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“A Civilizing
Enterprise”:
The Settlement of Middle Tennessee as a
Recreation of Plantation Ireland
By
Michael Agee
March 2005
In the spring of 1780, two hundred and forty six
frontier settlers signed a document to create a local government in the Cumberland
Valley of Middle Tennessee. The signers
represented inhabitants from eight forted stations, some extant and somebeing
built in the area surrounding the “Old French Lick”. With their signatures,
inhabitants of Fort Nashborough,
Fort Union,
along with Mansker’s, Bledsoe’s, Asher’s, Stones River,
Freeland’s, and Eaton’s stations formed what was to be known as the Cumberland
Association. Their Cumberland Compact was an attempt by leaders and
proprietors to legitimize the development of settlement in the region and
provided the framework for law, order, and prosperity for settlers on the Tennessee frontier. The antecedents
that led to this new colony began well before the safe arrival of settlers in a
seemingly new country, and long before the colony’s proprietor purchased the
land from Cherokee chiefs. That the Cumberland
settlers organized themselves in forted homesteads was reminiscent of the
plantation system used by the British in 16th and 17th
century Ireland.
This mode of settlement, used in Kentucky and Tennessee from 1775-1795, differed from other patterns of
frontier expansion during that period throughout North
America. Because a majority of the people who arrived in region
during the 1770’s and 1780’s were descendants of settlers from the Irish plantation
period, the similarities warrant closer examination.
Beginning in the 1580’s, English officials, hoping
to pacify a rebellious Ireland,
launched a series of immigration campaigns to replace the Catholic natives with
the Protestants from England
and Scotland.
Rather then attempting to subjugate the countryside militarily, officials
offered cheap land and elevation in status to settlers willing to immigrate to Ireland.
Over the next century, thousands of settler families came and built fortified homes
to protect their new landholdings. Royal officials and private proprietors
offered the men who led these settlements choice land and eventual wealth for
doing so. “Undertakers” as these principal migrants were called, took control
of large plantation estates, renting to other settlers and gaining political
clout, elevating themselves from tenant to landlord. Many of
the settlers were artisans while others were laboring families. This diverse
population of skilled and unskilled labor allowed plantation communities to
function without dependence upon native Irish labor. Although
settler landlord sometimes rented or leased to native Irish farmers, it was
general frowned upon by officials in Britain. Resentful of dispossession
and encroachment , the Irish often engaged in armed conflict with settler
families “planting” in their territory. With
murders and revenge killings on both sides, this mode of settlement set the
course for the following four centuries of conflict in Ireland. It was a system however,
that took its place in the broader context of Britain’s
colonial expansion to the Chesapeake
and beyond. Virginia and Carolina
settlers who pushed west beyond English control later adopted this tested mode
of settlement as they claimed land beyond the Appalachians.
The conditions, experienced by Scottish settlers in plantation Ireland
repeated themselves for their descendents in the American Backcountry. A new
generation of settlers clashed with a new race of natives in a surprisingly
similar set of interactions.
Populating threatened
frontiers with loyal subjects was basic policy of England’s
government In addition to securing natural resources English settlement promoters
hoped to tip the balance of population growth and influence against their Catholic
enemies in Europe. The plantation seemed a
solution to the Catholic threat in Ireland
while Jamestown planners sought to outmaneuver
Catholic Spain and France in North America. By
the middle of the eighteenth century, domination of North America had replaced religious
motives for populating the New World.
The most basic
similarity between the Irish Plantations and the Cumberland Colony lies in the
nature of government involvement. Although plantation settlement was government
sponsored in Ireland,
private companies and proprietors provided the greatest incentives to migrants.
Similarly, Richard Henderson and his Transylvania Company authorized and
encouraged settlement in Middle Tennessee, rather than the U.S. or state governments.
Both plans placed
the burden of defense on the settlers who chose to venture to the new lands
rather then on government soldiers In Ireland, plantation advocates “commissioned”
their own Colonels, to “lead forth colonias to people the country with
civil men brought up in the laws of England.”
These local “warlords” were to take the place of the Irish nobility, whom
English and Scottish settlers regarded as savages. Nearly two hundred years
later, the men who led the first settlers into Middle Tennessee bore the same
title. Colonel James Robertson and Colonel John Donelson had not served as
continental line or militia officers to achieve their “rank” but instead lead
families to lay claim to the newly acquired territory.
Land hunger inspired settlement in Ireland and Tennessee. Both regions, if taken and held,
promised wealth to people who would otherwise have no means to rise in rank. For immigrants coming to America
in the 18th century, the cheapest land was in the backcountry. These
settlers were more ethnically diverse than their seaboard counterparts. Irish
Protestants, Germans, Scots, and French Huguenots made up the majority of this
region’s pioneers. These various factions tended
to identify within ethnic groups rather than with national or crown
subordination. Most of these groups held a great mistrust of the government
whether in their old countries or in the New World.
Often colonial governments purposely placed these “undesirable” ethnic groups
in the backcountry to serve as a buffer between themselves and the hostile natives
to the west. During the French and Indian War the backcountry settlers from New
England to Georgia
bore the brunt of Indian depredations. As in previous centuries, English
officials regarded Scottish settlers as second-class subjects to the crown. They
seemed a logical choice for thrusting into the midst of “heathen savages”,
whether Irish or Native American.
In both cases plantation settlement worked
both for and against the government’s goals. Backcountry immigrants protected
the piedmont and tidewater regions from Indian attacks but also increased
tension with the western tribes. In Ireland, Scottish settlers had temporarily
relieved the need for armed garrisons of crown troops. At the same time though,
they began personalized, violent feuds that could only be quelled by larger
military action. After more than a century of continued bloodshed, settlers
from the Irish plantations began to immigrate to the British colonies of the
Middle Atlantic. From here they moved to the backcountry of Pennsylvania,
then southwest through the Shenandoah Valley to the backcountries of Virginia and North
Carolina. Here they revived the Ulster model of settlement.
Throughout most of the eighteenth
century British colonial expansion in America
deviated from the plantation system used in Ireland. Rather than immigrants
acting as “soldier settlers,” crown and militia troops protected farmers and
townspeople with forts and military roads. In the backcountries of Pennsylvania, Virginia,
and North Carolina, settlers who pushed too far into native hunting grounds, angered
powerful tribes such as the Cherokee and Shawnee.
The settlers requested protection from the Crown, and King George and his
colonial governors were then forced to build garrisoned forts and outposts
along the frontier. Because of the violent, unruly nature of these backcountry
settlers, particularly the Scotch-Irish, these forts such as Ft. Loudon
(present day lower-east Tennessee)
wound up protecting the Indians from further encroachment as much as providing
security to white settlers.
On the eve of the American Revolution
however, a North Carolina
land speculator, Richard Henderson, sought to populate the trans-Appalachian West
in a manner reminiscent of the Irish plantations from one hundred and fifty years
before. Henderson
proposed a migration by family units independent of government military
supervision or protection. He offered low rent to his adventurers and
encouraged them to build fortified farmsteads for self-preservation. He
promised wealth and status elevation to the men he chose to lead settlers to
his colony.
Richard Henderson’s dream of “Transylvania”, a colony that would
encompass most of present-day Tennessee and Kentucky, began with his
dealings with Cherokee chiefs. Henderson worked
as an attorney in Hillsboro,
North Carolina, dealing for the
most part in local matters. With an interest in land speculation and a dream of
obtaining fertile territory to the west though, Henderson’s actions soon moved from local to
international importance. On March 9, 1775, Henderson and
his Transylvania land company, met at Sycamore Shoals with several chiefs and
over six hundred men, women, and children of the Cherokee Nation to purchase
middle Tennessee and Kentucky. Henderson had personally visited the principal chiefs of
the Cherokee at their town of Chota
several months before where he first realized that they would be willing to
“sell” a large portion of their hunting grounds. Henderson hoped to open these lands
immediately and encourage rapid settlement. Yet the Transylvania Purchase turned
out to be based on a misunderstanding. Because the written record relates the
events only from the European perspective, our understanding of the Cherokees’ intentions
come from outside descriptions. Several traders (most likely bi-lingual) who
were present at the negotiations believed that the Cherokee mistook the
purchase for an extended lease. According
to Henry Stuart, “Some of the traders who were present at these
transactions affirm this to be a true state of the case, and that they believe
that under a pretence of taking leases and receipts for rent they had got deeds
signed.” Leasing Indian hunting grounds for
periods of up to ten years had been fairly common during the mid eighteenth
century.Savanooka,
a Cherokee appealed to British Agent Stuart saying, “Tis true, we
suffered the people who first settled themselves on our land on Watauga to
remain there some years, they paying us annually in guns, blankets and rum,
etc. But we are informed lately that
they gave out publicly that we sold the land to them forever and gave them a
paper for it. If they have any paper of
this kind, it is of their own making, for we have never given them any, as it
was contrary to our thoughts.” We may never know if Henderson purposely deceived the Cherokee by
“purchasing” their hunting grounds. This
may have been a poor translation or an outright swindle on Henderson’s part. According to James
Robertson,
When Colonel Henderson produced
the Deeds to be signed by the Indians:
They appeared to be uneasy on account of the
number. Colonel Henderson informed the Indians there were eight or nine
partners in the purchase, and he chose that each should have a deed . . . upon
which they Indians appeared to be more satisfied. When Henderson
presented the first deed to Oconostota, to be signed, the Deponent desired said
Henderson to read the Boundarys of the land
mentioned in it to him, which said Henderson
refused to do, until the deeds were signed.
The Deponent then observed that it was not generous to get a people to
sign a deed, who did not know what was in it.
Regardless of Henderson’s intentions, his
questionable purchase initiated a great migration of Carolina
and Virginia
settlers into vast hunting grounds of the southern tribes. To the Cherokee,
conceptions of land ownership was similar to these of the 17th
century Irish. Gaelic clans and Native American tribes both practiced communal ownership
while English and later American speculators distributed individual deeds to
permanent tracts of private property. Buying, swindling or perhaps outright
stealing from powerful natives, whether Irish noble or Cherokee chief, opened
the door to the displacement of both peoples. In Ireland, debt, foreclosure,
confiscation and forfeit all ended native Irish land ownership while justifying
English and Scottish encroachment. In the New World, because of differing
concepts of land ownership, Henderson’s
settlers felt equally justified in claiming their newly acquired land. They
felt that the chiefs that signed the “treaty” were sovereigns of the Cherokee
and had officially relinquished their “property” to the whites. In both cases,
settlers dealt with the elite of native society to take land from the group as
a whole.
On Christmas Day,1774,
three months before Henderson
even made the purchase, he authored “Proposals for the encouragement of
settling Lands.” Clearly Henderson
expected the purchase to be successful and understood that continued success demanded
prompt settlement of the region.The English Privy Council had also advertised
cheap land through colonization, directing letters to justices of the peace in
various shires in Northern England, Wales
and Scotland.
To obtain this cheap land, Undertakers or “colonels” were only required to lease
portions of their holdings to other non-Irish settlers. Other means of
advertisement must also have been used since artisans and other non-farmers also
answered the call for migration. Potential settlers tended to move from
specific counties in England
to specific counties in Ireland,
suggesting planned transplantation rather then an unorganized migration.
Richard Henderson made similar arrangements
for transplantation from western North Carolina
and Southwest Virginia into “Transylvania.” First,
he attracted settlers by both providing security as well as opportunities for
gain in armed service. In the tradition of the Scottish “soldier settlers” in
Ireland, Henderson proposed, “First that fifty men be raised as soldiers under
the direction of proper officers for the protection of the settlers of the
country from February to November for 500 acres and three pounds sterling.”
This may have encouraged a mercenary mentality among some potential migrants.
For example, ex-soldiers with little interest in farming could have accompanied
the settlers, received their pay and then sold their land allotment upon
arrival. The goal of most, however, was to take ownership of land that would
otherwise be unattainable.
Land in Henderson’s proposed
colony was cheap, even for those who did not offer armed service. Any settler
who could “Grow corn or other improvement for the greater good until September…[could]
claim 500 acres, plus 250 for every tithable person with him.”
This encouraged not only single men searching for cheap land to venture to the
region but families as well. If a man brought sons, he could receive more land.
These cohesive groups rather than the unrestrained lone woodsmen of the
frontier, were to have been the backbone of
Henderson’s Transylvania.
Henderson’s intentions extended far beyond affordable
property for eager farmers though. His proposals also envisioned small-scale industry.
He declared that any man who could “build an Iron furnace within three years to
supply inhabitants with iron shall receive 5000 acres.” Anyone
who could “build a salt manufactory within 12 months [would get]… 1000 acres”
and for the builder of “A great mill,
500 acres.”
Richard Spert proposed similar
settlement incentives in his tract on Ireland in 1608. Here landlords would receive upwards of
12,000 acres and typical settlers would receive farms of 298 acres. For each of these model farms, Spert
prescribed set amounts of acreage to be devoted to grain, cattle, hemp, flax, and
madder. Spert even recommended which
types of trees to grow in the area surrounding his settlers’ fields. Both Henderson and Spert prescribed self
sufficiency in their respective colonies.
Henderson spurred rapid development of his colony
by encouraging competition among the settlers. Competition had been used
elsewhere to benefit frontier society. In western North Carolina, settlers received bounties
for the “Squirrel scalps” and crow’s heads.
This was meant to encourage the protection of crops by eradicating pests. Henderson promoted
competition by offering any settler with the “greatest number of sheep or corn,
additional 500 acres.”
All of these acreage
incentives also encouraged white settlers to bring slaves onto the frontier. A
man with slaves had a better chance of producing large crops or building the
various structures Henderson
planned to reward. Therefore, slave owners stood to gain even more prime
frontier real estate. Although Henderson made no mention of slaves in either his advertisements
or the various government documents he authored, other evidence reveals that
slaves were among the first settlers on the Tennessee frontier.
Henderson also propsosed the master plan for
his new colony’s mode of settlement. He strongly discouraged individuals or
families from venturing into the new territory alone. Like the leaders the
Irish plantations, he believed “that a promiscuous and diffused settlement
would only endanger lives.”
Henderson further argued that the“ effects of such rash settlers…might in its
consequences deter many honest industrious persons now disposed to remove into
those parts from proceeding on an enterprise which would not only become
beneficial to themselves but extremely advantageous to the Settlers of the
ensuing Spring.” Instead, the Cumberland settlers were to travel together and develop homes in a
“compact situation for mutual defense and protection.” This
meant the station mode of settlement. The Cumberland
settlers built homes near one another, often linked by a stockade and
surrounded by community fields tilled by collective labor This was only an
initial mode of settlement, however. After securing titles and clearing
forests, the settlers’ long-term goal, was to tend individual fields and
develop private farms. Henderson
prescribed that “All the Emigrants or Adventurers of this Spring would settle
in a Town or Township for this year at least on some convenient part of the
Land to be chosen for that purpose, that during the year every man may be
looking out for such land as he may choose to settle on when safe to disperse.”
The Cumberland Compact referred to eight of these stations. The largest
Nashborough, Gasper's, also known as Mansker’s , Bledsoe’s , Asher's, Stone's
River, Freeland's , Eaton's , and Fort
Union and their respective
inhabitants formed a community known as the Cumberland Association.
Most of these stations
were named for men who built them. Like their 17th century
counterparts in Ireland
they were maintained and defended by settlers rather then garrisoned troops. In
addition, they were in inhabited by families and communities that had lived
together in settlements to the East.
Many of these frontier leaders, including Kasper Mansker, The Bledsoe brothers,
Anthony, and Isaac had hunted and explored the Middle Cumberland a decade
before settlement began. Henderson,
realizing the value of station leadership and the frontier experiences of these
men entrusted them with government responsibilities. Henderson permitted the people of each station
to choose who should govern them. The Cumberland Compact, also authored by Henderson entrusted
leadership to a tribunal of twelve elected notables. It authorized, “for safety and defense… to
command… the men or militia at such fort or station.” Henderson set up these
tribunals in response to hostilities with Native Americans, writing,
"Whereas the frequent and dangerous incursions of the Indians, and almost
daily massacre of some of our inhabitants, renders it absolutely necessary.”
The Compact allowed, “when it shall be adjudged necessary and expedient by such
commanding officer, to draw out the militia of any fort or station to pursue or
repulse the enemy.” Station leaders could go so far as to impress horses or “in
case of disobedience… inflict such fine as he in his discretion shall think
just and reasonable.”
Henderson and the members of the
Cumberland Association must have trusted the judgment of these leaders to
bestow such authority upon them. He had after all employed men such as Daniel
Boone and James Robertson to scout survey and speculate land but more
importantly, lead large groups of families into his newly acquired Transylvania.
Robertson, warned that “Stuart, Agent on the part of the Crown” told the
southern tribes that they could put a stop to settler encroachment by meeting
the “Army of white people … before expected, destroy their Pack Horses all in
one Night and so prevent their marching any further.” He further warned “I
believe the Indians are full of that Notion.” Henderson valued the
knowledge and opinions of his employees and planed accordingly. He knew he
would not have military support from the government so leadership and advice
from soldier settlers was crucial.
Both in Ireland
and Tennessee,
settlers had knowledge of the country obtained before they settled there. In
both cases, men who participated in survey expeditions in previous years
requested specific tracts of land upon arrival. For instance, it is believed
that Kasper Mansker, famed long Hunter of Middle Tennessee, had already acquired
title to a tract along the Cumberland River from Virginia prior to joining Henderson’s
proposed Transylvania Colony.
In short, many of the men who ventured to their respective new colonies knew
the possibilities and resources available to them.
Before Henderson could populate his newly acquired
territory with title holding settlers, the Virginia Legislature found the
Transylvania Purchase null and void. Virginia
offered to reimburse The Transylvania Company for part of the price but he
instead decided to focus on the portion of his purchase that lay outside of Virginia jurisdiction.
He hired James Robertson and companions to travel to “the French Lick”(modern Nashville) to determine if this fertile region lay south
of the Virginia
boundary. Robertson, himself a Virginian,
had believed this area fell on the Virginia
side of the line and therefore out of Henderson’s
control. In 1779, though, he realized that French Lick was well below the Virginia line and
therefore a prime location to begin populating the remainder of the purchased
lands. Before returning to North
Carolina, Robertson and his men planted a small crop
of corn so that if and when settlers arrived the following year they would have
a crop.
Upon his return Robertson and Henderson
immediately began making plans for settlement. Robertson resigned his
commission as North Carolina Indian Agent. He explained in a letter to Governor
Caswell and the General Assembly “that from many disadvantages to me with
Respect to my private property, and the Necessary Business that now compels me
to other distant parts, it is not in my power to Perform the trust Reposed to
me.” Although Robertson found the site of present
day Nashville to be well within the North Carolina boundary, Virginian George Rogers Clark
and the before mentioned Kasper Mansker held title to hundreds of acres in the
area from the Virginia
government. Robertson went to the Illinois country, probably to buy cabin rights from
George Rogers Clark, before returning to the Holston River
settlements.
Henderson ordered Robertson to lead an overland
party through the Cumberland Gap of southwest Virginia,
down through Kentucky, to the Muscle Shoals
where they would meet John Donelson’s party who would have departed from Fort
Patrick Henry on the Holston. Henderson
had hired John Donelson, also a man of stature with experience on the frontier
both in Indian negotiations and land surveying, to operate simultaneously with
Robertson.
According to John Donelson’s Journal,
Robertson failed to meet them along the way but Richard Henderson did. On
Friday, March 31st Donelson described a praise worthy quality of Henderson. “Set out this
day, and after running some distance, met with Col. Richard Henderson, who
was running the line between Virginia and North‑Carolina. At this meeting
we were much rejoiced. He gave us every information we wished, and further
informed us that he had purchased a quantity of corn in Kentucky,
to be shipped at the Falls of Ohio for the use of the Cumberland settlement. We are now without
bread, and are compelled to hunt the buffalo to preserve life.” Henderson had, under great
threat to personal safety and even greater financial expense, traveled from
Boonesborough where he had spent some sixty thousand dollars in depreciated
paper to buy food for his settlers.
Actions such as these and the ways in which Henderson’s
contemporaries recorded them, revealed his paternalistic affection for the Cumberland settlers.
Having based the Compact on the laws of
provincial North Carolina, Henderson
clearly hoped that soon the settlements on the Cumberland would become a county of that
state. The Compact as written on the first of May 1780, specified voting rights
to all free males over the age of twenty-one. Additional resolutions to the
compact on May the thirteenth, specified that “all young Men over the age of
sixteen Years and able to perform Militia duty shall be considered as having a
full right to enter for and obtain Lands in their own name as if they were of
full age, and in that case not be reckoned in the Family of his Father, Mother,
or Master, so as to avail them of any Land on their account.”
This amendment may reflect the initial conflict with Chickamauga and Creek warriors who had killed
several heads of household and men over twenty- one years of age. Of the over
two hundred and forty signers of the Cumberland Compact only seventy survived
the initial four years.
Many of these “Immortal Seventy” died in Indian raids and battles between 1785
and 89.
The lowering of age requirement for the franchise may also suggest that many of
the men who arrived in the Cumberland
Valley were under the twenty-one.
In either case, more names on deeds meant more money for speculators like
Henderson and Robertson. The resolution empowered younger men and enriched
speculators.
Richard Henderson’s Transylvania was a
plantation much like earlier colonial settlements in Ireland. From planning and
recruitment to transplantation and regional control, Irish and Tennessee stations
created a system in which citizens were responsible for their own safety. Living
in newly conquered lands, both groups of settlers learned to take matters into
their own hands. The results of these independent actions often led to more
conflict that weakened native resistance and consolidated territorial control. When
this mode of settlement was extended to the Tennessee Frontier, the region
passed from uninhabited Indian hunting grounds to an American State
in less than two decades.