Placed the Cherokee tribes under U.S. protection and transferred management of their foreign affairs to the federal government.
Key Facts
- Date signed
- July 2, 1791
- Date proclaimed
- February 7, 1792
- U.S. negotiator
- William Blount, Governor of Southwest Territory
- Cherokee representative
- John Watts (most notable)
- Monument erected
- 1997, on the banks of the Tennessee River
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Following American independence, the U.S. government sought to formalize relations with Native American tribes in the southern frontier. The Cherokee tribes, loosely affiliated and previously managing their own foreign relations, needed a defined legal relationship with the expanding United States and its Southwest Territory.
On July 2, 1791, William Blount, governor of the Southwest Territory and U.S. superintendent of Indian affairs for the southern district, negotiated and signed the Treaty of Holston with Cherokee representatives, most notably John Watts, along the Holston River in what is now Knoxville, Tennessee.
The treaty placed the Cherokee tribes under U.S. protection and transferred all future foreign affairs of the loosely affiliated Cherokee peoples to the United States government. This formalized a dependent relationship between the Cherokee and the federal government, shaping subsequent U.S.-Cherokee diplomatic and political interactions.
Political Outcome
Cherokee tribes placed under U.S. protection; United States assumed management of all Cherokee foreign affairs.
Cherokee tribes managed their own foreign affairs independently
United States assumed authority over Cherokee foreign relations under federal protection