THE WAR IN THE NORTHWEST 



(CONTINUED) 



CHAPTER VII' 



ROBERTSON FOUNDS THE CUMBERLAND SETTLE 

 MENT, 1779-1780 



ROBERTSON had no share in the glory of 

 King's Mountain, and no part in the subse 

 quent career of the men who won it; for, at the 

 time, he was doing his allotted work, a work of at 

 least equal importance, in a different field. The 

 year before the mountaineers faced Ferguson, the 

 man who had done more than any one in founding 

 the settlements from which the victors came, had 

 once more gone into the wilderness to build a new 

 and even more typical frontier commonwealth, the 

 westernmost of any yet founded by the backwoods 

 men. 



Robertson had been for ten years a leader among 

 the Holston and Watauga people. He had at dif 

 ferent times played the foremost part in organizing 

 the civil government and in repelling outside attack. 

 He had been particularly successful in his dealings 

 with the Indians, and by his missions to them had 

 managed to keep the peace unbroken on more than 

 one occasion when a war would have been disas 

 trous to the whites. He was prosperous and suc- 



VOL. VII. i (l) 



