Richard Henderson (1734–1785) was an
American pioneer and merchant who attempted to create a colony called
Transylvania just as the
American Revolutionary War was starting.
Early life
Henderson was born in
Hanover County,
Virginia. In 1762, he moved to
Granville County,
North Carolina, studied law, was admitted to the
bar, practiced law, and in 1769 was appointed judge of the Superior Court. He was the presiding judge who condemned captured tax resistors to death during the
War of the Regulation.
Viewed as a member of the gentry, he had been a target of Regulator violence.
He was a member of a
Church of England parish in Williamsboro during this time.
After the
Declaration of Independence (1775) and the organization of the state government in North Carolina, he was re-elected judge, but was prevented from accepting that position by his participation in a scheme organized under the name of the
Transylvania Land Company.
In the company of wilderness explorers
In 1772, surveyors placed the land officially within the domain of the
Cherokee tribe, who required negotiation of a lease with the settlers. Tragedy struck as the lease was being celebrated, when a Cherokee warrior was murdered by a white man. Robertson's skillful diplomacy made peace with the irate
Native Americans, who threatened to expel the settlers by force if necessary.
In 1775, a treaty was held between the Cherokee and a delegation of the
Transylvania Company, headed by Richard Henderson. Under the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals (or the Treaty of Watauga) the Transylvania Company purchased a vast amount of land from the Cherokees, including most of present-day Kentucky and part of
Tennessee. The treaty was technically illegal since the purchase of land from
Native Americans was reserved by the government in the
Proclamation of 1763 (the British, the governments of
Virginia and
North Carolina, and, later, the
United States, all forbade private purchase of land from Indians).
During the treaty,
Dragging Canoe, son of the Cherokee chief
Attacullaculla, made a speech condemning the sale of Cherokee land and broke from the general Cherokee tribal government to form the sub-tribe known as the
Chickamauga. After Henderson's Transylvania Company had bought Kentucky (although other tribes claimed it, such as the
Shawnee),
Daniel Boone was hired to widen the Indian path over
Cumberland Gap to facilitate migration. This road became known as the
Wilderness Road.
The Transylvania Purchase at Sycamore Shoals
In 1775, Henderson gathered chiefs of the
Cherokee Indians and negotiated the Treaty of Watauga at
Sycamore Shoals at present day
Elizabethton, Tennessee, during which time he purchased all the land lying between the
Cumberland River, the
Cumberland Mountains, and the
Kentucky River, and situated south of the
Ohio River. The land thus delineated encompassed an area half as large as the present
state of Kentucky. In order to facilitate settlement, Henderson hired
Daniel Boone, who had hunted extensively in Kentucky, to blaze the
Wilderness Road through the
Cumberland Gap and into the Transylvania land purchase. To appease other prominent early explorers, Henderson held out other rewards. He offered
Joseph Martin, founder of Martin's Fort on the Clinch River, a spot as entry taker for the company, in charge of keeping tabs on settlers moving westward; Henderson offered Martin's brother Bryce a tract of 500 acres adjacent to the
Cumberland Gap.
The Transylvania Compact
The Transylvania Constitutional Convention, May 23, 1775 at Boonesborough. Anonymous sketch: "On May 23, 1775 a convention of the people in the deep wilderness of Kentucky gathered in a constitutional convention, meeting under the shade of a huge elm tree (the limbs of which extended at least a hundred feed wide), and which its president, Richard Henderson, called "our Church, State-house, Council Chamber, etc."
Henderson followed Boone to a site that came to be called Boonesborough, located on the southern bank of the Kentucky river, Henderson encouraged the few settlers there to hold a constitutional convention. In May of 1775, under the shade of a huge elm tree, a compact organizing a frame of government was drafted. The intended government entailed executive, legislative, and judicial branches. After concluding the Transylvania Compact, Henderson returned to North Carolina and on behalf of his fellow investors in the land scheme petitioned Congress seeking to make Transylvania America’s fourteenth colony. Despite those efforts, Congress was unwilling to act without the consent of Virginia and North Carolina, both of whom claimed jurisdiction over the region in question. In June 1776 the Virginia General Assembly prohibited the Transylvania Land Company from making demands on settlers in the region and in December 1778 declared the Transylvania claim void.
Henderson and his partners instead received a grant of 12 square miles (31 km²), on the Ohio River below the mouth of
Green River.
In 1779, Judge Henderson was appointed one of six commissioners to run the line between Virginia and North Carolina into Powell's valley. He settled in North Carolina, where he practiced farming on a large scale. He served as a militia colonel in the Revolutionary War and was elected to the
North Carolina General Assembly from
Granville County. One of his sons was
Leonard Henderson.
Place names
