James Robertson (June 28, 1742 – September 1, 1814) was an American explorer, soldier and Indian agent, and one of the founding fathers of what became the State of Tennessee. An early companion of explorer Daniel Boone, Robertson helped establish the Watauga Association in the early 1770s, and to defend Fort Watauga from an attack by Cherokee in 1776. In 1779, he co-founded what is now Nashville, and was instrumental in the settlement of Middle Tennessee. He served as a brigadier general in the Southwest Territory militia in the early 1790s, and as an Indian Commissioner in later life. Early life and education Robertson was born in 1742 in Brunswick County, Virginia, of Scots-Irish and English descent. Around 1749, his father relocated the family to Wake County, North Carolina. Robertson worked with his siblings on their family farm and had limited formal education, but he learned to track and hunt animals and know his way in the woods and waterways. Marriage and career Robertson returned to North Carolina and married Charlotte Reeves in 1767. They started farming. In 1769, Robertson accompanied explorer Daniel Boone on his third expedition to lands beyond the Allegheny Mountains. The party discovered the "Old Fields" (lands previously cultivated by generations of Native Americans) along the Watauga River valley, where Elizabethton, Tennessee later developed. Robertson stopped here to plant corn while Boone continued on to Kentucky. After returning to North Carolina, Robertson became involved with the Regulator movement. They recruited a group of settlers to return to the Watauga River valley, which they believed to be in Virginia (at that time including present-day West Virginia). In 1772, Robertson and the pioneers who had settled in Northeast Tennessee (along the Watauga, Doe, Holston and Nolichucky rivers) met at Sycamore Shoals to establish an independent regional government known as the Watauga Association. However, in 1772, surveyors placed the land officially within the domain of the Cherokee tribe, who had long occupied this area. They required the settlers to negotiate a lease to cultivate and settle on their land. As the signed lease was being celebrated, a Cherokee warrior was murdered by a white man. Robertson's skillful diplomacy made peace with the irate Cherokee, who threatened to expel the settlers by force if necessary. In 1775, a treaty meeting was held between the Cherokee and a delegation of the Transylvania Company, headed by Richard Henderson. Under the Treaty of