Montfort Stokes (12 March 1762 – 4 November 1842) was a US Senator from North Carolina from 4 December 1816 to 4 March 1823 (succeeding James Turner and preceding John Branch) and Governor from 18 December 1830 to 6 December 1832 (succeeding John Owen and preceding David Lowry Swain). He was a Democratic-Republican and a Democrat.
Biography[]
Montfort Stokes was born in Lunenburg County, Virginia in 1762, and he served in the merchant marine during the American Revolutionary War (during which he was captured) before serving as a Major-General in the state militia from 1804 to 1810. He settled in Salisbury, North Carolina after the war and became a lawyer, befriending Andrew Jackson. Following the resignation of James Turner in 1816, Stokes was elected to the US Senate, serving from 1816 to 1823; he went on to serve as Governor from 1830 to 1832. He supported the relocation of Native Americans to the Indian Territory, and he advocated for the Cherokee, Seneca, Shawnee, and Quapaw tribes in Fort Gibson, Arkansas Territory. He died in 1842.