The Winning of the West, Volume 4: Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807Roosevelt, Theodore
History
The Winning of the West, Volume 4: Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807
Roosevelt, Theodore
Northwest, Old -- History; United States -- Territorial expansion; West (U.S.) -- History
On the ground where the treaty was held Blount proceeded to build a
little town, which he made the capital of the Territory, and christened
Knoxville, in honor of Washington's Secretary of War. At this town there
was started, in 1791, under his own supervision, the first newspaper of
Tennessee, known as the _Knoxville Gazette_. It was four or five years
younger than the only other newspaper of the then far West, the
_Kentucky Gazette_. The paper gives an interesting glimpse of many of
the social and political conditions of the day. In political tone it
showed Blount's influence very strongly, and was markedly in advance of
most of the similar papers of the time, including the _Kentucky
Gazette_; for it took a firm stand in favor of the National Government,
and against every form of disorder, of separatism, or of mob law. As
with all of the American papers of the day, even in the backwoods, there
was much interest taken in European news, and a prominent position was
given to long letters, or extracts from seaboard papers, containing
accounts of the operations of the English fleets and the French armies,
or of the attitude of the European governments. Like most Americans, the
editorial writers of the paper originally sympathized strongly with the
French Revolution; but the news of the beheading of Marie Antoinette,
and the recital of the atrocities committed in Paris, worked a reaction
among those who loved order, and the _Knoxville Gazette_ ranged itself
with them, taking for the time being strong grounds against the French,
and even incidentally alluding to the Indians as being more
blood-thirsty than any man "not a Jacobin." [Footnote: _Knoxville
Gazette_, March 27, 1794.] The people largely shared these sentiments.
In 1793 at the Fourth of July celebration at Jonesborough there was a
public dinner and ball, as there was also at Knoxville; Federal troops
were paraded and toasts were drunk to the President, to the Judges of
the Supreme Court, to Blount, to General Wayne, to the friendly
Chickasaw Indians, to Sevier, to the ladies of the Southwestern
Territory, to the American arms, and, finally, "to the true liberties of
France and a speedy and just punishment of the murderers of Louis XVI."
The word "Jacobin" was used as a term of reproach for some time.
The "Gazette" Sound in its Politics.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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