Tennessee Frontiers

John R. Finger

Description

The frontier years of the Volunteer State

This chronicle of the formation of Tennessee from indigenous settlements to the closing of the frontier in 1840 begins with an account of the prehistoric frontiers and a millennia-long habitation by Native Americans. The rest of the book deals with Tennessee's historic period beginning with the incursion of Hernando de Soto's Spanish army in 1540. John R. Finger follows two narratives of the creation and closing of the frontier. The first starts with the early interaction of Native Americans and Euro-Americans and ends when the latter effectively gained the upper hand. The last land cession by the Cherokees and the resulting movement of the tribal majority westward along the "Trail of Tears" was the final, decisive event of this story. The second describes the period of Euro-American development that lasts until the emergence of a market economy. Though from the very first Anglo-Americans participated in a worldwide fur and deerskin trade, and farmers and town dwellers were linked with markets in distant cities, during this period most farmers moved beyond subsistence production and became dependent on regional, national, or international markets.

Two major themes emerge from Tennessee Frontiers: first, that of opportunity the belief held by frontier people that North America offered unique opportunities for advancement; and second, that of tension between local autonomy and central authority, which was marked by the resistance of frontier people to outside controls, and between and among groups of whites and Indians. Distinctions of class and gender separated frontier elites from lesser whites, and the struggle for control divided the elites themselves. Similarly, native society was riddled by factional disputes over the proper course of action regarding relations with other tribes or with whites. Though the Indians lost in fundamental ways, they proved resilient, adopting a variety of strategies that delayed those losses and enabled them to retain, in modified form, their own identity.

Along the way, the author introduces the famous personalities of Tennessee's frontier history: Attakullakulla, Nancy Ward, Daniel Boone, John Sevier, Davy Crockett, Andrew Jackson, and John Ross, among others. They remind us that this is the story of real people who dealt with real problems and possibilities in often difficult circumstances.

Preliminary Table of Contents:

Foreword by Walter Nugent and Malcolm Rohrbough
Introduction
1. Land, People, and Early Frontiers
2. Trade, Acculturation, and Empire: 1700-1775
3. The Revolutionary Frontier: 1775-1780
4. Expansion Amid Revolution: 1779-1783
5. Speculation, Turmoil, and Intrigue: 1780-1789
6. The Southwest Territory: 1790-1796
7. The Social Fabric
8. The Frontier Economy
9. Statehood to Nationalism: 1796-1815
10. The Western District: 1795-1840
11. Hegemony and Cherokee Removal: 1791-1840
Conclusion
Essay on Sources
Index

Sujets

• HISTORY
• Histoire
• General officer
• History of the Americas
• General
• United States

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 13 novembre 2001
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780253108722
• Langue: English

Extrait

Tennessee Frontiers
A H ISTORY OF THE T RANS -A PPALACHIAN F RONTIER

Walter Nugent and Malcolm Rohrbough, general editors
Andrew L. Cayton. Frontier Indiana
James E. Davis. Frontier Illinois
R. Douglas Hurt. The Ohio Frontier: Crucible of the Old Northwest, 1720-1830
Mark Wyman. The Wisconsin Frontier
Tennessee Frontiers

Three Regions in Transition
J OHN R. F INGER
This book is a publication of Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, Indiana 47404-3797 USA
http://iupress.indiana.edu Telephone orders 800-842-6796 Fax orders 812-855-7931 Orders by email [e-mail]
2001 by John R. Finger
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Finger, John R., date
Tennessee frontiers : three regions in transition / John R. Finger.
p. cm.-(A history of the trans-Appalachian frontier)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-253-33985-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Tennessee-History. 2. Frontier and pioneer life-Tennessee. 3. Pioneers-Tennessee-History. 4. Land settlement-Tennessee-History. 5. Indians of North America-Tennessee-History. 6. Indian land transfers-Tennessee-History. 7. Tennessee-Social conditions. 8. Tennessee-Ethnic relations. I. Title. II. Series.
F436 .F56 2001
976.8-dc21
2001001387
1 2 3 4 5 06 05 04 03 02 01
FOR
Judi
Contents

List of Illustrations

List of Maps

Foreword

Introduction
1.
L AND , P EOPLE, AND E ARLY F RONTIERS
2.
T RADE , A CCULTURATION, AND E MPIRE : 1700-1775
3.
T HE R EVOLUTIONARY F RONTIER : 1775-1780
4.
E XPANSION AMID R EVOLUTION : 1779-1783
5.
S PECULATION , T URMOIL, AND I NTRIGUE : 1780-1789
6.
T HE S OUTHWEST T ERRITORY : 1790-1796
7.
T HE S OCIAL F ABRIC
8.
T HE F RONTIER E CONOMY
9.
S TATEHOOD TO N ATIONALISM : 1796-1815
10.
T HE W ESTERN D ISTRICT : 1795-1840
11.
H EGEMONY AND C HEROKEE R EMOVAL : 1791-1840

C ONCLUSION

Essay on Sources

Index
List of Illustrations
T ENNESSEE H UNTERS AND G ATHERERS, CA . 5,000 B.C .
T OQUA, A L ATE P REHISTORIC T OWN ( CA . 1450 A.D .)
C HEROKEE DELEGATION TO L ONDON , 1730
F ORT L OUDOUN
C HEROKEE D ELEGATION TO L ONDON , 1762
C UMBERLAND G AP
J AMES R OBERTSON
T HE G ATHERING OF THE O VERMOUNTAIN P EOPLE , S YCAMORE S HOALS , S EPTEMBER 1780
W ILLIAM B LOUNT
B LOUNT M ANSION AND E XECUTIVE O FFICE, IN TODAY S K NOXVILLE
F RONTIER R OUGH AND T UMBLE
J OHN S EVIER
B LOUNT C OLLEGE IN K NOXVILLE, CA . 1807
A NDREW J ACKSON
D AVY C ROCKETT
S EQUOYAH AND C HEROKEE S YLLABARY
J OHN R OSS , P RINCIPAL C HIEF OF THE C HEROKEE N ATION
T RAIL OF T EARS
List of Maps
N ATURAL R EGIONS OF T ENNESSEE
D E S OTO S P OSSIBLE R OUTE THROUGH T ENNESSEE , 1540
I NDIAN T REATIES , 1767-1771
N ORTH C AROLINA M ILITARY R ESERVATION , 1782
T HE S OUTHWEST T ERRITORY , 1791
T HE T ENNESSEE F RONTIER , L ATE E IGHTEENTH C ENTURY
T ENNESSEE , 1800
C ONGRESSIONAL R ESERVATION , 1806
T ENNESSEE , 1810
T ENNESSEE , 1820
P LAN OF M EMPHIS IN THE L ATE 1820 S
I NDIAN L AND C ESSIONS IN T ENNESSEE
T ENNESSEE , 1830
T HE C HEROKEE N ATION , 1819-1838
T ENNESSEE , 1840
Foreword
For most Americans the West refers to the western half of the nation. From the Great Plains across the Rockies and the intermontane plateaus to the Pacific Ocean, the American West conjures up a flood of popular images: trappers, cowboys, miners, and homesteading families; the Marlboro man and country-western music. This has been the West since the California Gold Rush and the migration of 49ers propelled the region into the national consciousness.
But it was not always so. There was an earlier American West, no less vivid and no less dramatic. Here the fabled figures were not John Charles Fr mont and Geronimo, but Daniel Boone and Tecumseh; not Calamity Jane and Buffalo Bill Cody, but Rachel Jackson and Davy Crockett. Geographically, this earlier West extended from the crest of the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River, from the border with Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. It was the West of Euro-American expansion from before the American Revolution until the middle of the nineteenth century, when the line of frontier settlement moved through the first West toward that new, farther West.
Initially the story of the first American West involved two sets of characters: first, the white people of European origin, and south of the Ohio River, African-American slaves, who were spreading relentlessly westward; second, the original settlers, the Native Americans, who retreated grudgingly before the flood. The first Europeans, French and Spanish, appeared on this landscape in the 1600s and early 1700s, and their interactions with the original native peoples involved both cooperation and conflict. The English arrived a half-century later. The Europeans were almost always a minority in number, so they and the Indians sought neither conquest nor annihilation, but mutual accommodation, joint occupation of the land and joint use of its resources. The system of contact allowed both sides to survive and even to benefit from one another s presence. Trade developed and intermarriage followed, and so did misunderstandings and violence. Still, a delicate balance supported by mutual interests often characterized relations among Europeans and native peoples.
When Anglo-Americans began moving through the Cumberland Gap from Virginia into what hunters called the Kentucky country in the 1750s, they soon tilted the balance between the two cultures, occupying large portions of Kentucky and pressing against native groups from Ohio south to Georgia. By 1780, the Anglo-Americans had also occupied the former French settlements of Cahokia in Illinois and Vincennes in Indiana. Despite strong resistance by several native groups, the seemingly unending reinforcements of white families made the Euro-Americans gradual occupation of the trans-Appalachian frontier inevitable.
In the 1780s the infant American government issued ordinances spelling out how the land between the Great Lakes and the Ohio River was to be acquired from the native peoples, subdivided, and sold to the citizens of the new republic. The new residents of that region could establish a form of government organization that would lead to statehood and equal membership in the union. A parallel process was soon set up for Kentucky, Tennessee, and the lands south to the Gulf.
In the 1830s and the 1840s, the remaining native groups east of the Mississippi were removed to the West. The expansion of settlement into the trans-Appalachian frontier could now continue unchecked into Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and the great cotton lands and hill country of Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. The frontier period had been completed-as early as the 1820s in Kentucky, and within the next twenty years throughout much of the Old Northwest and Old Southwest.
In brief terms, this is the story of the trans-Appalachian frontier. Over scarcely three generations, the trickle of settler families across the mountains had become a flood; four million people, both white and black, had settled in the frontier regions. Beginning with Kentucky in 1792 and running through Florida in 1845 and Wisconsin in 1848, a dozen new states had entered the American union. Each territory and state had its own story, and it is appropriate that each will have a separate volume in this series. The variations are broad. Florida s first European arrived in 1513, and this future state was a frontier for Spain and the United States for over 350 years. Missouri had a long French and Spanish history before the arrival of American settlers, but Kentucky and Ohio did not; Americans in large numbers came quickly to the latter states through the Cumberland Gap.
The opening and closing of the settlement frontier is the subject of these volumes. Each begins with the world that existed when Europeans first made contact with native peoples. Each describes and analyzes the themes associated with the special circumstances of the individual territory or state. And each concludes with the closing of the frontier.
The editors of the series have selected authors who have strong reputations as scholars and interpreters of their individual territories and states. We believe that you will find this history informative and lively, and we are confident that you will enjoy this and other volumes in the trans-Appalachian frontier series.
John Finger s history of frontier Tennessee is a description and analysis of three hundred years of the formative period of the area that became the Volunteer State. He begins his account with a superb description of early Tennessee s first Indian peoples and the landscape that they occupied. From the