October 25, 2024 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, territorial ambition as old as the ages gave us the complicated history of North Carolina and Tennessee. In fairness, the grass and trees are remarkably green on both sides. Hear deep insight into what matters to people, and the lengths to which leaders have gone to effect their designs.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. While we have
fifty states today, it might surprise some of you listening
that some didn't make the cut from Deseret to Superior
to Lincoln and the subject of our next story, Franklin.
Here to tell the story of the Lost state of
Franklin is JD. Phillips, the man behind the popular YouTube channel,
(00:33):
The Appalachian Storyteller, Take It Away. JD.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Our story begins in seventeen eighty four. A new country,
the United States, is born from the ashes of the
Revolutionary War. It was a time of great opportunity, as
all land east of the Mississippi River was seated by
Great Britain to this new nation. But the reality was
(00:57):
that nearly all of the people living in eighteen states
actually lived on the eastern side of the Appalachian Mountains.
There were only a few routes over them, and all
those trails were controlled by the Native Americans. There were
few white men who had successfully breached the mountain barrier
and had set up forts in small villages on the
(01:20):
western slopes. They were a hearty breed of men known
as the over mountain Men. They had learned much from
the natives about surviving in the wilderness and fighting tactics.
North Carolina was facing several problems. It claimed so much
land that it was impossible to practically govern it all.
(01:43):
News from its coastal capital took months to reach the
people living on the western side of the Appalachians, and
at the same time, North Carolina couldn't afford to send
any military aid to help these mountain men fight the
natives who were defending their homeland. With that in mind,
politicians set out giving huge land grants to soldiers who
(02:05):
had fought in the Revolution, helping to eventually fill the
territory with loyalists and men willing to fight the government's
battle forum to claim this new land. Yet, to their surprise,
many of the soldiers were tired of fighting wars, and furthermore,
North Carolina politicians had another problem. They were flat broke.
(02:25):
The war had left them penniless, so they created the
Land Grab Act, opening up the vast area that would
eventually become Tennessee to any person who was willing to
pay ten dollars for one hundred acres, and they sold
nearly four million acres of this land in a mere
eight months. But wouldn't you know, it. Over three million
(02:47):
of those acres were now owned by politicians and their
business friends, and many times without any actual proof of payment. Finally,
by April of eighteen eighty four, under pressure from Congers
to pay off its debts, North Carolina seated twenty nine
million acres all of its land that laid between the
Mississippi River and the Appalachian Mountains back to the federal government. However,
(03:12):
once the US government realized that they were now responsible
for all the costs to fight those Cherokee Indians, they
soon changed their mind. Suddenly, the over mountain men living
on the western slopes of the Appalachians were without state
or country. Yet these were no ordinary men. They were Appalachian,
and soon the entire course of American history would be
(03:35):
altered as these men in this area set out to
become the fourteenth state in the United States. By August
of eighteen eighty four, nearly one hundred over mountain men
met in what is now Jonesboro, Tennessee, and discussed the
dire circumstances they found themselves without any official status, protection,
(03:58):
or judicial accommodations. And John Severe was one of the
men who attended this meeting. His leadership had proved vital
during the Battle of King's Mountain just a few years earlier.
He was very well respected by his peers. The custom
in those days was to name a town or a
county after a prominent politician, and during this era, no
(04:19):
man was more respected than Benjamin Franklin. Thus the new
territory comprising of modern day East Tennessee would be known
as a state of Franklin. Severe was named the first governor,
and they quickly set up officers and a militia to
protect the area, and even adopted a state constitution that
(04:40):
reflected Appalachian values. It called for religious freedom, it allowed
any man the right to vote even if he didn't
own property, and it forbade all lawyers, preachers, or doctors
from holding political office. And when word of this new
state got back to the other side, out of the
mountains to North Carolina, they conveniently forgot that they had
(05:04):
willingly abandoned both the people and the land. After all,
the last thing those politicians wanted was all that land
that they now personally owned through the fraudulent land grab,
to be owned by another state. So, in an about face,
they officially changed their minds and reasserted that the land
was once again part of North Carolina. They even continued
(05:26):
to demand payment of taxes from the mountain folks, but
those Appalachians just simply refused to pay and never sent
a dime to them. Soon word began to spread about
this new state with laws made to support and defend
individual liberty, and by now folks all around the South
were already tiring of the control and the restrictions and
(05:49):
taxes of this new American government. In their minds, this
new Master was much like the old Master. So in
a massive migration, nearly fifteen thousand families moved to the
state of Franklin. All of a sudden, this state, founded
by Appalachian mountain men, had grown to eight counties, and
(06:09):
they had even created their own currency, and their leader,
John Severe, proved to be equally skilled in both war
and negotiations. Under his leadership, the state of Franklin fought
several large battles with Cherokees. By June of seventeen eighty five,
Severe met with Cherokee leaders and negotiated the Treaty of
(06:32):
Dumplin Creek, opening up those lands to even more white settlers. Heck,
even the state capital of Franklin was built on this
new land in what is modern day Greenville, Tennessee. May
you better believe that a state is radical, as Franklin
put the United States government on notice. With these mountain
folks self governing themselves and negotiating peace treaties with Native Americans,
(06:56):
they certainly had to be stopped. The first blow came
in mid seventeen eighty five, when the official petition for
Franklin to become the fourteenth state of the United States
of America was officially voted on. Each of the thirteen
states had won vote, and a total of nine votes
was needed to admit Franklin into the Union. Franklin only
(07:19):
received seven, with North Carolina pressure in its neighboring states
to vote against Franklin. The state of Franklin was denied
entry into the United States. But that Appalachian spirit was
alive and well. The mountaineers carried in their own right,
much like an independent nation. So the United States began
engaging in a series of calculated moves to undermine Franklin's
(07:43):
relationship with the Natives. In November of seventeen eighty five,
the United States negotiated the Treaty of Hopewell with the Cherokees,
which completely reversed the treaty that John Severe and the
State of Franklin had in place. This treaty returned all
the land along the French Broad River back to the Cherokees.
(08:03):
This meant that the State of Franklin's capital was now
sitting squarely on Native American property. Over the next couple
of years, all outside governments refused to recognize any official
court orders from Franklin, making it impossible for folks to
(08:25):
buy or sell property or complete any legal paperwork, and
by seventeen eighty seven, internal strife was rampant and many
Franklin Knights began lobbying for a return to statehood with
North Carolina. Seeing this, North Carolina agreed to forgive any
unpaid back taxes for those who would stop paying taxes
(08:46):
to the State of Franklin, and in the ultimate move
to show power, North Carolina placed their own tax collector
in the State of Franklin, a man named John Tipton,
who was a bitter rival of John Severe's. Tipton immediately
ordered a sheriff to seize Severe's personal property as payment
to North Carolina for unpaid taxes. Yet Severe responded by
(09:08):
showing up on Tipton's doorstep with one hundred and forty
five man militia, and a two day siege of Tipton's
home ensued. North Carolina had enough of John Severe, and
finally they arrested him for treason and they were set
to trium in Morganton, North Carolina. However, a heavily armed
group of John Severe's supporters showed up at the jail
(09:29):
house steps, and that sheriff just so happened to fight
alongside John Severe in the Battle of King's Mountain, and
he wisely looked away as Severe mounted his horse and
was free again. Despite all his efforts, the state of
Franklin had collapsed and was now part of North Carolina again.
Now the irony of this story is that a year later,
(09:52):
in seventeen eighty nine, John Severe would receive a full
pardon for pledging allegiance to the state of Franklin. And
what did North Carolina do well? They promptly surrendered all
of its land from the Mississippi River to the Appalachians
to the federal government again as payment for its debt
from the Revolutionary War. This same Land would become the
(10:15):
sixteenth state. And who was the first governor of this
new state called Tennessee. You guessed it, John Severe.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
And a special thanks to J. D. Phillips, the man
behind the popular YouTube channel The Appalachian Storyteller and a
terrific story about how states came to be and didn't
the story of the last state built by Appalachian mountainmen.
Here on our American Stories.
And we returned to our American stories. While we have
fifty states today, it might surprise some of you listening
that some didn't make the cut from Deseret to Superior
to Lincoln and the subject of our next story, Franklin.
Here to tell the story of the Lost state of
Franklin is JD. Phillips, the man behind the popular YouTube channel,
(00:33):
The Appalachian Storyteller, Take It Away. JD.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Our story begins in seventeen eighty four. A new country,
the United States, is born from the ashes of the
Revolutionary War. It was a time of great opportunity, as
all land east of the Mississippi River was seated by
Great Britain to this new nation. But the reality was
(00:57):
that nearly all of the people living in eighteen states
actually lived on the eastern side of the Appalachian Mountains.
There were only a few routes over them, and all
those trails were controlled by the Native Americans. There were
few white men who had successfully breached the mountain barrier
and had set up forts in small villages on the
(01:20):
western slopes. They were a hearty breed of men known
as the over mountain Men. They had learned much from
the natives about surviving in the wilderness and fighting tactics.
North Carolina was facing several problems. It claimed so much
land that it was impossible to practically govern it all.
(01:43):
News from its coastal capital took months to reach the
people living on the western side of the Appalachians, and
at the same time, North Carolina couldn't afford to send
any military aid to help these mountain men fight the
natives who were defending their homeland. With that in mind,
politicians set out giving huge land grants to soldiers who
(02:05):
had fought in the Revolution, helping to eventually fill the
territory with loyalists and men willing to fight the government's
battle forum to claim this new land. Yet, to their surprise,
many of the soldiers were tired of fighting wars, and furthermore,
North Carolina politicians had another problem. They were flat broke.
(02:25):
The war had left them penniless, so they created the
Land Grab Act, opening up the vast area that would
eventually become Tennessee to any person who was willing to
pay ten dollars for one hundred acres, and they sold
nearly four million acres of this land in a mere
eight months. But wouldn't you know, it. Over three million
(02:47):
of those acres were now owned by politicians and their
business friends, and many times without any actual proof of payment. Finally,
by April of eighteen eighty four, under pressure from Congers
to pay off its debts, North Carolina seated twenty nine
million acres all of its land that laid between the
Mississippi River and the Appalachian Mountains back to the federal government. However,
(03:12):
once the US government realized that they were now responsible
for all the costs to fight those Cherokee Indians, they
soon changed their mind. Suddenly, the over mountain men living
on the western slopes of the Appalachians were without state
or country. Yet these were no ordinary men. They were Appalachian,
and soon the entire course of American history would be
(03:35):
altered as these men in this area set out to
become the fourteenth state in the United States. By August
of eighteen eighty four, nearly one hundred over mountain men
met in what is now Jonesboro, Tennessee, and discussed the
dire circumstances they found themselves without any official status, protection,
(03:58):
or judicial accommodations. And John Severe was one of the
men who attended this meeting. His leadership had proved vital
during the Battle of King's Mountain just a few years earlier.
He was very well respected by his peers. The custom
in those days was to name a town or a
county after a prominent politician, and during this era, no
(04:19):
man was more respected than Benjamin Franklin. Thus the new
territory comprising of modern day East Tennessee would be known
as a state of Franklin. Severe was named the first governor,
and they quickly set up officers and a militia to
protect the area, and even adopted a state constitution that
(04:40):
reflected Appalachian values. It called for religious freedom, it allowed
any man the right to vote even if he didn't
own property, and it forbade all lawyers, preachers, or doctors
from holding political office. And when word of this new
state got back to the other side, out of the
mountains to North Carolina, they conveniently forgot that they had
(05:04):
willingly abandoned both the people and the land. After all,
the last thing those politicians wanted was all that land
that they now personally owned through the fraudulent land grab,
to be owned by another state. So, in an about face,
they officially changed their minds and reasserted that the land
was once again part of North Carolina. They even continued
(05:26):
to demand payment of taxes from the mountain folks, but
those Appalachians just simply refused to pay and never sent
a dime to them. Soon word began to spread about
this new state with laws made to support and defend
individual liberty, and by now folks all around the South
were already tiring of the control and the restrictions and
(05:49):
taxes of this new American government. In their minds, this
new Master was much like the old Master. So in
a massive migration, nearly fifteen thousand families moved to the
state of Franklin. All of a sudden, this state, founded
by Appalachian mountain men, had grown to eight counties, and
(06:09):
they had even created their own currency, and their leader,
John Severe, proved to be equally skilled in both war
and negotiations. Under his leadership, the state of Franklin fought
several large battles with Cherokees. By June of seventeen eighty five,
Severe met with Cherokee leaders and negotiated the Treaty of
(06:32):
Dumplin Creek, opening up those lands to even more white settlers. Heck,
even the state capital of Franklin was built on this
new land in what is modern day Greenville, Tennessee. May
you better believe that a state is radical, as Franklin
put the United States government on notice. With these mountain
folks self governing themselves and negotiating peace treaties with Native Americans,
(06:56):
they certainly had to be stopped. The first blow came
in mid seventeen eighty five, when the official petition for
Franklin to become the fourteenth state of the United States
of America was officially voted on. Each of the thirteen
states had won vote, and a total of nine votes
was needed to admit Franklin into the Union. Franklin only
(07:19):
received seven, with North Carolina pressure in its neighboring states
to vote against Franklin. The state of Franklin was denied
entry into the United States. But that Appalachian spirit was
alive and well. The mountaineers carried in their own right,
much like an independent nation. So the United States began
engaging in a series of calculated moves to undermine Franklin's
(07:43):
relationship with the Natives. In November of seventeen eighty five,
the United States negotiated the Treaty of Hopewell with the Cherokees,
which completely reversed the treaty that John Severe and the
State of Franklin had in place. This treaty returned all
the land along the French Broad River back to the Cherokees.
(08:03):
This meant that the State of Franklin's capital was now
sitting squarely on Native American property. Over the next couple
of years, all outside governments refused to recognize any official
court orders from Franklin, making it impossible for folks to
(08:25):
buy or sell property or complete any legal paperwork, and
by seventeen eighty seven, internal strife was rampant and many
Franklin Knights began lobbying for a return to statehood with
North Carolina. Seeing this, North Carolina agreed to forgive any
unpaid back taxes for those who would stop paying taxes
(08:46):
to the State of Franklin, and in the ultimate move
to show power, North Carolina placed their own tax collector
in the State of Franklin, a man named John Tipton,
who was a bitter rival of John Severe's. Tipton immediately
ordered a sheriff to seize Severe's personal property as payment
to North Carolina for unpaid taxes. Yet Severe responded by
(09:08):
showing up on Tipton's doorstep with one hundred and forty
five man militia, and a two day siege of Tipton's
home ensued. North Carolina had enough of John Severe, and
finally they arrested him for treason and they were set
to trium in Morganton, North Carolina. However, a heavily armed
group of John Severe's supporters showed up at the jail
(09:29):
house steps, and that sheriff just so happened to fight
alongside John Severe in the Battle of King's Mountain, and
he wisely looked away as Severe mounted his horse and
was free again. Despite all his efforts, the state of
Franklin had collapsed and was now part of North Carolina again.
Now the irony of this story is that a year later,
(09:52):
in seventeen eighty nine, John Severe would receive a full
pardon for pledging allegiance to the state of Franklin. And
what did North Carolina do well? They promptly surrendered all
of its land from the Mississippi River to the Appalachians
to the federal government again as payment for its debt
from the Revolutionary War. This same Land would become the
(10:15):
sixteenth state. And who was the first governor of this
new state called Tennessee. You guessed it, John Severe.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
And a special thanks to J. D. Phillips, the man
behind the popular YouTube channel The Appalachian Storyteller and a
terrific story about how states came to be and didn't
the story of the last state built by Appalachian mountainmen.
Here on our American Stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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