Dropped stitches in Tennessee history

by John Allison

By another act of the general assembly of North Carolina, at Fayetteville, in November, 1788, the counties of Davidson, Sumner and Tennessee were erected into a new district for the holding of “Superior Courts of Law and Equity” therein. When this act forming the new district west of the Cumberland mountains was on its third and final reading, the Speaker called on the author of the bill for the name with which the blank left for that purpose was to be filled. James Robertson and Robert Hays were the members from Davidson, and one of them was the author of the bill providing for the new district. It is a matter of history that, in answer to the Speaker’s call for the name of the new district, James Robertson arose and suggested “Mero.” He evidently gave the name as it is pronounced, without spelling it for the benefit of the clerk, and the latter evidently recorded it phonetically; and thus the name of the new district went upon the official record as “Mero,” which is the correct pronunciation, instead of “Miro,” which is the correct orthography. The error, once committed, was perpetuated; and “Mero” it continued to be, not only in contemporary records and legal documents, but in subsequent histories.[J]

The name as suggested by Robertson was adopted without open objection. It is probable that some of the leading spirits in the assembly had been made acquainted with the motive which prompted the selection of the name, while others, without any knowledge, opinion or preference, simply followed the leaders in accepting it. There were, however, some members who knew some things, but not everything, in connection with this name; and, on reflection, after the name had been adopted, they took offence at the selection, and it was discussed, not in the general assembly, but at the taverns and boarding-houses, with spirit and much feeling. They said that it was strange and unexampled that the name of an officer of a foreign government, who was not and had never been in our service, should be given to a political division of our country and perpetuated on our public records. They wished to know what this meant.[K] They knew, they said, that Don Estevan Miro was a colonel in the Spanish army, that he was also “Governor of Orleans,” and they had heard that he was a very kind-hearted, agreeable gentleman; but so were scores of other foreigners, not to mention the names of the many loyal and distinguished citizens of the United States who had not been honored with any such mark of popular esteem. Why, said they, select a Spaniard already very distinguished, and at the very time when that nation unjustly withholds from us the free navigation of the Mississippi river, and when this very Don Estevan Miro is the instrument chosen by the Spanish king and court to guard the waters and mouth of the Mississippi and exclude us from its use? And this is not all; why, they continued, should a Spanish official be so honored during the very same year when Spain was demanding of the Congress that the United States should relinquish the navigation of the Mississippi for a period of at least twenty-five years—a measure which, if acceded to, would completely break up and ruin all of the settlements in Kentucky and on the Cumberland? Still more, this mark of respect was shown to a Spanish soldier and governor at a time when the boatmen from the upper Mississippi, Ohio and Cumberland, if they dared to float their flatboats down the Mississippi to Natchez or New Orleans with their tobacco and other products, were subjected by the Spanish to the most outrageous fines and extortions, in the shape of duties imposed for the use of a great river, and also to seizure and sometimes to imprisonment. Last but not least, said they, this very Don Estevan Miro is at this very time negotiating and intriguing with certain persons in Kentucky and Cumberland, with a view of coming to terms upon which Kentucky and the Cumberland country will become part of and submit to the government of Spain. Truly, it did appear rather cloudy.

These various phases of the subject, and the situation of affairs at that particular time, gave to the tavern-talkers a wide field for speculation and conjecture, as well as alarm. The truth is, the correspondence and communications alleged to have passed between Governor Miro and certain citizens of Kentucky and the Cumberland country, about this time, would read rather curiously if offered in court to vindicate the Kentucky and Cumberland citizens from a charge of disloyalty to the United States. Col. Robertson, however, said nothing but “Miro”; and he subsequently demonstrated that he knew what he was saying.

It is suggested—and this is probably the correct view—that the main purpose of these persons in Kentucky and Cumberland who were in correspondence with Governor Miro was, in view of their unanswered appeals to Congress for help and protection, “if the federal Union can not give aid and protection to us in life, liberty and property, and also secure to us the free and peaceable exercise of the right to navigate the Mississippi river with our products, why then, Spain having promised all this, we will unite our fortunes with the Spanish.” They knew that whoever could keep the Indians at peace with them, and at the same time control New Orleans and the navigation of the Mississippi, was the absolute arbiter of their destiny, inasmuch as, without the right to use the Mississippi, there was no market they could reach with their products.

August 26, 1779, Galvez, then governor civil and military and intendant of Louisiana, appointed, as third in command in the campaign which he was about to undertake against the British, Don Estevan Miro, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Congress observed with satisfaction the rupture between Great Britain and Spain; and, in the fall of 1779, sent a minister to the Spanish court, with instructions to negotiate a treaty of alliance, and particularly to insist on the free navigation of the Mississippi river. To this the court of Spain responded: “We are disposed to acknowledge the independence of the United States, and to enter into a treaty of alliance and commerce with you; but if you wish us to consent to your admission into the great family of nations, you must subscribe to the right of Spain to the exclusive navigation of the Mississippi, and consent to our taking possession of both the Floridas and of all the territory extending from the left bank of that river to the back settlements of the former British provinces, according to the proclamation of 1763.” In this proposition, strange as it may seem, Spain was supported by France; and up to 1788, and indeed on up to October 27, 1795, Spain did control the Mississippi. On this latter date, and about six months before Tennessee was admitted into the Union, after long and tedious negotiations, a treaty was concluded between the United States and Spain, a part of the fourth article of which reads as follows: “And his Catholic Majesty has likewise agreed that the navigation of the said river Mississippi, in its whole breadth from the source to the ocean, shall be free to only his subjects and the citizens of the United States, unless he shall extend this privilege to the subjects of other powers by special convention.” At the time this treaty was entered into, Governor Miro was in Spain, in attendance, it has been said, on the court at Madrid. He was then a lieutenant-general in the Spanish army, and held in great esteem in Spain, and nothing is more probable than that his counsel and advice on the subject of the proposed treaty were sought. It was entirely natural that, when asked for his views, he should remember James Robertson, Daniel Smith and Robert Hays, the courtesy shown him and the friendly and respectful treatment which he had received from the inhabitants of the district named in his honor, and that he should therefore favor the concession of this right. In the very nature of things, the district of “Mero,” misspelled though it was, and the circumstances connected with and surrounding its baptism and the man who was its sponsor, ought to and must have a place, not only in Tennessee history, but in the true history of the United States.

The Spaniards, constantly haunted by fear of their restless neighbors in Kentucky and the Cumberland country, spared no means by which they might conciliate the Indians. The chief military officer of the Spanish, writing to the home government, in 1786, concerning Alexander McGillivray, said: “So long as we shall hold this chief on our side, we will have a barrier between the Floridas and Georgia. The Indians are convinced of the ambition of the Americans; past injuries still dwell in their minds, with the fear that these greedy neighbors may one day seize upon their lands. It ought to be one of the chief policies of this government to keep this sentiment alive in the breasts of the Indians.” Alexander McGillivray was a noted tory during the Revolution, and had taken refuge after its close among the Creek nation. He was a man of great courage and intelligence, entertained inveterate hostility to the whites, and had an insatiable ambition for personal promotion. He was in the Spanish pay, as agent of that government among the Indians, had usurped regal authority, and was also chief of the Talapouches. It is said that he cherished the hope of having his nation admitted into the federal compact, although he was in the service of Spain, with the rank of colonel, and was afterward promoted to be commissary general. This dangerous man was under the absolute control of Governor Miro in 1788, when the name of the latter was bestowed by Robertson on the new district. The fact that Miro had control of the Mississippi river, and at the same time almost absolute command over the Indians in the south, furnishes, it is believed, the logical explanation of the motive which prompted Robertson and Hays to compliment him by giving his name to the newly established judicial district.

In 1788 Miro was made civil and military governor and intendant of Louisiana and West Florida. In this year McGillivray wrote him that two delegates from the district of Cumberland had just visited him with proposals of peace; that they were in extremities on account of the incursions of his (McGillivray’s) warriors, and would submit to whatever conditions he might impose; and, “presuming that it would please me, they added that they would throw themselves in the arms of His Majesty as subjects, and that Kentucky and Cumberland are determined to free themselves from Congress; that they no longer owe obedience to a power which is incapable of protecting them. They desired to know my sentiments on the propositions, but as it embraces important political questions, I thought proper not to divulge my views.” Miro, commenting on this letter, says:

I consider as extremely interesting the intelligence conveyed to McGillivray by the deputies on the fermentation existing in Kentucky, with regard to a separation from the Union. Concerning the proposition made to McGillivray by the inhabitants of Cumberland to become the vassals of His Majesty, I have refrained from returning any precise answer.

McGillivray was no doubt, at the very time he was writing to Miro, also in the service and pay of the British; for, in April, 1788, in a letter dated at “Little Tellisee, Upper Creek Nation,” and addressed to Colonels Anthony Bledsoe and James Robertson, he says, among other things:

Mr. Hackett arrived here a few Days ago and Delivered me your letter, together with one from Col. Hawkins. Agreeably to your request I will be Explicit and Candid in my answer to yours, and will not deny that my Nation had waged war against your Country for several years past, but that we had no motives of revenge, nor did it proceed from any Sense of Injurys Sustained from your people, but being warmly attached to the British, and being under their Influence, our operations were directed by them against you in common with other Americans.