place is equal, if not superior,
to any that can be found in any inland town in the United States, for
there is not a day that passes over our heads but I can have half a
dozen strange gentlemen to dine with us, and they are from all parts of
the Union." [Footnote: Blount MSS., Hart to Blount, Lexington, Feb. 15,
1795.]

The Neverending Indian Warfare.
Incessant Violation of the Treaties by Both the Red Men and the White.

The one overshadowing fact in the history of Tennessee during Blount's
term as governor was the Indian warfare. Hostilities with the Indians
were never ceasing, and, so far as Tennessee was concerned, during these
six years it was the Indians, and not the whites who were habitually the
aggressors and wrongdoers. The Indian warfare in the Territory during
these years deserves some study because it was typical of what occurred
elsewhere. It illustrates forcibly the fact that under the actual
conditions of settlement wars were inevitable; for if it is admitted
that the land of the Indians had to be taken and that the continent had
to be settled by white men, it must be further admitted that the
settlement could not have taken place save after war. The whites might
be to blame in some cases, and the Indians in others; but under no
combination of circumstances was it possible to obtain possession of the
country save as the result of war, or of a peace obtained by the fear of
war. Any peace which did not surrender the land was sure in the end to
be broken by the whites; and a peace which did surrender the land would
be broken by the Indians. The history of Tennessee during the dozen years
from 1785 to 1796 offers an admirable case in point. In 1785 the United
States Commissioners concluded the treaty of Hopewell with the Indians,
and solemnly guaranteed them certain lands. The whites contemptuously
disregarded this treaty and seized the lands which it guaranteed to
the Indians, being themselves the aggressors, and paying no heed to
the plighted word of the Government, while the Government itself was
too weak to make the frontiersmen keep faith. The treaties of New York
and of Holston with the Creeks and Cherokees in 1790 and 1791 were
fairly entered into by fully authorized representatives of the tribes.
Under them, for a valuable consideration, and of their own motion, the
Creeks and Cherokees solemnly surrendered all title to what is now the
territory of Tennessee, save to a few tracts mostly in