The Winning of the West, Volume 4: Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807Roosevelt, Theodore
History
The Winning of the West, Volume 4: Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807
Roosevelt, Theodore
Northwest, Old -- History; United States -- Territorial expansion; West (U.S.) -- History
No one but a man of great tact and firmness could have preserved as much
order among the frontiersmen as Blount preserved. He was always under
fire from both sides. The settlers were continually complaining that
they were deserted by the Federal authorities, who favored the Indians,
and that Blount himself did not take sufficiently active steps to subdue
the savages; while on the other hand the National Administration was
continually upbraiding him for being too active against the Indians, and
for not keeping the frontiersmen sufficiently peaceable. Under much
temptations, and in a situation that would have bewildered any one,
Blount steadfastly followed his course of, on the one hand, striving his
best to protect the people over whom he was placed as governor, and to
repel the savages, while, on the other hand, he suppressed so far as lay
in his power, any outbreak against the authorities, and tried to
inculcate a feeling of loyalty and respect for the National Government.
[Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Feb. 13, 1793.] He did
much in creating a strong feeling of attachment to the Union among the
rough backwoodsmen with whom he had thrown in his lot.
Treaty of Holston with the Cherokees.
Early in 1791 Blount entered into negotiations with the Cherokees, and
when the weather grew warm, he summoned them to a treaty. They met on
the Holston, all of the noted Cherokee chiefs and hundreds of their
warriors being present, and concluded the treaty of Holston, by which,
in consideration of numerous gifts and of an annuity of a thousand
(afterwards increased to fifteen hundred) dollars, the Cherokees at last
definitely abandoned their disputed claims to the various tracts of land
which the whites claimed under various former treaties. By this treaty
with the Cherokees, and by the treaty with the Creeks entered into at
New York the previous summer, the Indian title to most of the present
State of Tennessee, was fairly and legally extinguished. However the
westernmost part, was still held by the Chickasaws, and certain tracts
in the southeast, by the Cherokees; while the Indian hunting grounds in
the middle of the territory were thrust in between the groups of
settlements on the Cumberland and the Holston.
Knoxville Founded.
The "Knoxville Gazette."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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