Honeycut in the Watauga region, raised a crop of corn, and chose
for himself and his friends suitable locations for settlement.
Lost upon his return in seeking the mountain defiles traversed by
him on the outward journey, Robertson probably escaped death from
starvation only through the chance passing of two hunters who
succored him and set him upon the right path. On arriving in
Orange he found political and social conditions there much worse
than before, many of the colonists declining to take the
obligatory oath of allegiance to the British Crown after the
Battle of Alamance, preferring to carve out for themselves new
homes along the western waters. Some sixteen families of this
stamp, indignant at the injustices and oppressions of British
rule, and stirred by Robertson's description of the richness and
beauty of the western country, accompanied him to Watauga shortly
after the battle.

This vanguard of the army of westward advance, independent
Americans in spirit with a negligible sprinkling of Loyalists,
now swept in a great tide into the northeastern section of
Tennessee. The men of Sandy Creek, actuated by independent
principles but out of sympathy with the anarchic side of the
Regulation, left the colony almost to a man. "After the defeat of
the Regulators," says the historian of the Sandy Creek
Association, "thousands of the oppressed, seeing no hope of
redress for their grievances, moved into and settled east
Tennessee. A large proportion of these were of the Baptist
population. Sandy Creek Church which some time previous to 1771,
numbered 606, was afterward reduced to fourteen members!" This
movement exerted powerful influence in stimulating westward
expansion. Indeed, it was from men of Regulating principles-