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Show MOONEY] TREATY OF HOLSTON- 1791 69 ville, Tennessee, in the summer of 1791. With much difficulty the Cherokee were finally brought to consent to a cession of a triangular section in Tennessee and North Carolina extending from Clinch river almost to the Blue ridge, and including nearly the whole of the French Broad and the lower Holston, with the sites of the present KnoxviUe, Greenville, and Asheville. The whole of this area, with a considerable territory adjacent, was already fully occupied by the whites. Permission was also given for a road from the eastern settlements to those on the Cumberland, with the free navigation of Tennessee river. Prisoners on both sides were to be restored and perpetual peace was guaranteed. In consideration of the lands surrendered the Cherokee were to receive an annuity of one thousand dollars with some extra goods and some assistance on the road to civilization. A treaty was signed by forty- one principal men of the tribe and was concluded July 2,1791. It is officially described as being held " on the bank of the Holston, near the mouth of the French Broad," and is commonly spoken of as the " treaty of Holston." The Cherokee, however, were dissatisfied with the arrangement, and before the end of the year a delegation of six principal chiefs appeared at Philadelphia, then the seat of government, without any previous announcement of their coming, declaring that when they had been summoned by Governor Blount to a conference they were not aware that it was to persuade them to sell lands; that they had resisted the proposition for days, and only yielded when compelled by the persistent and threatening demands of the governor; that the consideration was entirely too small; and that they had no faith that the whites would respect the new boundary, as they were in fact already settling beyond it. Finally, as the treaty had been signed, they asked that these intruders be removed. As their presentation of the case seemed a just one and it was desirable that they should carry home with them a favorable impression of the government's attitude toward them, a supplementary article was added, increasing the annuity to eight thousand five hundred dollars. On account of renewed Indian hostilities in Ohio valley and the desire of the government to keep the good will of the Cherokee long enough to obtain their help against the northern tribes, the new line was not surveyed until 1797. l As illustrating Indian custom it may be noted that one of the principal signers of the original treaty was among the protesting delegates, but having in the meantime changed his name, it appears on the supplementary paragraph as " Iskagua, or Clear Sky, formerly Nenetooyah, or Bloody Fellow."* As he had been one of the prin- » Indian Treaties, pp. 34- 38, 1837; Secretary of War, report, January 5, 1788, In American State Papers, I, pp. 628- 631, 1832; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 564- 560, 1H53; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 158- 170. with full discussion and map, 1888. * Indian Treaties, pp. 37,38,1837. |