Richard Henderson, The Transylvania Company and the Cumberland Compact
Richard Henderson was a Founder of both Kentucky and Tennessee.
Henderson was involved in purchasing the land and setting up the governments of both of these future States.
Additionally, he hired Daniel Boone to cut Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap.
Richard Henderson
While tensions were heating up between colonists and the Mother Country on the Atlantic Coast, settlers were pioneering the interior of North America.
Included among these frontiersmen was Richard Henderson, a North Carolina lawyer who sought to expand the British Empire into Kentucky.
To carry out his goal, Richard organized the Transylvania Company which gathered investments from many wealthy men of his State.
Treaty of Watauga at Sycamore Shoals
Having previously leased land from Native Americans in the area, Henderson a party out to negotiate a land sale with the Cherokee.
The conclusion of which was the Treaty of Watauga at Sycamore Shoals which essentially sold the Transylvania Company half off modern day Kentucky.
Henderson then insisted that the settlers write a constitution to create a government for their new land. Known as the Transylvania Compact, this document is the first government created within the bounds of the current State.
With his task completed, Richard headed back east with the hope of turning his new society into another British colony.
Poor Timing
Things didn’t go so well.
For context, everything mentioned above happened between March and May of 1775.
While Henderson was away, the Revolutionary War broke out at Lexington and Concord (with another tense standoff in Virginia) and the Second Continental Congress convened. Adding a colony to the Empire wasn’t exactly a priority for anyone.
Not that it much mattered, as North Carolina and Virginia both claimed Henderson’s land.
Furthermore, the King’s Proclamation of 1763 prohibited colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the one thing the Mother Country and rebelling colonies could agree on was that treating with Native Americans should be left up to the government and was illegal for individuals.
Wilderness Road
It wasn’t all a loss.
One of the men who joined Richard Henderson on his journeys west was Daniel Boone.
Boone was present for the negotiations with the Cherokee and the two men founded Boonesbourough together. Henderson then highered Boone to clear the Cumberland Gap and create the Wilderness Road.
One of the most important highways in the history of the United States, Richard’s financing of Wilderness Road led to a massive migration of settlers across the Appalachians.
The Cumberland Compact
Not content on simply acting as a major founder of Kentucky, Henderson turned his attention to Tennessee.
He led a group of more than 250 people to Nashborough (now known as Nashville) where they wrote and signed the Cumberland Compact...while the Revolutionary War was still raging.
Though technically just a county in North Carolina, this Compact was the first governing document of Tennessee.
Richard Henderson, therefore, created the first (unofficial) governments of the 14th AND 15th States.
If you’d like to read about other FOUNDERS OF KENTUCKY, check out this article:
The Midnight Ride of Jack Jouett
John Filson Puts Cincinnati (And Daniel Boone) on the Map
Want to read about life on the Kentucky frontier during the American Revolution?
‘Boonesborough Unearthed’ discusses the history of the Transylvania Company’s main settlement.
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