On this day 250 years ago at Sycamore Shoals in present-day Tennessee, Tsiyu Gansini (known to the colonists and history as “Dragging Canoe”) withdrew from the negotiations with Richard Henderson and the Transylvania Company at Sycamore Shoals for the sale of the Cherokee hunting grounds in Kentucky and pleaded with his people to resist any further encroachment of their territory by the whites. Tsiyu Gansini also ominously told Richard Henderson and the representatives of the Transylvania Company that their new land would become a “dark and bloody ground.”
https://www.npshistory.com/publications/usfs/region/8/daniel-boone/history/chap8.htm
Also on this day in Williamsburg, Virginia, Pinkney’s Virginia Gazette published the Augusta Resolves that had been adopted by the freeholders of Augusta County at Staunton, Virginia on February 22:
you may consider the people of Augusta county as impressed with just sentiments of loyalty and allegiance to his majesty king George, whose title to the imperial crown of Great Britain rests on no other foundation than the liberty, and whose glory is inseparable from rhe happiness, of all his subjects. We have also a respect for the parent state, which respect is founded on religion, on law, and the genuine principles of the constitution. On these principles do we earnestly desire to see harmony and a good understanding restored between Great Britain and America. Many of us and our forefathers left their native land, explored this once savage wilderness, to enjoy the free exercise of the rights of conscience, and of human nature: These rights we are fully resolved, with our lives and fortunes, inviolably to preserve, nor will we surrender such inestimable blessings, the purchase of toil and danger, to any minister, to any parliament, or any body of men upon earth, by whom we are not represented, and in whose decisions therefore we have no voice.
We desire you to render, in the most respectful terms, our grateful acknowledgements to the late worthy delegates of this colony, for their wise, spirited, and patriotic exertions, in the general congress, and to assure them that we will uniformly and religiously adhere to their resolutions, prudently and generously formed for their country’s good.
Fully convinced that the safety and happiness of America depend, next to the blessing of Almighty God, on the unanimity and wisdom of her councils, we doubt not you will, on your part, comply with the recommendations of the late continental congress, appointing delegates from this colony to meet in Philadelphia on the 1Oth of May next, unless American grievances be redressed before that time; and as we are determined to maintain unimpaired that liberty which is the gift of Heaven to the subjects of Britain’s empire, we will most cordially join our countrymen in such measures as may be deemed wise and necessary to secure and perpetuate the ancient, just, and legal rights of this colony, and all British America.
As the state of this colony greatly demands that . . . bounties may be proposed by the convention for the making of . . . gunpowder, and that, in the mean time, a supply of ammunition be provided for the militia of this colony. We entirely agree in opinion with the gentlemen of Fairfax county, that a well regulated militia is the natural strength, and staple security, of a free government, and therefore wish it might be recommended by the convention to the officers and men of each county in Virginia to make themselves masters of the military exercise
Source: https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/672b0c83-5d0c-4bed-85f0-57599c7a60b1/content Appendix C; https://250andcounting.com/2025/03/16/march-16-1775-the-augusta-resolves/
And on this day in Dumfries, Virginia, George Washington reviews the Prince William County Independent Company of Cadets and lodges with Scottish immigrant Andrew Leitch of the Prince William County Committee. Leitch would serve as a Major in the Continental Army under Washington’s command and be mortally wounded in the service of his country at the Battle of Harlem Heights eighteen months later.
Source: https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/revolutionary-war/250-years-ago-day
On This Day In The Revolution 
2 responses to “On this day 250 years ago in the Revolution — March 16, 1775”
The prequel to the 2nd Amendment is contained in the words mentioned in this post, “… a well regulated militia is the natural strength, and staple security, of a free government.” In today’s environment, I’m not sure any of the political parties fully understand this. A militia is a citizen-based armed force organized locally (in this case) by county.
This not only requires the citizens to be armed for their self-preservation but for them to be organized by their local leaders for the preservation of freedom. It wasn’t protection by their government but rather protection from their government which was repressive. Citizens must be armed, however, those who take it upon themselves to use those arms without the sanction of their fellow citizens, are terrorists, not patriots.
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Thanks Ron for your comment and understanding of the true meaning of the Second Amendment. It creates a collective right for communities to arm themselves rather than an individual right for people to own guns. If only the majority of our present Supreme Court would acknowledge its meaning.
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