Although it lasted only a few years, the Watauga Association provided a basis for what later developed into the state of Tennessee and likely influenced other western frontier governments in the trans-Appalachian region.

In 1774, Virginia governor Lord Dunmore called the Watauga Association a "dangerous example" of Americans forming a government "distinct from and independent of his majesty's authority.

The lease and the subsequent purchase of these lands in 1775 were considered illegal by the British Crown, and were vehemently opposed by a growing faction of the Cherokee led by the young chief Dragging Canoe.

With the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War (April 1775), the settlers organized themselves into the "Washington District," loyal to the "united colonies," and formed a Committee of Safety to govern it, marking the end of the so-called "Watauga Republic".

Other sources, such as the later writings of Washington District Committee of Safety clerk pro tem William Tatham (1752–1819) and documents collected by historian J. G. M. Ramsey in the mid-19th century, reveal that the Articles established a five-member court (the members of which were elected), and that the Wataugans erected a courthouse and jail at Sycamore Shoals.

A company of 20 Wataugans took part in the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774 during Lord Dunmore's War, and another contingent aided in the defense of Boonesborough and Harrodsburg later in the decade.

[6] Even at the height of the Cherokee threat in the Spring and Summer of 1776, the Wataugans heeded a call to arms and dispatched a company of riflemen under Felix Walker to aide in the defense of Charleston in South Carolina.

[1] In August 1780, a small contingent led by Col. Isaac Shelby fought in the American Patriot victory at the Battle of Musgrove Mill near present-day Clinton, South Carolina.

In late September 1780, the Overmountain Men—the frontier militia that crossed the Appalachian Mountains and defeated an army of British loyalists at the Battle of Kings Mountain—mustered at Sycamore Shoals, and included 240 Wataugans under the command of Cols.

[1] The Articles of the Watauga Association likely influenced the Cumberland Compact (drafted in 1780), the main link between the two pacts being James Robertson, who in 1779 led a group of colonists into what is now the Nashville area.