FOURTH GRADE HISTORY
Part Four: New Nation and Statehood
A timeline of events in Tennessee from 1738 to 1818
IMAGE: Lauren A. Roussel
It's important to understand that the settlement of Tennessee was one of the reasons for the American Revolutionary War. After all, King George, in his Proclamation of 1763, ordered all British colonists to remain east of the Appalachians. Not only had people ignored this, they had even negotiated treaties with Native Americans and signed a self-government document known as the Watauga Association. This is important background for the important Revolutionary War battle that involved many Tennesseans – the Battle of Kings Mountain.
In 1780, a British army landed at
Charleston and began marching across
South Carolina. When its commander Patrick Ferguson heard there were white settlements across the Appalachian Mountains (in obvious defiance of King George's Proclamation of 1763), Ferguson ordered them to surrender. If they didn’t,
Ferguson said he would march across the mountains and "lay their country waste with fire and sword."
Kings Mountain National Battlefield
PHOTO: Kings Mountain National Battlefield
Hearing about the threat, two men who lived in what is now northeast
Tennessee (Isaac Shelby and John Sevier) organized an army of their own, and they met at a central location -- the Sycamore Shoals of the
Watauga
River -- on September 25, 1780. There were about a thousand of them, but they didn’t look like much of any army. They didn’t even have uniforms!
But they were determined and brave, and most of them were armed with a good hunting rifle. So they marched east from there and found the British army on a mountain that Patrick Ferguson had decided to call
Kings
Mountain, near the boundary of North and
South Carolina.
The men from
Tennessee, using Native American tactics, surrounded the British army and hid behind trees and rocks and in gullies. The British, wearing bright red uniforms, marched down the mountain over and over again. When it was all over the British had been slaughtered and
Ferguson killed. And although there are differences of opinion on the matter, some people believe that the slaughter of the British army at the Battle of Kings Mountain was the turning point in the American Revolution.
A replica of the capitol of the "Lost State of Franklin" in Greeneville
Franklin, then Southwest
Territory
After the war, Tennessee at first became part of the new state of
North Carolina. But in 1784 many living in
Tennessee tried to form a new state, naming it after Benjamin Franklin in hopes it might make the new national government more sympathetic to their cause. They elected John Sevier, hero of Kings Mountain, first governor of the state of
Franklin.
However that state was never accepted as part of the United States by Congress, so it didn’t become a real state. Today this unsuccessful attempt at statehood is known as the Lost State of Franklin. Click here for a Tennessee History for Kids style virtual tour called "In Search of the State of Franklin."
Rocky Mount
A few years later, the place now called
Tennessee stopped being a part of
North Carolina and instead became part of the newly created
Southwest
Territory. (It’s hard to believe when you look at a map now, but at that point, Tennessee was the “southwest” as far as the rest of the country was concerned.) President Washington appointed a member of the
North Carolina legislature named William Blount to be the first governor of the
Southwest
Territory. Blount came west and decided to locate the territory’s capital at a homestead home near the fork of the
Holston and Watauga rivers. It was called
Rocky Mount.
Blount would spent the next couple of years at
Rocky Mount dealing with two major issues: relations with Native Americans and the issue of statehood.
In 1795, the people living in the
Southwest
Territory voted three to one to become a new state. The next year,
Tennessee elected the people who wrote a new state constitution. The constitution was in many ways similar to the one that the nation had just adopted. It called for three branches of government: an executive branch led by a governor; a judicial branch led by a state supreme court; and a legislative branch consisting of a house and a senate.
This time Congress approved statehood.
Tennessee thus became the 16th state of the United States.
John Sevier
PHOTO: Library of Congress
Now it was time to elect a governor, and John Sevier was elected easily. This wasn’t a surprise to anyone. Sevier, often called “Nolichucky Jack,” was the hero of the Battle of Kings Mountain and of many engagements against Cherokees (he later said that he took part in 35 battles with various tribes). He would eventually be elected governor for six two-year terms, and he would also serve four terms in Congress. Today,
Sevier
County and Sevierville are both named for him.
The decision on where to put the new state capital was mostly Sevier’s. Rather than use
Rocky Mount, he decided to place the capital at a new town founded on the
Tennessee River by Sevier’s friend James White. At that time it was called White’s Fort. Blount had it renamed after Secretary of War Henry Knox. Today this place is called
Knoxville.
QUIZ
1) (TRUE OR FALSE) The British won the Battle of Kings Mountain.
2) (TRUE OR FALSE) No one knows where the state of Franklin was. This is why people refer to it today as "The
Lost
State of
Franklin."
3) (TRUE OR FALSE) There was a time when the land now known as
Tennessee was known as the
Southwest
Territory .
4) Name the three branches of state government called for in the
Tennessee constitution.
5) ___________ was the first governor of
Tennessee.
6) ___________ was the first capital of
Tennessee .
7) Who was Nolichucky Jack?
For quiz answers, click here.
So what was Tennessee really like back then? Click here to go to Part Five, where we'll talk about how different things were then.
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©2005-2009 Tennessee History for Kids, Inc. All rights reserved.
All photographs taken by Bill Carey for THKF unless otherwise stated.
