Wake County, NC - General James Robertson

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       GENERAL JAMES ROBERTSON CALLED THE FATHER OF TENNESSEE

                        BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

General James Robertson of Wake County, North Carolina, founder of Watauga, 
the first government erected beyond the Allegheny mountains, and the first 
independent self-government with a written constitution by native Americans; 
co-founder of Nashville, Tennessee; co-author of the "Cumberland Compact;" 
Major General; Commissioner of Indian Affairs; called the "Father of 
Tennessee."

Born 1742, in Brunswick County, Virginia, son of John and Mary (Gower) Robertson, 
James Robertson at the age of eight came to North Carolina with his parents in 
1750. After a short stay in old Granvile (now Vance) county, they removed to 
Wake (then Johnston) County and settled on the 320 acre plantation which John 
Robertson had purchased from Nathaniel Kimbrough on the south side of the Neuse 
River across the river from what now is the Shotwell Community. The survey plat 
of the plantation was made by Richard Caswell in 1750.

After the Battle of Alamance in 1771, many North Carolinians refused to take the 
new oath of allegiance to the Royal Crown and withdrew from the province. Instead 
of taking the new oath of allegiance, James Robertson, in 1771, led a group of 
some twelve or thirteen families from near where the City of Raleigh now stands 
to the headwaters of the Watauga River beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains into what 
then was Indian Territory where all of the land belonged to the Cherokee Nation.
 
The group, led by Robertson, was joined in route by Daniel Boone and his brother, 
Squire Boone, from the Yadkin Valley near where the Town of Taylorsville now stands.
Earlier they had been joined in route at Hillsborough by a group of dissenters from 
the Sandy Creek Baptist Church Community in Orange County (now Randolph) who sought 
to escape the tyranny of the Royal Government.

Finding themselves in North Carolina Indian Territory where all of the land, by 
Royal Proclamation, had been ceded to the Indians, and being without a government 
of any kind, they elected delegates and, in 1772, under the leadership of James 
Robertson, they established a government of their own, the first free and 
independent self-government with a written constitution by native Americans.

As agent for the newly formed Watauga Government, Robertson visited the 
headquarters of the Cherokee Nation and negotiated a peaceful treaty with the 
Indians for the use of the land on which the Wataugous had settled. 

The government was called the Watauga Association, and included lands on the 
headwaters of the Watauga and New Rivers in what now is Western North Carolina, 
and lands along the Nolichuchy and Holston Rivers in what later was to become 
Eastern Tennessee.

The Watauga Government, which James Robertson founded, continued to function as 
an independent self-governmental unit until after American Independence where its 
petition to the provincial Congress for annexation to the State of North Carolina 
was accepted.

In 1779, James Robertson led a group of settlers from Watauga overland across 
the Cumberland Mountains to Big French Lick and founded what today is the City 
of Nashville, Tennessee.

Later, in collaboration with Judge Richard Henderson from Granville County, 
North Carolina, leader of the Transylvania Land Company, Robertson devised for 
the Western North Carolina Territory, called the Washington District, a government 
patterned after the Watauga plan and known as the "Cumberland Campact."

After American Independence, Robertson, who had been designated as Captain in 
charge of Watauga Militia in 1772, was commissioned Major General by president 
George Washington, and later he was appointed by President Washington as 
Commissioner of Indian Affairs for North Carolina and Virginia.

He died among the Indians in 1814, and was buried among the Indians. Some years 
later, the State of Tennessee enacted legislation to have his body removed to 
Nashville.

A tall granite Monolith, or monument, honoring General Robertson, and bearing 
the inscription General James Robertson from North Carolina, "Father of Tennessee", 
overlooks the porchenon in Centenneal Square, Nashville, Tennessee, and his 
portrait hangs in the rotunda in the Tennessee State Capitol.

The plantation in Wake County where James Robertson lived from 1750 until 1771 
is located on the Old Tarboro (now Battle Bridge) Road, near the junction of 
State Roads 2552 and 2553 on the south side of the Neuse River across from the 
Shotwell Community in southeastern Wake County.

In spite of the fact that Theodore Roosevelt in his history, "The Winning of the 
West," credits this Wake County, N.C. pioneer with opening the west to civilization, 
and with establishing the first independent self-government with a written 
constitution by native Americans, James Robertson has been overlooked by most 
North Carolina historians, and not many people in Wake County or elsewhere in 
North Carolina ever heard of him.

It is to compensate for this oversight of General Robertson by North Carolina 
historians that the Wake County Historical Society is erecting this historic 
marker in his honor. 

Reference: Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West 

Haywood: History of Middle Tennessee 

Connor: History of North Carolina 

Saunders: Colonial Records

[This record found in the Wake County Historical Society Minutes Book, Olivia
Raney Library - no author given]

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This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by
Guy Potts - gpotts1@nc.rr.com
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