to apply to the king for a charter to erect the "territory into a separate government." The boundaries of this ample colony, as described, "embraced all of the Ohio, and a large part of the Mississippi valleys." Apparently, it was expected that the colonists would be mainly Presbyterians. "Only Protestants believing in the divine authority of the Old and New Testaments and the Trinity of the Godhead, and with lives and conversations free from immorality and profaneness, could hold office. Roman Catholics were debarred from holding land or having arms or ammunition in their possession, 'nor shall any Mass Houses or Popish Chappels be allowed in the Province.'" It is well that a plan for the government of the West, whose intolerance contrasts so unfavorably with the broad liberalism of the Ordinance of 1787, was never carried through; for with its author's death in 1758, it drops out of sight.
Another of the various schemes of this period, never realized, deserves a passing notice. At the close of the French and Indian War an Edinburgh pamphlet recommended that "Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania be terminated by a bound to be fixed thus: From Lake Erie, up the river Miamis [Maumee] to the Carrying-place, from thence down the river Waback to where it runs into the Ohio, and from thence down the Ohio to the Forks of the Mississippi." Furthermore, the writer of the pamphlet suggested that "the country betwixt the fresh-water Lakes, extending northwest from this proposed bound, be formed into a new Colony, which might be called Charlotiana, in honor of Her Majesty, our present most excellent Queen." The colony, it was hoped, would serve as a check to the Indian insurrections then in progress.
The king's proclamation of 1763 forbade the colonial governors "to grant warrant of survey, or pass patents for any lands beyond the heads or sources of any of the rivers which fall into the Atlantic Ocean from the west or northwest," all such territory being "for the present" reserved to the royal "sovereignty" for the use of the Indians. Without the king's "special leave and licence," under severe penalty private persons were prohibited from purchasing or settling on any of the lands so reserved; but "if at any time any of the said Indians should be inclined to dispose of the said lands," the same were to be purchased in the king's name, at a public meeting of the Indians, by the governor or commander-in-chief of the colony in which they shall lie.
In 1772, the Earl of Hillsborough declared that the "two capital objects" of the proclamation were to confine the colonies to territory where they could be kept "in a due subjection to, and dependence upon, the mother country," and where they would be "within the reach of the trade and commerce" of Great Britain. But there seems to be no good reason to doubt that it was really designed in good faith as a temporary expedient for securing the rights and quieting the minds of the Indians until a permanent arrangement should be made by treaty. Such was the view of Franklin and Washington; while Grenville "always admitted that the design of it was totally accomplished, so soon as the country was purchased from the natives." The proclamation dealt with the Indian problem in precisely the same spirit as did Franklin's plan of union in 1754; and that there was no intention of placing a permanent restraint on westward settlement is clearly revealed by later events.
The very next year, an important step was taken towards opening the western lands for settlement. At the close of Pontiac's war in 1764, Bouquet forced a treaty of peace upon the Indians of the Ohio Valley, whose most important result was to aid in withdrawing the Indians from the territory south of the Ohio, thus preparing the way for the future settlement of Kentucky and Tennessee. "Very soon after Bouquet's conference, the last of the Shawnees who lingered in that country crossed the Ohio."
Only two years after the treaty, a scheme was under consideration for planting three new colonies in the West. One was to be seated at Detroit, another on the lower Ohio, and a third in the Illinois country. Although the project was favored by Franklin and supported by Lord Shelburne, then secretary of state for the southern or colonial department, it was finally abandoned by the ministry in 1768. In that same year, at the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the Six Nations ceded to the crown all of their claims to land south of the Ohio as far as the Tennessee. This treaty was in strict harmony with the policy inaugurated by the proclamation of 1763, and the way was now open for settlement under the royal sanction.
Accordingly, the next project for a Western colony was well received. In June 1769, the first step was taken in what is known as the Vandalia scheme. A petition was then presented to the board of trade by Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, and others for the purchase of two million four hundred thousand acres of land. At the instance of Lord Hillsborough, then at the head of the board, the project was enlarged so as to include a much greater territory with provision for a colonial government. For about £10,000, the Lords of the Treasury agreed to convey to the company a vast domain covering nearly all of West Virginia and the eastern part of Kentucky as far as a line drawn from the mouth of the Scioto to Cumberland Gap; while the colony or jurisdiction of Vandalia was to include this tract and the region beyond to the Kentucky River. After long consideration, in May, 1773, a report of the board of trade, prepared at the king's command, favored the project because of "the necessity there was of introducing some regular form of government in a country incapable of participating the advantages arising from the civil institutions of Virginia"; and declared that the "form and constitution of the new colony which they named Vandalia" had received attention.
It is believed that the charter of Massachusetts was to be taken as a general model for the organization. The governor and other officers were to be appointed during the king's pleasure, and in effect, they were made dependent upon him alone for their salaries. In the spring of 1775, the draft of the royal grant was actually ready for execution when the president of the Privy Council requested Walpole and his associates to "wait for the grant aforesaid, and the plan of government of Vandalia, until hostilities, which had then commenced between Great Britain and the United Colonies, should cease." The further history of the Vandalia company lies beyond the period dealt with in this volume.
The incident is enlightening in two ways. First, on the very eve of the Revolution, it appears to reveal the policy deliberately adopted by Great Britain in reference to her territory beyond the Alleghanies. Seemingly, this was to be cut up into great proprietary domains, but with governments not unlike those of the existing royal provinces, while the provision rendering the colonial officials dependent upon the crown for their salaries is conceived in the spirit of the act "regulating" the government of Massachusetts. "If the war had broken out a little later," says a careful writer, "there seems every reason to suppose that there would have been fourteen instead of thirteen colonies to fight for independence."
Again, it is significant that Virginia did not resist these proceedings as an invasion of her jurisdiction. She did, indeed, demand that all existing private claims in the region in question should be respected; but the right of the crown to bestow vacant lands and confer jurisdiction back of the mountains was not challenged. The king's proclamation had entirely ignored the shadowy title of several of the colonies to the western territory, and in the ensuing period, his right to do so was virtually conceded. During the discussion of the Vandalia project Franklin declared that the Alleghanies must be considered the "real limits of Virginia"; and Nelson, president of the Virginia council — then acting in place of the governor — said, "We do not presume to say to whom our gracious Sovereign shall grant his vacant lands. ... With respect to the establishment of a new colony on the back of Virginia, it is a subject of too great political importance for me to presume to give an opinion upon"; but "when that part of the country shall become sufficiently populated, it may be a wise and prudent measure." It was only after the declaration of independence that Virginia began to assert its exclusive western claims under its ancient charters.
While capitalists and statesmen were trying these unsuccessful plans for colonization, the hardy back-woodsmen, without leave or license, were laying the lasting foundations of future commonwealths on the western waters. The territory now embraced in the states of Tennessee and Kentucky was then a debatable ground between the aborigines of the north and those of the south. Very few Indians permanently dwelt in the region, but here, perhaps for ages, the tribes had met to hunt or to fight their battles. Tennessee, no less than Kentucky, was a "dark and bloody ground." But at this time, the region seemed to invite the occupancy of the whites. The treaties made by Bouquet and at Fort Stanwix tended to restrain the powerful Wabash tribes from crossing the Ohio. The territory to the south, the future states of Alabama and Mississippi, was held by the formidable nations of Choc taws, Creeks, and Cherokees. The Chickasaws, indeed, still clung to their strongholds in the bluffs of the Mississippi River in western Kentucky and Tennessee, but this occupation was not looked upon as a serious obstacle to settlement.
For twenty years, the valleys of Kentucky had been visited by traders and hunters — the daring pathfinders of civilization. The headwaters of the eastern tributaries of the Mississippi River lie eastward of the main chain of the Alleghanies, and thus offer an easy road from the Roanoke and the James valleys, so that it was not difficult to start the stream of permanent settlement toward the western slope of the mountains. In 1769, Captain William Bean, from Pittsylvania County, in Virginia, built the first cabin on the Watauga, a source of the Tennessee River. He was soon followed by many other settlers, whose names for the most part are unrecorded. Among these early adventurers was Daniel Boone. A rude inscription carved on the bark of a tree commemorates his killing of a bear, and he is believed to have spent a night in Bean's cabin near a creek which still bears his name. James Robertson — like Daniel Boone, a heroic figure in the winning of the West — came from North Carolina in 1770.
Among those who followed him were many of the Regulators, whom misgovernment had forced from their eastern homes. By 1772, three flourishing settlements had been founded — one on the Watauga, another in Carter's Valley, and a third on the Nollichucky. It was supposed that these were within the limits of the territory claimed by Virginia, to which the Indian title had been extinguished by the treaty of 1768. Some of the lands were actually taken under the pre-emption laws of that colony. It was soon discovered that they were south of the boundary line, in the "unorganized territory belonging to North Carolina," and that some of the settlements were made in violation of the rights of the Cherokees under the treaty of Lochaber in 1770. Therefore, North Carolina declined to acknowledge the settlements and to make any provision for their government. Furthermore, many of the pioneers were by no means eager to place themselves again under the authority of a province from whose tyranny they had just escaped.
Accordingly, in true American fashion, the Watauga pioneers resorted to self-help. In 1772, at a convention called for the purpose, an association was formed under a written constitution. A committee of thirteen was chosen to act as a legislative body. The executive and judicial powers were vested in five commissioners chosen by the thirteen from their own number. The committee appointed a clerk and made provision for the record of deeds and wills. There was a sheriff and an attorney. So far as applicable, the laws of Virginia were adopted; and the government seems to have been administered with great prudence. For a time, the Nollichucky settlement was not included in the association; but in 1775, being "composed for the most part of Tories," it was forced by the "Watauga people and a band of Virginians" to take the oath of fidelity to the revolutionary cause. Thereafter, it formed a part of the union. For four years, the "Watauga Association" was virtually an independent colony, but in 1776, on petition, it was received under the jurisdiction of North Carolina.
The first planting of Kentucky affords a chapter in institutional history equally instructive and equally inspiring. Here, too, there was a preparatory period of hunting, exploration, and adventure. The era of settlement began in 1769, when Daniel Boone, with five other backwoodsmen, left his "family and peaceful habitation on the Yadkin River in North Carolina, to wander through the wilderness of America, in quest of the country of Kentucky." In the spring of 1771, he returned for his "family with a determination to bring them as soon as possible to live in Kentucky," which he "esteemed a second paradise." Harrodsburg, the first distinct community, was founded in 1774 by James Harrod and some forty companions. In 1775, Boonesborough was begun and protected by a fort, and at the same time, similar strongholds were built at St. Asaph's, Boiling Springs, and Harrodsburg.
Already, without any governmental sanction, the first step toward the creation of a new commonwealth had been taken. At Hillsborough, North Carolina, on August 27, 1774, a company had been formed, the members agreeing "to rent or purchase a certain territory or tract of land ... from the Indian Tribes now in possession thereof, and to bind and oblige ourselves and our heirs each to furnish his Quota of Expenses necessary towards procuring a grant and settling the country." On the 6th of the next January the associators — Judge Richard Henderson and eight others, all from North Carolina — took the name of the "Transylvania Company." In the spring of 1775, at Watauga, a treaty was made with the Cherokees, who, for £10,000 in merchandise, ceded to the company a vast domain between the Ohio and the Tennessee, which was called Transylvania. The proprietors at once proceeded to form a government, resolving that the people should have a voice in making their own laws. An open-air convention was called for May 23, 1775. Boonesborough was represented by six, and each of the other three settlements by four delegates, elected "by free choice of Individuals." A legislature for Transylvania was thus created, the proprietors retaining the executive authority with the right of absolute veto.
On the appointed day, the convention met under the branches of a mighty elm and listened to an opening speech by Henderson, the head of the company. We have a right to make necessary laws, he said, "without giving offense to Great Britain, or any of the American colonies — without disturbing the repose of any society or community under Heaven." A kind of written constitution in the form of articles of agreement between the proprietors and the delegates was then accepted; and laws were speedily enacted: establishing courts of judicature; regulating the militia; for the punishment of criminals; to prevent profane swearing and Sabbath breaking; for writs of attachment; ascertaining clerks' and sheriffs' fees; to preserve the range; to preserve the breed of horses; to preserve game. After this, in five days, creating a self-governing commonwealth and providing it with a body of laws, the backwoodsmen, "in good order, everybody pleased," returned to their homes. The convention adjourned to the first Tuesday in the following September, but it never met again.
The history of the colony of Transylvania is soon told. It was denounced by Dunmore of Virginia and opposed by Martin of North Carolina. The proprietors discovered that their title from the Cherokees was utterly worthless, for their lands were in the region ceded to the king by the Six Nations at Fort Stanwix, and they were also claimed by Virginia. In alarm, Harrod's party among the settlers appealed to that province, asking that the territory be placed under its jurisdiction. On the other hand, the proprietors sent a petition to the Continental Congress praying that Transylvania might be "added to the number of the United Colonies." The petition was not granted, but at last, in December 1776, the Virginia assembly consented to organize the greater part of the territory as the "county of Kentucky."
The prosperity of the settlements in Kentucky and Tennessee had been greatly favored by the results of Lord Dunmore's War. By the victory of the Great Kanawha, October 10, 1774, they were effectually relieved of all immediate peril from the Indians of the northwest. The battle was thus of the greatest national importance. It was almost equivalent to the winning of the West; for had it not been possible to occupy this region during the early years of the Revolutionary War, it is not improbable that the treaty of 1783 might have fixed the western boundary of the United States at the Alleghanies.