Getting My Dose of History

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Yeah, seeing bears and wild turkey and horses is all well and good, but I need some history, too! Fear not, I got my dose of history today. Have you ever heard of the nation of Franklin? Probably not. I went to its capital city today, Jonesborough, Tennessee. With the original 13 colonies all being “eastern,” the people in the “wild frontier” west of, oh, Washington DC felt they were unknown by the politicians. This included a number of western counties in one of the original colonies, North Carolina. In April 1784, North Carolina gave these westernmost counties to the U.S. government. The residents were afraid that their land — and maybe themselves — would be sold to a foreign nation, given that the U.S. had a large debt incurred during the War for Independence. The residents of the counties decided they would form their own nation, Frankland. They quickly changed the name to Franklin in hopes that Benjamin Franklin would be sympathetic to their plight and fears. Now, you have to remember that they didn’t have internet back then. News traveled at a snail’s pace. While the residents were forming their new country, North Carolina had taken the land back from the federal government, effectively ending any fears of the land being sold to an outside interest/government. The other funny — in a sad way — part of this is that most of the land was already a “sovereign nation”: the Cherokee owned it. Of course, if you remember U.S. history, you know that Andy Jackson put an end to that in the 19th century. Franklin lasted for about four years, before the counties that had been given to the feds were returned to North Carolina. Eventually those counties became part of Tennessee, which was the 16th state admitted to the Union. The photo is of the marker in the historical district, showing the history of the small town that was once a national capital.