rapidity as soon as the Franklin disturbances were at an end. As the
people increased in military power, they increased also in material
comfort, and political stability. The crude social life deepened and
broadened. Comfortable homes began to appear among the huts and hovels
of the little towns. The outlying settlers still lived in wooden forts
or stations; but where the population was thicker, the terror of the
Indians diminished, and the people lived in the ordinary style of
frontier farmers.

The South-western Territory Organized.

Early in 1790, North Carolina finally ceded, and the National Government
finally accepted, what is now Tennessee; and in May, Congress passed a
law for the government of this Territory Southwest of the River Ohio, as
they chose to call it. 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