The Winning of the West

by Theodore Roosevelt

  No one but a man of great tact and firmness could have preserved as much order among the frontiersmen as Blount preserved. He was always under fire from both sides. The settlers were continually complaining that they were deserted by the Federal authorities, who favored the Indians, and that Blount himself did not take sufficiently active steps to subdue the savages; while on the other hand the National Administration was continually upbraiding him for being too active against the Indians, and for not keeping the frontiersmen sufficiently peaceable. Under much temptations, and in a situation that would have bewildered any one, Blount steadfastly followed his course of, on the one hand, striving his best to protect the people over whom he was placed as governor and to repel the savages, while, on the other hand, he suppressed so far as lay in his power, any outbreak against the authorities, and tried to inculcate a feeling of loyalty and respect for the National Government.5 He did much in creating a strong feeling of attachment to the Union among the rough backwoodsmen with whom he had thrown in his lot.

  Early in 1791 Blount entered into negotiations with the Cherokees, and when the weather grew warm he summoned them to a treaty. They met on the Holston, all of the noted Cherokee chiefs and hundreds of their warriors being present, and concluded the treaty of Holston, by which, in consideration of numerous gifts and of an annuity of a thousand (afterward increased to fifteen hundred) dollars, the Cherokees at last definitely abandoned their disputed claims to the various tracts of land which the whites claimed under various former treaties. By this treaty with the Cherokees, and by the treaty with the Creeks entered into at New York the previous summer, the Indian title to most of the present State of Tennessee was fairly and legally extinguished. However, the westernmost part was still held by the Chickasaws, and certain tracts in the southeast by the Cherokees; while the Indian hunting grounds in the middle of the Territory were thrust in between the groups of settlements on the Cumberland and the Holston.

  On the ground where the treaty was held Blount proceeded to build a little town, which he made the capital of the Territory, and christened Knoxville, in honor of Washington’s Secretary of War. At this town there was started, in 1791, under his own supervision, the first newspaper of Tennessee, known as the “Knoxville Gazette.” It was four or five years younger than the only other newspaper of the then Far West, the “Kentucky Gazette.” The paper gives an interesting glimpse of many of the social and political conditions of the day. In political tone it showed Blount’s influence very strongly, and was markedly in advance of most of the similar papers of the time, including the “Kentucky Gazette”; for it took a firm stand in favor of the National Government, and against every form of disorder, of separatism, or of mob law. As with all of the American papers of the day, even in the backwoods, there was much interest taken in European news, and a prominent position was given to long letters, or extracts from seaboard papers, containing accounts of the operation of the English fleets and the French armies, or of the attitude of the European Governments. Like most Americans, the editorial writers of the paper originally sympathized strongly with the French Revolution; but the news of the beheading of Marie Antoinette, and of the recital of the atrocities committed in Paris, worked a reaction among those who loved order, and the “Knoxville Gazette” ranged itself with them, taking for the time being strong grounds against the French, and even incidentally alluding to the Indians as being more bloodthirsty than any man “not a Jacobin.” The people largely shared these sentiments. In 1793, at the Fourth of July celebration at Jonesborough there was a public dinner and ball, as there was also at Knoxville; Federal troops were paraded and toasts were drunk to the President, to the Judges of the Supreme Court, to Blount, to General Wayne, to the friendly Chickasaw Indians, to Sevier, to the ladies of the Southwestern Territory, to the American arms, and, finally, “to the true liberties of France and a speedy and just punishment of the murderers of Louis XVI.” The word “Jacobin” was used as a term of reproach for some time.

  The paper was at first decidedly Federalist in sentiment. No sympathy was expressed with Genet or with the efforts undertaken by the Western allies of the French Minister to organize a force for the conquest of Louisiana; and the Tennessee settlers generally took the side of law and order in the earlier disturbances in which the Federal Government was concerned. At the Fourth of July celebration in Knoxville in 1795, one of the toasts was “The four Western counties of Pennsylvania; may they repent their folly, and sin no more”; the Tennesseeans sympathizing as little with the Pennsylvania whiskey revolutionists as four years later they sympathized with the Kentuckians and Virginians in their nullification agitation against the alien and sedition laws. Gradually, however, the tone of the paper changed, as did the tone of the community, at least to the extent of becoming Democratic and anti-Federal; for the people felt that the Easterners did not sympathize with them either in their contests with the Indians or in their desire to control the Mississippi and the further West. They grew to regard with particular vindictiveness the Federalists,—the aristocrats, as they styled them,—of the Southern seaboard States, notably of Virginia and South Carolina.6

  One pathetic feature of the paper was the recurrence of advertisements by persons whose friends and kinsfolk had been carried off by the Indians, and who anxiously sought any trace of them.

  But the “Gazette” was used for the expression of opinions not only by the whites, but occasionally even by an Indian. One of the Cherokee chiefs, the Red Bird, put into the “Gazette,” for two buckskins, a talk to the Cherokee chief of the Upper Towns, in which he especially warned him to leave alone one William Cocke, “the white man who lived among the mulberry trees,” for, said Red Bird, “the mulberry man talks very strong and runs very fast”; this same Cocke being afterward one of the first two Senators from Tennessee. The Red Bird ended his letter by the expression of the rather quaint wish, “that all the bad people on both sides were laid in- the ground, for then there would not be so many mush men trying to make people to believe they were warriors.”7

  Blount brought his family to Tennessee at once, and took the lead in trying to build up institutions for higher education. After a good deal of difficulty an academy was organized under the title of Blount College, and was opened as soon as a sufficient number of pupils could be gotten together; there were already two other colleges in the Territory, Greeneville and Washington, the latter being the academy founded by Doak. Like almost all other institutions of learning of the day these three were under clerical control; but Blount College was chartered as a non-denominational institution, the first of its kind in the United States.8 The clergyman and the lawyer, with the school-master, were still the typical men of letters in all the frontier communities. The doctor was not yet a prominent feature of life in the backwoods, though there is in the “Gazette” an advertisement of one who announces that he intends to come to practice “with a large stock of genuine medicines.”9

  The ordinary books were still school books, books of law, and sermons or theological writings. The first books, or pamphlets, published in Eastern Tennessee were brought out about this time at the “Gazette” office, and bore such titles as “A Sermon on Psalmody, by Rev. Hezekiah Balch”; “A Discourse by the Rev. Samuel Carrick”; and a legal essay called “Western Justice.”10 There was also a slight effort now and then at literature of a lighter kind. The little Western papers, like those in the East, had their poets’ corners, often with the heading of “Sacred to the Muses,” the poems ranging from “Lines to Myra” and “Epitaph on John Topham” to “The Pernicious Consequences of Smoking Cigars.” In one of the issues of the “Knoxville Gazette” there is advertised for sale a new song by a “gentleman of Col. McPherson’s Blues, on a late expedition against the Pennsylvania Insurgents”; and also, in rather incongruous juxtaposition, “Toplady’s Translation of Zanchi on Predestination.”

  Settlers were thronging into East Tennessee, and many penetrated even to the Indian-harassed western district. In
traveling to the western parts the immigrants generally banded together in large parties, led by some man of note. Among those who arrived in 1792 was the old North Carolina Indian fighter, General Griffith Rutherford. He wished to settle on the Cumberland, and to take thither all his company, with a large number of wagons, and he sent to Blount begging that a road might be cut through the wilderness for the wagons; or, if this could not be done, that some man would blaze the route, “in which case,” said he, “there would be hands of our own that could cut as fast as wagons could march.”11

  In 1794, there being five thousand free male inhabitants, as provided by law, Tennessee became entitled to a Territorial Legislature, and the Governor summoned the Assembly to meet at Knoxville on August 17th. So great was the danger from the Indians that a military company had to accompany the Cumberland legislators to and from the seat of government. For the same reason the judges on their circuits had to go accompanied by a military guard.

  Among the first acts of this Territorial Legislature was that to establish higher institutions of learning; John Sevier was made a trustee in both Blount and Greeneville Colleges. A lottery was established for the purpose of building the Cumberland road to Nashville, and another one to build a jail and stocks in Nashville. A pension act was passed for disabled soldiers and for widows and orphans, who were to be given an adequate allowance at the discretion of the county court. A poll tax of twenty-five cents on all taxable white polls was laid, and on every taxable negro poll fifty cents. Land was taxed at the rate of twenty-five cents a hundred acres, town lots one dollar; while a stud horse was taxed four dollars. Thus, taxes were laid exclusively upon free males, upon slaves, lands, town lots and stud horses, a rather queer combination.12

  Various industries were started, as the people began to demand not only the necessaries of life but the comforts, and even occasionally the luxuries. There were plenty of blacksmith shops; and a goldsmith and jeweler set up his establishment. In his advertisement he shows that he was prepared to do some work which would be alien to his modern representative, for he notifies the citizens that he makes “rifle guns in the neatest and most approved fashion.”13

  Ferries were established at the important crossings, and taverns in the county-seats and small towns. One of the Knoxville taverns advertises its rates, which were one shilling for breakfast, one shilling for supper, and one and sixpence for dinner; board and lodging for a week two dollars, and board only for the same space of time nine shillings. Ferriage was three pence for a man and horse and two shillings for a wagon and team.

  Various stores were established in the towns, the merchants obtaining most of their goods in the great trade centres of Philadelphia and Baltimore, and thence hauling them by wagon to the frontier. Most of the trade was carried on by barter. There was very little coin in the country and but few bank-notes. Often the advertisement specified the kind of goods that would be taken and the different values at which they would be received. Thus, the salt works at Washington, Virginia, in advertising their salt, stated that they would sell it per bushel for seven shillings and sixpence if paid in cash or prime furs; at ten shillings if paid in bear or deer skins, beeswax, hemp, bacon, butter or beef cattle; and at twelve shillings if in other trade and country produce as was usual.14 The prime furs were mink, coon, muskrat, wildcat, and beaver. Besides this the stores advertised that they would take for their articles cash, beeswax, and country produce or tallow, hogs’ lard in white walnut kegs, butter, pork, new feathers, good horses, and also corn, rye, oats, flax, and “old Congress money,” the old Congress money being that issued by the Continental Congress, which had depreciated wonderfully in value. They also took certificates of indebtedness either from the State or the nation because of services performed against the Indians, and certificates of land claimed under various rights. The value of some of these commodities was evidently mainly speculative. The storekeepers often felt that where they had to accept such dubious substitutes for cash they desired to give no credit, and some of the advertisements run: “Cheap, ready money store, where no credit whatever will be given,” and then proceed to describe what ready money was,—cash, furs, bacon, etc. The stores sold salt, iron-mongery, pewterware, corduroys, rum, brandy, whiskey, wine, ribbons, linen, calamancos, and in fact generally what would be found at that day in any store in the smaller towns of the older States. The best eight by ten crown glass “was regularly imported,” and also “beautiful assortments of fashionable coat and vest buttons,” as well as “brown and loaf sugar, coffee, chocolate, tea, and spices.” In the towns the families had ceased to kill their own meat, and beef markets were established where fresh meat could be had twice a week.

  Houses and lots were advertised for sale, and one result of the method of allowing the branded stock to range at large in the woods was that there were numerous advertisements for strayed horses, and even cattle, with descriptions of the brands and earmarks. The people were already beginning to pay attention to the breeding of their horses, and fine stallions with pedigrees were advertised, though some of the advertisements show a certain indifference to purity of strain, one stallion being quoted as of “mixed fox-hunting and dray” breed. Rather curiously the Chickasaw horses were continually mentioned as of special merit, together with those of imported stock. Attention was paid both to pacers and trotters.

  The lottery was still a recognized method of raising money for every purpose, including the advancement of education and religion. One of the advertisements gives as one of the prizes a negro, valued at one hundred and thirty pounds, a horse at ten pounds, and five hundred acres of fine land without improvements at twelve hundred pounds.

  Journeying to the long-settled districts of the East, persons went as they wished, in their own wagons or on their own horses; but to go from East Tennessee either to Kentucky, or to the Cumberland district, or to New Orleans, was a serious matter because of the Indians. The Territorial authorities provided annually an escort for immigrants from the Holston country to the Cumberland a distance of one hundred and ten miles through the wilderness, and the departure of this annual escort was advertised for weeks in advance.

  Sometimes the escort was thus provided by the authorities. More often adventurers simply banded together, or else some enterprising man advertised that on a given date he should start and would provide protection for those who chose to accompany him. Thus, in the “Knoxville Gazette” for February 6, 1795, a boat captain gives public notice to all persons who wish to sail from the Holston country to New Orleans, that on March 1st, if the waters answer, his two boats will start, the Mary of twenty-five tons, and the Little Polly of fifteen tons. Those who had contracted for freight and passage are desired to attend previous to that period.

  There was of course a good deal of lawlessness and a strong tendency to settle assault and battery cases in particular out of court. The officers of justice at times had to subdue criminals by open force. Andrew Jackson, who was District Attorney for the Western District, early acquired fame by the energy and success with which he put down any criminal who resisted the law. The worst offenders fled to the Mississippi Territory, there to live among Spaniards, Creoles, Indians, and lawless Americans. Lawyers drove a thriving business; but they had their own difficulties, to judge by one advertisement, which appears in the issue of the “Gazette” for March 23, 1793, where six of them give notice that hereafter they will give no legal advice unless it is legally paid for.

  All the settlers, or at least all the settlers who had any ambition to rise in the world, were absorbed in land speculations; Blount, Robertson, and the other leaders as much so as anybody. They were continually in correspondence with one another about the purchase of land warrants, and about laying them out in the best localities. Of course there was much jealousy and rivalry in the effort to get the best sites. Robertson, being furthest on the frontier, where there was most wild land, had peculiar advantages. Very soon after he settled in the Cumberland district at the close of the Revolut
ionary War, Blount had entered into an agreement with him for a joint land speculation. Blount was to purchase land claims from both officers and soldiers amounting in all to fifty thousand acres and enter them for the Western Territory, while Robertson was to survey and locate the claims, receiving one-fourth of the whole for his reward.15 Their connection continued during Blount’s term as Governor, and Blount’s letters to Robertson contain much advice as to how the warrants shall be laid out. Wherever possible they were of course laid outside the Indian boundaries; but, like every one else, Blount and Robertson knew that eventually the Indian lands would come into the possession of the United States, and in view of the utter confusion of the titles, and especially in view of the way the Indians as well as the whites continually broke the treaties and rendered it necessary to make new ones, both Blount and Robertson were willing to place claims on the Indian lands and trust to luck to make the claims good if ever a cession was made. The lands thus located were not lands upon which any Indian village stood. Generally they were tracts of wilderness through which the Indians occasionally hunted, but as to which there was a question whether they had yet been formally ceded to the government.16

  Blount also corresponded with many other men on the question of these land speculations, and it is amusing to read the expressions of horror of his correspondents when they, read that Tennessee had imposed a land tax.17 By his activity he became a very large landed proprietor, and when Tennessee was made a State he was taxed on 73,252 acres in all. The tax was not excessive, being but $179.72.18 It was of course entirely proper for Blount to get possession of the land in this way. The theory of government on the frontier was that each man should be paid a small salary, and be allowed to exercise his private business just so long as it did not interfere with his public duties. Blount’s land speculations were similar to those in which almost every other prominent American, in public or private life, was engaged. Neither Congress nor the States had as yet seen the wisdom of allowing the land to be sold only in small parcels to actual occupants, and the favorite kind of speculation was the organization of land companies. Of course there were other kinds of business in which prominent men took part. Sevier was interested not only in land, but in various mercantile ventures of a more or less speculative kind; he acted as an intermediary with the big importers, who were willing to furnish some of the stores with six months’ credit if they could be guaranteed a settlement at the end of that time.19