This law followed on the general lines of the
Ordinance of 1787, for the government of the Northwest; but there was
one important difference. North Carolina had made her cession
conditional upon the non-passage of any law tending to emancipate
slaves. At that time such a condition was inevitable; but it doomed the
Southwest to suffer under the curse of negro bondage.
Blount Made Governor.
William Blount of North Carolina was appointed Governor of the
Territory, and at once proceeded to his new home to organize the civil
government. [Footnote: Blount MSS. Biography of Blount, in manuscript,
compiled by one of his descendants from the family papers.] He laid out
Knoxville as his capital, where he built a good house with a lawn in
front. On his recommendation Sevier was appointed Brigadier-General for
the Eastern District and Robertson for the Western; the two districts
known as Washington and Miro respectively.
Blount was the first man of leadership in the West who was of Cavalier
ancestry; for though so much is said of the Cavalier type in the
southern States it was everywhere insignificant in numbers, and
comparatively few of the southern men of mark have belonged to it.
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