With true American self reliance, the settlers met together for deliberation and counsel, and deputed James Robertson and John Been, as stated by Tennessee's first historian, "to treat with their landlords, and agree upon articles of accommodation and friendship.

The attempt succeeded.

For though the Indians refused to give up the land gratuitously, they consented, for a stipulated amount of merchandise, muskets, and other articles of convenience, to lease all the country on the waters of the Watauga." In addition to the land thus leased for ten years, several other tracts were purchased from the Indians by Jacob Brown, who reoccupied his former location on the Nolichucky.
In taking this daring step, the Watauga settlers moved into the spotlight of national history.

For the inevitable consequence of leasing the territory was the organization of a form of government for the infant settlement.

Through his familiarity with the North Carolina type of "association," in which the settlers had organized for the purpose of "regulating" abuses, and his acquaintance with the contents of the "Impartial Relation," in which Husband fully expounded the principles and practices of this association, Robertson was peculiarly fitted for leadership in organizing this new government.