This was only one of many occasions in which Robertson's leadership saved the day. After the Revolution ended (1783) the Indians were not so unfriendly, for the English were no longer paying them for scalps. People, therefore, became less timid about crossing the mountains, and a large number migrated from Virginia and North Carolina to the Tennessee settlement and made their homes at Nashville. As numbers grew larger, dangers became less.
By this time Robertson had become well known through the successful planting of his two settlements, and for the wisdom and bravery with which he managed them. As a reward for his valuable services, Washington later on (1790) made him a general in the army. In 1814 he died.
He is the kind of man we like to think of as a pioneer in the making of our history. Sturdy and self-reliant, strong and fearless, he cheerfully faced the unending struggle with the hard conditions of those early days. Though his life was narrow, it cut deep in its loyalty to friends and country.
1. What can you tell of Robertson's boyhood?
2. Imagine yourself as one of a group of travellers on the way to Kentucky or Tennessee, and tell all you can about the journey.
3. Tell all you can about the food, clothing, shelter, and other conditions of life in these backwoods settlements.
4. What sort of training did the pioneer boy receive in school and at home?
5. Why did Robertson plant a settlement at the place where Nashville now stands?
6. How did he save this settlement from the Indians? What do you admire about him?
7. Are you making frequent use of the map?
Another daring leader who did much to build up the settlements in Tennessee was John Sevier.
Born in 1745, Sevier was but three years younger than Robertson, and was closely associated with him in later life. Sevier's birthplace was in the western part of Virginia, but while he was still a young boy, the family was driven from their home by the Indians and went to Fredericksburg, Virginia. There he went to the same school which George Washington had attended not many years before.
John's mother had taught him to read, and at school he learned some useful things; still he was not fond of books, and learned most from people and what was going on about him.