Spread of English-Speaking Peoples 211 



greatest of the first generation of Trans-Alleghany 

 pioneers. 



Their followers were worthy of them. All alike 

 were keenly alive to the disadvantages of living in 

 a community where there was neither law nor offi- 

 cer to enforce it. Accordingly, with their character- 

 istic capacity for combination, so striking as exist- 

 ing together with the equally characteristic capacity 

 for individual self-help, the settlers determined to 

 organize a government of their own. They prompt- 

 ly put their resolution into effect early in the spring 

 of 1772, Robertson being apparently the leader in 

 the movement. 



They decided to adopt written articles of agree- 

 ment, by which their conduct should be governed; 

 and these were known as the Articles of the Wa- 

 tauga Association. They formed a written consti- 

 tution, the first ever adopted west of the mountains, 

 or by a community composed of American-born 

 freemen. It is this fact of the early independence 

 and self-government of the settlers along the head- 

 waters of the Tennessee that gives to their history 

 its peculiar importance. They were the first men of 

 American birth to establish a free and independent 

 community on the continent. Even before this date, 

 there had been straggling settlements of Pennsyl- 

 vanians and Virginians along the head-waters of 

 the Ohio ; but these settlements remained mere parts 

 of the colonies behind them, and neither grew into a 

 separate community, nor played a distinctive part in 

 the growth of the West. 



