Louisiana and Aaron Burr 155 



is now the territory of Tennessee, save to a few 

 tracts mostly in the west and southeast; and much 

 of the land which was thus ceded they had ceded 

 before. Nevertheless, the peace thus solemnly made 

 was immediately violated by the Indians themselves. 

 The whites were not the aggressors in any way, 

 and, on the contrary, thanks to the wish of the 

 United States authorities for peace, and to the care 

 with which Blount strove to carry out the will of 

 the Federal Government, they for a long time re- 

 frained even from retaliating when injured; yet 

 the Indians robbed and plundered them even more 

 freely than when the whites themselves had been 

 the aggressors and had broken the treaty. 



Before making the treaty of Holston Blount had 

 been in correspondence with Benjamin Hawkins, 

 a man who had always been greatly interested in 

 Indian affairs. He was a prominent politician in 

 North Carolina, and afterward for many years 

 agent among the Southern Indians. He had been 

 concerned in several of the treaties. He warned 

 Blount that since the treaty of Hopewell the whites, 

 and not the Indians, had been the aggressors; and 

 also warned him not to try to get too much land 

 from the Indians, or to take away too great an 

 extent of their hunting grounds, which would only 

 help the great land companies, but to be content 

 with the thirty-fifth parallel for a southern boun- 

 dary. 23 Blount paid much heed to this advice, 

 and by the treaty of Holston he obtained from the 



3 Blount MSS., Hawkins to Blount, March 10, 1791. 



