The Conquest of the Old Southwest (Paperback)

Excerpt: ...of the Yadkin took a short cut. They took each other for better or for worse; and considered themselves as married without further ceremony." The extraordinary scarcity of currency throughout the colony, especially in the back country, was another great hardship and a perpetual source of vexation. All these conditions gradually became intolerable to the uncultured but free spirited men of the back country. Events were slowly converging toward a crisis in government and society. Independent in spirit, turbulent in action, the backwoodsmen revolted not only against excessive taxes, dishonest sheriffs, and extortionate fees, but also against the rapacious practices of the agents of Lord Granville. These agents industriously picked flaws in the titles to the lands in Granville's proprietary upon which the poorer settlers were seated; and compelled them to pay for the land if they had not already done so, or else to pay the fees twice over and take out a new patent as the only remedy of the alleged defect in their titles. In Mecklenburg County the spirit of backwoods revolt flamed out in protest against the proprietary agents. Acting under instructions to survey and close bargains for the lands or else to eject those who held them, Henry Eustace McCulloh, in February, 1765, went into the county to call a reckoning. The settlers, many of whom had located without deeds, indignantly retorted by offering to buy only at their own prices, and forbade the surveyors to lay out the holdings when this smaller price was declined. They not only terrorized into acquiescence those among them who were willing to pay the amount charged for the lands, but also openly declared that they would resist by force any sheriff in ejectment proceedings. On May 7th an outbreak occurred; and a mob, led by Thomas Polk, set upon John Frohock, Abraham Alexander, and others, as they were about to survey a parcel of land, and gave them a severe thrashing, even threatening the young...