The Opposition: The Overmountain Men

This terms is heard a great deal connection with the battles of the Southern Theater of the Revolutionary War, particularly the Battle of Kings' Mountain of 1780.  However, Cherokee leaders such as Dragging Canoe had his hands full with them too, so we may as well give them a post of their own. 

Overmountain men refers to settlers who lived over the mountains or beyond the Appalachian Mountain chain, which served as the-supposed-boundary to White settlement while allowing the Natives land between the Mountains and the Mississippi River.  In fact, few if any respected this boundary and settlers had ventured across the mountains for decades prior to the American Revolution.  Most of them were Scotch-Irish, their ancestors came from the six counties straddling the border of England and Scotland, then immigrated to the Ulster Counties, what is now Northern Ireland, and later came to America.  First settling in Pennsylvania, they later drifted into what is now western Virginia and North Carolina, eastern Kentucky and Kentucky, settling primarily along the Watauga, Nolichuky and Holston river valleys.  German settlers followed, adding their cultural traditions to the mix but, for the most part, these people clung to traditions brought straight from the Borders Region of Great Britain, a tendency to disregard authority and law when it suited them and a penchant for fighting and feuding.

Their beef with the British was that the Crown consistently tried to limit settlement beyond the Appalachian Mountains, primarily with the Royal Proclamation of 1763, and by numerous treaties with the Natives which guaranteed them the safety of their hunting ranges.  Not to be deterred, immigrants continued to settle Overmountain, bringing them into direct conflict with the Overhill Cherokees, particularly Dragging Canoe's band of Chickamauga Cherokee.  The skirmishes in this region were bloody, as raid followed raid and reprisal followed reprisal. Overmountain fighters were just as willing to take scalps and/or torture captives as were the Natives who were receiving the lion's share of the blame for the violence on the frontier from both British and American authorities. 

Prior to the Revolution, settlements of Overmountain men concentrated at Sycamore Shoals, now Elizabethtown, Tennessee, with additional settlements at Greenville and Kingsport, Tennessee.  They decided to lease their land from the Cherokee in direct contravention of Crown law, forming the Watauga Association.  They drew up a set of laws to govern their settlements, forming the first independent constitutional government in the United States.  They finally purchased their lands outright, renamed themselves the Washington District and petitioned Virginia for annexation, which Virginia, still under a royal government, denied.  Dragging Canoe had opposed these leases and purchases and continued to raid these settlements, drawing reprisals from irate Settlers. 

Not to be denied, the organizers of the Washington District next petitioned North Carolina to annex their territory as the Revolution was being fought mostly in the Northeast.  North Carolina was more receptive and, as it looked like annexation was a done deal, the British encouraged the Cherokee to throw in their lot with the Redcoats and make war on the settlements.  After several skirmishes and wins on both sides, the Cherokee withdrew and North Carolina annexed the area as Washington County. Meanwhile, in Kentucky, at Boonesburough and Harrodsburgh, other Overmountain men fought off Shawnee attacks. 

British Maj. Patrick Ferguson was determined to put a stop to the Overmountain Men's antics and, in 1780, issued a proclamation threatening to take fire and sword to their settlements if they did not lay down their arms and return east of the Appalachian Mountains.  Bands of Overmountain Men gathered under various commanders whose names became, and still are legend in that area John Sevier, William Campbell, Isaac Shelby, etc.  They gathered at what is now Elizabethtown, Tennessee and marched to meet Patrick Ferguson, a trek of over three hundred miles.  On October 7, 1780, the two forces collided at the summit of Kings' Mountain, more a large, oblong hillock with steep sides.  After some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting of the Revolution, Ferguson's force was decimated.  157 killed, 163 so badly wounded they were left on the field to die and 698 taken prisoner.  Patriot losses were only 28 killed and 62 wounded.  The prisoners were death-marched to Charlotte, North Carolina.  Along the way several supposed Loyalists were given ad-hoc trials and hanged, but some were tortured first. 

Now heroes for having stood against a Redcoat force, though composed mostly of Loyalists and not British Regulars, the Overmountain men then turned their attention back to the Cherokee in a series of conflicts which would become known as the Cherokee Wars.  More on that in a future post.