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Native Americans: 22 Books on History, Mythology, Culture & Linguistic Studies. James Mooney
Читать онлайн.Название Native Americans: 22 Books on History, Mythology, Culture & Linguistic Studies
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isbn 9788027245475
Автор произведения James Mooney
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
Accordingly, instructions were issued to William Blount, governor of the Territory south of the Ohio River and ex-officio superintendent of Indian affairs, to conclude a treaty of cession with the Cherokees.70
Tennessee Company's Purchase
In the mean time the troubles between the Indians and the settlers had become aggravated from divers causes. Prominent among these was the fact that Georgia had by act of her legislature disposed of 3,500,000 acres of vacant land lying south of Tennessee River to the Tennessee Company. This association undertook to effect a settlement in the year 1791 at or near the Muscle Shoals.71 The matter coming to the notice of the Secretary of War was made the subject of a strong protest by him to the President.72
The latter issued his proclamation forbidding such settlement. The company persisted in the attempt, and as the President had declared such act would place them without the protection of the United States, the Indians were left free to break up and destroy the settlement, which they did.73
Difficulties in Negotiating New Treaty
In pursuance of Governor Blount's instructions, he convened the Indians at White's Fort, on the present site of Knoxville, Tenn.; and after a conference lasting seven days, succeeded, with much difficulty and with great reluctance on the part of the Cherokees, in concluding the treaty of July 2, 1791.74
In his letter to the Secretary of War,75 transmitting the treaty, he asserts the greatest difficulty to have been in agreeing on a boundary, and that the one fixed upon might seem singular. The reason for this peculiarity of description was owing to the fact that the Indians insisted on beginning on the part where they were most tenacious of the land, in preference to the mouth of Duck River, where the Hopewell treaty line began. The land to the right of the line was declared to belong to the United States, because no given point of the compass would describe it. In accordance with his instructions, Governor Blount proposed to the Indians that the ridge dividing the waters of Little River from those of the Tennessee should form a part of the boundary. To this the Indians would not agree, but insisted on the straight line which should cross the Holston where that ridge should strike it. Governor Blount explains that this line is not so limited by the treaty as to the point at which it shall leave the north line or at which it shall strike the Clinch, but that it might be so run as either to include or leave out the settlers south of the ridge; the only stipulations respecting it being that it should cross the Holston at the ridge, and should be run by commissioners appointed by the respective parties.
He urged that the line should be run immediately after the ratification of the treaty, as settlers were already located in the immediate vicinity of it, and more were preparing to follow.
The President transmitted the treaty to the Senate with his message of October 26, 1791,76 and Senator Hawkins, from the committee to whom it was referred, reported it back to the Senate on the 9th of November following, recommending that the Senate advise and consent to its ratification.77
On the 19th of the same month the Secretary of War advised Governor Blount that the treaty had been ratified by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and inclosed him 50 printed copies for distribution, although the United States Statutes at Large [Vol. VII, p. 39] give the date of the proclamation of the treaty as February 7, 1792.78
Survey of New Boundaries
The Secretary also intrusted the matter of the survey of the new boundary to the discretion of Governor Blount, and suggested the appointment of Judge Campbell, Daniel Smith, and Col. Landon Carter as commissioners to superintend the same. This suggestion was subsequently modified by the appointment of Charles McLung and John McKee in place of Smith and Carter. Governor Blount designated the 1st of May as the date for the survey to commence. Andrew Ellicott was appointed surveyor, he having been previously appointed to survey the line under the Creek treaty of 1790.79 Before these arrangements could be carried out, the Secretary of War again wrote Governor Blount,80 remarking that while it was important the line should be run, yet as the United States, in their military operations, might want the assistance of the Cherokees, perhaps it would be better policy to have the lines ascertained and marked after rather than before the campaign then about to commence against the Indians northwest of the Ohio.81 It was thus determined, in view of numerous individual acts of hostility on the part of the Cherokees and of the desire to soothe them into peace and to engage them as auxiliaries against the northern Indians, to temporarily postpone the running of the line.
After considerable correspondence between Governor Blount and the Cherokee chiefs in council, the 8th of October, 1792, was fixed upon as the date for the meeting of the representatives of both parties at Major Craig's, on Nine-Mile Creek, for the purpose of beginning the survey.82 In the mean time an increased spirit of hostility had become manifest among the Cherokees and Creeks, the five lower towns of the former having declared war, and an Indian invasion of the frontier seemed imminent. Governor Blount, therefore, in the latter part of September,83 deemed it wise to call fifteen companies of militia into immediate service, under the command of General Sevier, for the protection of the settlements. Notwithstanding this critical condition of affairs, the boundary line commissioners on the part of the United States assembled at the appointed time and place. After waiting until the following day, the representatives of the Cherokees putting in no appearance, they proceeded to inspect the supposed route of the treaty line. After careful examination they came to the conclusion that the ridge dividing the waters of Tennessee and Little Rivers struck the Holston River at the mouth and at no other point.84
They then proceeded to run, but did not mark, a line of experiment from the point of the ridge in a southeast direction to Chilhowee Mountain, a distance of 171/2 miles, and also from the point of beginning in a northwest direction to the Clinch River, a distance of 9 miles. From these observations they found that the line, continued to the southeast, would intersect the Tennessee River shortly after it crossed the Chilhowee Mountain, and in consequence would deprive the Indians of all their towns lying on the south side of the Tennessee. This rendered apparent the necessity of changing the direction of the line into a more nearly east and west course, and led the commissioners to express the opinion that