Windows

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Tell a child that her many-times-great grandparents were part of the Watauga Settlement, and you’ll probably get a blank stare.  Explain why it matters, and you are almost certain to.  


That’s why we love writing sidebars that bring history home.  Let us tell your family’s backstory.  At the next holiday dinner, you’ll have less to explain--and a lot more to talk about.

The Watauga Republic The Declaration of Independence wasn’t the beginning of democracy in the United States. Not quite. Democracy began four years before that, when a group of farmers set down roots in Appalachia with a plan to govern themselves. Our ancestors were among them.  In May 1772, calling themselves the Watauga (Wuh-toe-guh) Association, the settlers signed a ten-year lease with local Cherokees to farm Cherokee land. Just by moving outside Virginia and North Carolina borders, the farmers had defied the British government. In 1775, when the Wataugans bought the land outright from Cherokee leaders, the British were furious. So were a lot of Cherokees. They shared a language and culture, but governed themselves as independent tribes. There was nowhere near a consensus about selling the land. A faction of militant Cherokees was determined to get it back. The Wataugans saw bloodshed coming. To get military support, they asked Virginia to adopt the settlement. War arrived before Virginia’s answer. In July 1776, angry Cherokees attacked the Wataugans’ fort. The Wataugans beat them back. The settlers retaliated by destroying the Overhill Cherokees’ villages. The Cherokees attacked again in December.  The settlers again won.  This time they leveled the Chickamauga Cherokees’ villages. By then, the Watauga Settlement was part of North Carolina, Virginia having turned the farmers down. In 1780, Watauga militiamen--called the Overmountain Men--helped throw the British out of their new home state in the short, bloody Battle of Kings Mountain.  One of our ancestors may have been an Overmountain Man.  You can read more about it in your family history.
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Threatened by local Cherokees, the Watauga settlers sought help from the  colonies. Portrait by David Wright. 

The Cherokee.  Portrait by David Wright. Lord Nelson’s Gallery, Gettysburg, PA.  Reproduced courtesy of the artist. 

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