He had
learned that colonies must be treated with less commercial
pressure and with more regard to individual liberty, if they were
to be held loyal either to a King beyond the water or to an
uncrowned leader nearer at hand. He had been making his plans for
colonization of that portion of the Transylvania purchase which
lay within the bounds of North Carolina along the Cumberland and
choosing his men to lay the foundations of his projected
settlement in what was then a wholly uninhabited country; and he
had decided on generous terms, such as ten dollars a thousand
acres for land, the certificate of purchase to entitle the holder
to further proceedings in the land office without extra fees.
To head an enterprise of such danger and hardship Henderson
required a man of more than mere courage; a man of resource, of
stability, of proven powers, one whom other men would follow and
obey with confidence. So it was that James Robertson was chosen
to lead the first white settlers into middle Tennessee. He set
out in February, 1779, accompanied by his brother, Mark
Robertson, several other white men, and a negro, to select a site
for settlement and to plant corn. Meanwhile another small party
led by Gaspar Mansker had arrived. As the boundary line between
Virginia and North Carolina had not been run to this point,
Robertson believed that the site he had chosen lay within
Virginia and was in the disposal of General Clark.
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