The History Channel just hosted a mini-series about the Sons
of Liberty. You can find countless recaps and corrections of the miniseries by
historians (including our board president),
so we won’t add to it here.
But it did bring up the question: Where does John Sevier fit in the early Revolution story? He
certainly wasn’t in Boston with the Sons of Liberty, but he’s also one of the
soldiers in the Revolution… albeit about ten years younger than the Sons of
Liberty (and those we consider to be the Founding Fathers) were.
As you may be aware, John Sevier was in the militia and did
fight in Kings Mountain. But during the earliest parts of the Revolution, he
was moving from Virginia to Tennessee with his parents, wife Sarah, and their
seven children.
In 1773, he was serving as a Captain of the colonial militia
in Lord Dunmore's War. He rose to the rank of general thanks to his efforts at
Kings Mountain.
But after the Revolution, he started his own rebellion with
others in the Watauga area through the State of Franklin. Though it was
ultimately unsuccessful, Sevier and the other Franklinites spent several years
trying to create a new government separate from North Carolina. Negotiations,
skirmishes, international intrigue, and treaties (not unlike what they’d been
through with the Revolution and colonial governments before) were a part of
life in Franklin. The Franklinites utilized their knowledge and war-found fame
to gain respect for their statehood efforts.
For all their efforts, it earned John Sevier an arrest for
treason (of course, nothing came of the charges), but it also paved the way for
the U.S. Constitution and a path for new states to form.
It just goes back to Jack Neely’s theory that Sevier wasn’t a Son of the Revolution or a Founding Father. Instead, he
was the Rebellion’s rebellious little brother.
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