Chapter 4 Summary and Analysis

"Away West" opens with the "founding myths" of middle Tennessee, where Jackson begins his adult life. In the winter of 1779, John Donelson guides a flotilla of boats to the Cumberland Valley on a harrowing journey to the Big Salt Lick. This is a legal no-man's land, with North Carolina having ceded it to the U.S., but Congress doing nothing to govern. In August 1784, inhabitants form the State of Franklin in honor of the Founding Father with the greatest interest in the West. They set about writing a constitution, but statehood is slowed when speculators fight among themselves and Congress in 1790 folds the territory into the Southwest Territory.

Under the Articles of Confederation, the central government is too weak to stand up to the British when they break their promise to relinquish their Ohio Valley forts. James Madison and Alexander Hamilton...