Early in the following year[104] President Washington, in an emphatic
message, laid before Congress a communication from Governor Blount
setting forth, the determination of a large combination of persons
to take possession of certain Indian lands south and southwest of
the Cumberland, under the pretended authority of certain acts of the
legislature of North Carolina, passed some years previous, for the
relief of her officers and soldiers of the Continental line.
In view of the injustice of such intrusions and the mischievous
consequences which would of necessity result therefrom, the President
recommended that effective provision should be made to prevent them.
This eventuated in the passage of the act of Congress, approved May 19,
1796,[105] providing for the government of intercourse between citizens
of the United States and the various Indian tribes.
[Footnote 95: Report of Maj. James Ore to Governor Blount, September
24, 1794. He left Nashville September 7, with 550 mounted infantry,
crossed the Tennessee on the 12th, about 4 miles below Nickajack, and
on the morning of the 13th destroyed Nickajack and Running Water towns,
killing upwards of 50 and making a number prisoners. See American State
Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 632.]
At the treaty of 1791, Governor Blount, as he alleges, sought, by every
means in his power, to have the boundary of the cession follow, so far
as might be, the natural barrier formed by the dividing ridge between
the waters of Little River and those of the Tennessee,[98] and such
in fact was the tenor of his instructions from the Secretary of War;
but the Indian chiefs unanimously insisted that the boundary should be
a straight line, running from the point where the ridge in question
should strike the Holston, and assumed as evidence of the crookedness
of Governor Blount's heart the fact that he desired to run a crooked
line.[99]
[Footnote 96: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 43.]
[Footnote 97: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 43.]
[Footnote 98: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 629.]
[Footnote 99: Letter of Governor Blount to Secretary of War, March 2,
1792. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 629.]
[Footnote 100: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 628.]
[Footnote 101: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 543.]
[Footnote 102: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 536.]
[Footnote 103: January 3, 1795. See American State Papers, Indian
Affairs, Vol. I, p. 536.]
[Footnote 104: February 2, 1796. See American State Papers, Indian
Affairs, Vol. I, p. 581.]