_Treaties with the State of Franklin._--In 1784, in consequence of the cession by North Carolina to the United States of all her claims to lands west of the mountains (which cession was not, however, accepted by the United States within the two years prescribed by the act) the citizens within the limits of the present State of Tennessee elected delegates to a convention, which formed a State organization under the name of the State of Franklin and which maintained a somewhat precarious political existence for about four years. During this interval the authorities of the so-called State negotiated two treaties with the Cherokee Nation, the first one being entered into near the mouth of Dumplin Creek, on the north bank of French Broad River, May 31, 1785.[42] This treaty established the ridge dividing the waters of Little River from those of the Tennessee as the dividing line between the possessions of the whites and Indians, the latter ceding all claim to lands south of the French Broad and Holston, lying east of that ridge. The second treaty or conference was held at Chote Ford and Coytoy, July 31 to August 3, 1786. The Franklin Commissioners at this conference modestly remarked, "We only claim the island in Tennessee at the mouth of Holston and from the head of the island to the dividing ridge between the Holston River, Little River, and Tennessee to the Blue Ridge, and the lands North Carolina sold us on the north side of Tennessee." They urged this claim under threat of extirpating the Cherokees as the penalty of refusal.[43] TREATY RELATIONS WITH THE UNITED STATES. This general history of the Cherokee Nation and the treaty relations that had existed with the colonial authorities from the period of their first official contact with each other is given as preliminary to the consideration of the history and provisions of the first treaty negotiated between commissioners on the part of the United States and the said Cherokee Nation, viz, the treaty concluded at Hopewell, on the Keowee River, November 28, 1785, an abstract of the provisions of which is hereinbefore given.[44] The conclusion of this treaty marked the beginning of a new era in the relations between the whites and Cherokees. The boundaries then fixed were the most favorable it was possible to obtain from the latter without regard to previous purchases and pretended purchases made by private individuals and others. Although the Indians yielded an extensive territory to the United States,[45] yet, on the other hand, the latter conceded to the Cherokees a considerable extent of territory that had already been purchased from them by private individuals or associations, though by methods of more than doubtful legality.