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Articles in regional publications that pertain to a wide range of North Carolina-related topics.

James Robertson and the Wataugans

Record #:
8601
Author(s):
Abstract:
Following the defeat of the Regulators at the Battle of Alamance, a small group of North Carolinians settled in the Watauga Valley. In 1771, Raleigh native James Robertson led this group of dissenters who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the British Crown. In May of the following year, the settlers established the Watauga Government, which Theodore Roosevelt would later call “the first independent self-government with a written Constitution by native-born Americans.” In 1775, the Wataugans bought a large tract of land from Cherokee Indian chiefs. Today, that land is Alleghany, Ashe, and Watauga counties as well as a section of eastern Tennessee. Robertson settled Nashboro, Tennessee, now Nashville, in 1778, and President Andrew Jackson gave him the title of “Father of Tennessee.” The Wake County Historical Society located the Robertson Plantation, where James Robertson was living in 1771, and erected a historical marker there.
Source:
The State (NoCar F 251 S77), Vol. 50 Issue 9, Feb 1983, p8-9, il, por, map