8 History 5 - Tennessee History for Kids

EIGHTH GRADE
Part Five: 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 good hunting rifles. So they marched east from there and found the British army on a mountain 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.

Franklin to Southwest Territory to Tennessee

White people living in what we now call Tennessee celebrated the victory over the British in the Revolutionary War (although Native Americans didn't). When the war ended, the areas legally occupied by white settlers became part of the new state of North Carolina. This didn't sit too well with many people, and immediately after the war ended there was an attempt to form a new state called Franklin (named for Benjamin Franklin). John Sevier, hero of the Battle of Kings Mountain, was elected governor of this new state.

A plaque in Greeneville

Today this attempt at statehood is known as the Lost State of Franklin. However the state of Franklin was never recognized by the national government, so it didn’t become a real state. Why? It's a long story. But the main thing to remember is that all of this occurred when the former British colonies were trying to govern themselves under the unsuccessful Articles of Confederation. One of the many problems with the Articles of Confederation is that it didn't successfully address the issue of westward expansion and the creation of new states.

Rocky Mount

After the U. S. Constitution was ratified, 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 home near the fork of the Holston and Watauga rivers. It was called Rocky Mount.

The Treaty of Holston statue in Knoxville

Blount spent the next couple of years at Rocky Mount dealing with two major issues: relations with Native Americans and statehood. It was during his tenure that Blount signed a rather important treaty with the Cherokee nation known as the Treaty of Holston. The treaty was signed at a place called White's Fort, which shortly thereafter was renamed Knoxville.

In 1795, the people living in the Southwest Territory voted three to one to become a new state. The next year, each settlement sent someone to Knoxville to take part in a Constitutional Convention. It was at that convention that delegates voted to call the new state "Tennessee." (There was a Cherokee village called "Tanase," and of course by this time the white settlers had already begun calling the Tennessee River by its current name.)

The Constitution was similar to the one 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 Supreme Court; and a legislative branch consisting of a House and Senate.

This time, Congress approved statehood. Tennessee became the sixteenth state on June 1, 1996.

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. Sevier, often called “Nolichucky Jack,” was the hero of the Battle of Kings Mountain and of many battles with Native Americans (he later said that he took part in 35 battles with various tribes). Sevier would eventually be elected governor for six two-year terms, and he would also serve four terms in Congress. It was largely Sevier's decision to make Knoxville the new state capital.

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 now Tennessee is a state. But what was the place really like in its early years? Click here to find out.