Southwest Territory
The Southwest Territory , also known as the territory south of the Ohio River , was a historic territory of the United States that existed from May 26, 1790 to June 1, 1796. On June 1, 1796 part of the territory was included under the name " Tennessee " as the 16th state in the union.
The Southwest Territory was created on the basis of the Southwest Ordinance as the first territory of the United States. It consisted of the land that North Carolina had given to the US federal government. The name "territory south of the Ohio River" suggests a much larger area than that of today's Tennessee. Although Kentucky was also south of the Ohio River , it was still part of Virginia in 1790 when the Southwest Territory was organized ; this remained so until June 1, 1792, when Kentucky was accepted as a state into the Union. The land south of what is now Tennessee was claimed partly by Georgia and partly by Spain . Part of this land was organized as Mississippi Territory in 1798 .
Not to be confused with the historic Southwest Territory and the modern Southwest of the United States .
history
During the colonial period, the land that would later form the Southwest Territory was part of North Carolina's land allocation. However, the Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains prevented North Carolina from pursuing its own interest in the territory; this resulted in settlers, trade, and political interest coming predominantly from Virginia and South Carolina .
Fort Watauga (near Sycamore Shoals ) in what is now Elizabethton, Tennessee , was the site of the Transylvania Purchase . In March 1775, Richard Henderson , property speculator and judge in North Carolina, met there with more than 1,200 Cherokees , including Cherokee leaders Attakullakulla , Oconostota, and Dragging Canoe . In the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals , also known as the Treaty of Watauga , Henderson acquired all of the land that lay between the Cumberland River , the Cumberland Mountains and the Kentucky River and south of the Ohio River . The described land, 20 million acres (80,000 km² ), comprised an area half the size of today's state of Kentucky. However, Henderson's purchase violated North Carolina and Virginia laws and the 1763 Royal Proclamation that prohibited the private acquisition of land from Native Americans. Henderson believed that a new UK legal opinion (the Camden-Yorke Opinion ) would legalize such a purchase.
Prior to the signing of the Sycamore Shoals contract, Henderson had hired Daniel Boone , a skilled hunter who had explored Kentucky, to travel to the Cherokee Villages and brief the Natives of the upcoming negotiations. Boone was then hired to mark a trail known as the Wilderness Road that ran through the Cumberland Gap , a pass through the Cumberland Mountains , into central Kentucky. Together with about thirty loggers , Boone marked a route to the Kentucky River , where he founded Boonesborough near what is now Lexington , which was intended as the capital of Transylvania. Other settlements such as Harrodsburg emerged . Many settlers came to Kentucky on their own initiative and did not recognize the authority of Transylvania. A historical marker of the Daniel Boone Trail was found just outside of downtown in the Elizabethton business district .
At the beginning of the American Revolutionary War , Fort Watauga near Sycamore Shoals was attacked by dragging canoes in 1776 , as he and his people, the Chickamauga , were against the Transylvania Purchase and the Watauga border fort on the banks of the Watauga River .
Between 1777 and 1778, North Carolina divided part of the territory into counties, ignoring the settlers' concerns for basic services and defense against the indigenous people.
Fort Watauga served on September 26, 1780 as a rallying point for the Overmountain Men who prepared the trek across the Appalachians . It was also attacked and defended against the British Army at the Battle of Musgrove Mill in South Carolina and later at the Battle of Kings Mountain in North Carolina.
Little gunpowder was manufactured in the United States prior to the Revolutionary War ; mostly it was imported from Great Britain . In October 1777, the British Parliament banned the import of gunpowder into America. Mary Patton and her husband then produced five hundred pounds of black powder for the Overmountain Men at their Gap Creek powder mill . They stored it on the first rainy night in a dry cave known as Shelving Rock , near Roan Mountain . The Overmountain Men fought the British at the Battle of Cowpens , South Carolina in January 1781 .
In 1784, several counties within the Northeast Tennessee area formed Franklin State . John Sevier was named governor and the area began to operate as an independent state, although it was not recognized by the US Congress. At the same time, settlers in the other part of Tennessee were making advances for an alliance with Spain, which at the time controlled the lower Mississippi. Then, when North Carolina began to regain control, the Franklin state quickly ceased to exist in 1788.
North Carolina ratified the US Constitution in 1789 . As a condition of joining the Union, it ceded its claim to the territory west of the Smoky Mountains. It did so through a law passed by the North Carolina General Assembly . The deed for the transfer of the land was presented to the 1st US Congress on February 25, 1790 and accepted by it on April 2, 1790. On May 26, 1790, the territory was formally organized as "Territory south of the Ohio River". President George Washington appointed William Blount for territorial governor and Rocky Mount was the first capital of the territory. In late 1791, Blount encouraged George Roulstone to publish in Rogersville Tennessee's first newspaper, The Knoxville Gazette .
Meanwhile, Blount decided to move the territorial capital to White's Fort , which he renamed Knoxville . Land speculation became a thriving business in the new territory, and most prominent politicians participated in it. The growing white settlements - notwithstanding the government bans - expanded more and more over the land of the indigenous people. In 1792 Cherokee and Creek attacked the settlers in the Cumberland area. The settlers in the area then formed a local militia, and in the Nickajack Expedition of 1794 they destroyed some Chickamauga villages.
When the US Congress organized the Southwest Territory, it determined that all the regulations of the Northwest Ordinance , with the exception of the restriction on slavery , should apply mutatis mutandis to the Southwest Territory. In particular, Section 12 stated that a territorial legislature should be formed and a non-voting delegate could be elected to the US Congress. On September 3, 1794, the territorial government selected James White as a delegate to the US Congress. However, this was quite controversial: the Northwest Ordinance was passed by the unicameral congress under the Articles of Confederation and it was not clear whether that delegate would be a member of the US House of Representatives , the US Senate, or both. There were also doubts about the rule of law of such a delegate. Despite all of this, he was introduced to the House on November 18, a week after White's Credentials , and after two days of debate, White became the first delegate to the US House of Representatives. He was the only delegate from the Southwest Territory.
In 1795, a census showed that there were enough residents to apply for statehood , and a referendum showed a three-quarters majority in favor of a separate state. Governor Blount convened a constitutional convention and delegates drafted a constitution. John Sevier was elected governor, the new legislature elected Blount and William Cocke to the US Senate and Andrew Jackson to the US House of Representatives.
The Southwest Territory was the first federal territory to be admitted to the Union after a petition, so there was disagreement in the US Congress over the process. Even so, Tennessee was accepted into the union as the 16th state on June 1, 1796. The Southwest Territory ceased to exist at that point.