The creative impulses in the Watauga commonwealth are hinted at
by Dunmore, who serves, in the letter above quoted, that Watauga
"sets a dangerous example to the people America, of forming
governments distinct from and independent of his Majesty's
authority."

It is true that the experiment was somewhat limited. The
organization of the Watauga association, which constituted a
temporary expedient to meet a crisis in the affairs of a frontier
community cut off by forest wilderness and mountain barriers from
the reach of the arm of royal or provincial government, is not to
be compared with the revolutionary assemblage at Boonesborough,
May 23, 1775, or with the extraordinary demands for inde pendence
in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, during the same month.
Nevertheless the Watauga settlers defied both North Carolina and
the Crown, by adopting the laws of Virginia and by ignoring
Governor Josiah Martin's proclamation (March 26, 1774) "requiring
the said settlers immediately to retire from the Indian
Territories." Moreover, Watauga really was the parent of a series
of mimic republics in the Old Southwest, gradually tending toward
higher forms of organization, with a larger measure of individual
liberty. Watauga, Transylvania, Cumberland, Franklin represent
the evolving political genius of a free people under the creative
leadership of three constructive minds--James Robertson, John
Sevier, and Richard Henderson. Indeed, Watauga furnished to Judge
Henderson precisely the "dangerous example" of which Dunmore
prophetically speaks.

Immediately upon his return in 1771 from the extended exploration