Disclaimer: Nolichucky Pictures, LLC, has used its best efforts in preparing this transcript from a video interview. Nolichucky Pictures, LLC, makes no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy, applicability, fitness, or completeness of the contents of this transcript. Nolichucky Pictures, LLC, shall in no event be held liable for any loss or other damages. This transcript is made available by Nolichucky Pictures, LLC, for non-commercial research and education only. Any unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. State of Franklin Documentary Interview with Kevin Barksdale, Ph.D. Marshall University December 9, 2008 Describe the characteristics of the backcountry white settlers. What psychological factors do you believe led to their separatist attitudes? When you’re describing the characteristics of back-country settlers in the Upper East Tennessee Valley, and what ultimately lead them to support the State of Franklin separatist movement, the are a number of different factors: (1) Backcountry localism: desire for local autonomy to control their political and economic destinies, falls right into the need to create a separatist movement, an independent state and government, where they can have control over these factors. (2) Native American hatred – a deep down visceral hatred toward the Native Americans and a desire for their land, and a complete lack of understanding about their culture. These kinds of things tend to ultimately feed the separatist sentiment. Indian policy changes after the American Revolution. (3) Desires for personal financial improvement, greed, desire for land, and an accumulation of wealth drives the separatist tendencies. (4) Lingering ideology and radicalism of the American Revolution drove the backcountry separatism. The ideas that come out of the American Revolution: the desire for a responsive government, in this case, a responsive state government of North Carolina, of these westerners’ belief that this is not happening, a belief that government is not responsive to the citizenry, that it is the Lockean idea that it is their obligation, their right to overthrow that government, or in this case, to establish a new state government, so that they can create a responsive state government, a responsive bureaucracy that deals with issues that they are dealing with. When you combine those four issues, localism, Indian hatred, lingering radicalism of the American Revolution, and desire for personal wealth, those are the forces that drive separatist sentiment. What were the similarities in behavior between the Franklites and the earlier Wataugans? There are a number of similarities between the Wataugans and the Franklinites. (1) Desire for more political influence. Both Wataugans and Franklinites are going to want to have their state governments have established courts, a political infrastructure that were lacking in the West. (2) Shared desires to have their governments improve their communities and infrastructure. A desire for roads and turnpikes, the expansion of the militia. These kinds of things led the Wataugans and the Franklinites to assert their own independence, their own belief and desires for a more focused improvement for their own lives and their own communities. (3) Shared general perspective on Native Americans. They were an impediment to economic, political and social expansion. I think they engaged in very similar tactics with Native Americans. Questionable treaty tactics, an overwhelming drive to acquire land at all costs. These are some other kinds of similarities. (4) The leadership of both: the Wataugan colony later becoming the Washington District, and later becoming Washington County. Those same families and many of those same individuals will be part of the economic and political leadership of Watauga, but also will become part of the economic and political leadership of Franklin. If you look at the Sevier family and the Carter family, these are families who are inhabiting the Upper Tennessee Valley early on, and their ability to accumulate property, and their ability to dominate the regional political system, allows them to transcend Watauga and ultimately the State of Franklin, and then ultimately the State of Tennessee and southwest territory. Tell us about the economic status of the white settlers. Who became the ruling class and why? This is one of the most important questions in understanding the State of Franklin. One of the common misconceptions about the American frontier was an egalitarian society that lacked a socio-economic hierarchy, and that’s completely not true. Historians have demonstrated there has been, from the very beginning, classes or a class system, in the Western frontier, and the Upper Tennessee Valley provides a perfect example of this. 2 In the beginning of the settlement of the Upper Tennessee Valley you see a development of a ruling class, of political and economic leadership, and you see the emergence of a clearly stratified society. And what’s driving that, on the Western frontier, the primary driving force behind the satisfaction of society is going to be the accumulation of land. Prior to the American Revolution, and through the American Revolution, there had always been a shortage of specie1 of cash on hand in the West. One of the principle ways of accumulating wealth was acquiring land, and in a specie poor region, land was king. The early settlers of the Upper Tennessee Valley, many of them acquired large parcels of land, multiple parcels of land, often the richest bottomland, and the most fertile land. This gave them an initial leg up on the later settlers who would have to come in and have less access to land, and was able to purchase or acquire through other means, land that wasn’t as valuable. What ends up happening is that you have sort of a cadre of political and economic leaders who have established their economic hegemony in the region through land ownership. Another driving force that leads to the stratification of the Upper Tennessee Valley will be the desire to improve this economy. Many of these political and economic and leaders in the region have commercial businesses, whether they are commercial farmers, many were slaveholders with a large commercial farm. Many were storeowners, many of them own taverns and distilleries and other sort of peripheral businesses ideally suited for the West. The problem was that these entrepreneurs believed that the only thing that stood between them and financial success was lack of an infrastructure. There were no roads; there were no obvious ways in to the Upper Tennessee Valley. There were no courts where they could legally register land patents or where they could defend their property. These were the kinds of demands that intertwined with emergence of this ruling class, and how they viewed their relationship to their parent state, North Carolina, and the kinds of things that ultimately would drive the Franklin independent movement. The desire to improve their economic standing, their entrepreneurial spirit, and some of the impediments that got in their way, not only a lack of infrastructure, but Native American obstacles, the State of North Carolina’s unwillingness to support some policies they were hoping to implement, the state government’s unwillingness to do the kind of things that these Tennessee Valley ruling men wanted to do. But, ultimately, those were the kind of forces that lead to the emergence of a ruling class, whether you are talking about the Sevier family, or the Tipton family, or the Cobb family, or the Carter family - all families who were politically connected, as well as, part of this sort of economic ruling class. Describe the circumstances leading to North Carolina’s 1784 Cession Act. The 1784 Cession Act comes directly out of the financial consequences of the American Revolution. The American Revolution bankrupted what would become the United States, as well as the state governments. The funding of militias, the supporting of armies, taxes, and all these kinds of things that went in to the fighting of the American Revolution. After the war was over, the destruction of America’s commercial fleet, severing ties with North America’s closest trading destination, which was Great Brittan, who cut off 1 Specie is money in coin form. 3 economic ties. This put a crunch on the United States – the Confederated States, at this point. One the techniques or methods the newly formed American republic decided that they could rely upon to sort of alleviate what was ostensibly bankruptcy, was to sell western land, to use what they considered uninhabited, although it was inhabited by many Native American groups, but uninhabited western lands, and that they could sell these off. The Federal Government had some land after the American Revolution, but there were several states, North Carolina, Virginia, and New York, who had a lot of western land that was largely uninhabited. The U.S. Government decided to pass a tax on states that have western land that they are not doing anything with, in order to (1) raise tax revenues; and (2) it would convince many of these states who didn’t have the money to pay the taxes to turn the land over to the Federal Government. The Federal Government could then turn around and take some of the state’s debt, and turn around and sell that land and get themselves out of debt. That was the principle. Early on, before 1784, immediately after the American Revolution, Virginia and New York gave up their western land. They ceded their western land to the U.S. Government. North Carolina held out for a number of different reasons. Largely, they were holding out for the best deal they could get. By October of 1784, there was considerable support in Eastern North Carolina for ceding this land over to the U.S. Government. There was growing support in Western North Carolina, which would eventually become the State of Franklin, to turn this land over to the Federal Government.