rlier, the
legislature of North Carolina in December passed 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 associates 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 associates to
place the Cumberland 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 circumstance, 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 passed through the wide-flung portals
into the domain of national statehood.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Conquest of the Old Southwest, by
Archibald Henderson

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONQUEST OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST ***

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