CHAPTER IV 



THE STATE OF FRANKLIN, 1784-1788 



THE separatist spirit was strong throughout the 

 West. Different causes, such as the unchecked 

 ravages of the Indians, or the refusal of the right 

 to navigate the Mississippi, produced or accentuated 

 different manifestations; but the feeling itself was 

 latent everywhere. Its most striking manifestations 

 occurred not in Kentucky, but in what is now the 

 State of Tennessee ; and was aimed not at the United 

 States, but at the parent State of North Carolina. 



In Kentucky the old frontiersmen were losing 

 their grip on the governmental machinery of the 

 district. The great flood of immigration tended to 

 swamp the pioneers; and the leading parts in the 

 struggle for Statehood were played by men who had 

 come to the country about the close of the Revolu 

 tionary War, and who were often related by ties of 

 kinship to the leaders of the Virginia legislatures 

 and conventions. 



On the waters of the upper Tennessee matters 

 were entirely different. Immigration had been 

 slower, and the people who did come in were usu 

 ally of the type of those who had first built their 

 stockaded hamlets on the banks of the Watauga. 

 The leaders of the early pioneers were still the lead- 

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