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First Creek: Knoxville The Treaty of the Holston exhibitry offers the opportunity to visualize a significant threshold of change in East Tennessee, American, and Cherokee history upon a site very near where this event took place. In the summer of 1791, Territorial Governor William Blount was able to convince the chieftains of the Cherokee nation to come to White's Fort settlement in order to procure a lasting peace. Initially, the chiefs were apprehensive, fearing a trap, but they were convinced to attend. Governor Blount persuaded them to meet at a point four miles below the confluence of the Holston and French Broad rivers on the north bank of what is now the Tennessee River, near the point where First Creek enters the embayment. As a result of the treaty, the Cherokees acknowledged themselves to be under the protection of the United States. They agreed to return all prisoners and accept changes to the boundaries of their territory. They agreed to allow settlers to travel unmolested on the Tennessee River and to allow their trade to be regulated by the United States. In return for this agreement they received a one thousand dollar annuity and certain trade goods.
Preliminary plans call for an interpretive sculpture of the treaty signing employing native stone to be constructed in the First Creek Park. The sculpture would feature Governor William Blount, James Armstrong, and several of the forty-one Cherokee chiefs in attendance at the 1791 signing. This grouping would be assembled underneath a pavilion canopy. Gathered around the central icon would be a suggestion of the 1,400 braves in attendance. |
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