The Conquest of the Old Southwest Part 9

"For my own part, I conceive highly of the advantages of your Government."

A serious obstacle to the execution of the plans of Robertson and the other leaders of the c.u.mberland settlements was the prompt action of North Carolina. In actual conformity with the wishes of the Western people, as set forth in the pet.i.tion of Robertson and Hayes, their representatives, made two years earlier, the legislature of North Carolina in December pa.s.sed the second act of cession, by which the Western territory of North Carolina was ceded to the United States. Instead of securing an act of separation from North Carolina as the preparatory step to forming what Robertson calls "a more interesting connection" with Spain, Robertson and his a.s.sociates now found themselves and the transmontane region which they represented flung bodily into the arms of the United States. Despite the unequivocal offer of the calculating and desperate Sevier to "deliver" Franklin to Spain, and the ingenious efforts of Robertson and his a.s.sociates to place the c.u.mberland region under the domination of Spain, the Spanish court by its temporizing policy of evasion and indecision definitely relinquished the ready opportunities thereby afforded, of utilizing the powerful separatist tendencies of Tennessee for the purpose of adding the empire upon the Western waters to the Spanish domain in America.

The year 1790 marks the end of an era the heroic age of the pioneers of the Old Southwest. Following the acceptance of North Carolina's deed of cession of her Western lands to the Union (April 2, 1790) the Southwest Territory was erected on May 26th; and William Blount, a North Carolina gentleman of eminence and distinction, was appointed on June 8th to the post of governor of the territory. Two years later (June 1, 1792) Kentucky was admitted into the Union.

It is a remarkable and inspiring circ.u.mstance, in testimony of the martial instincts and unwavering loyalty of the transmontane people, that the two men to whom the Western country in great measure owed its preservation, the inciting and flaming spirits of the King's Mountain campaign, were the unopposed first choice of the people as leaders in the trying experiment of Statehood--John Sevier of Tennessee and Isaac Shelby of Kentucky.

Had Franklin possessed the patient will of Kentucky, she might well have preceded that region into the Union. It was not, however, until June 1, 1796, that Tennessee, after a romantic and arduous struggle, finally pa.s.sed through the wide-flung portals into the domain of national statehood.