ROYCE. | TREATY OF NOVEMBER 22, 1785. 153 
sioners who should be empowered under their instructions, subject, of 
course, to ratification by Congress, to negotiate a treaty with the Chero- 
kees, at which the boundaries of the lands claimed by them should be 
as accurately ascertained as might be, and the line of division carefully 
marked between them and the white settlements. This was deemed 
essential in order that authoritative proclamation might be made of 
the same, advising and warning settlers against further encroachments 
upon Indian territory. 
PROCEEDINGS AT TREATY OF HOPEWELL. 
The commissioners deputed for the performance of this duty were 
Benjamin Hawkins, Andrew Pickens, Joseph Martin, and Lachlan Me- 
Intosh. They convened the Indians in council at Hopewell, S. C., on 
the 18th of November, 1785.!_ Hopewell is on the Keowee River, 15 
miles above the junction of that river with the Tugaloo. The commis- 
sioners announced to the Indians the change of sovereignty from Great 
Britain to Congress that had taken place in the country as a conse- 
quence of the successful termination of the Revolution. They further 
set forth that Congress wanted none of the Indian lands, nor anything 
else belonging to them, but that if they had any grievances, to state 
them freely, and Congress would see justice done them. The Indian 
chiefs drafted a map showing the limits of country claimed by them, 
which included the greater portion of Kentucky and Tennessee, as well 
as portions of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Being re- 
minded by the commissioners that this claim covered the country pur- 
chased by Colonel Henderson, who was now dead, and whose purchase 
must therefore not be disputed, they consented to relinquish that por- 
tion of it. They also consented that the line as finally agreed upon, 
from the mouth of Duck River to the dividing ridge between the Cumber- 
land and Tennessee Rivers, should be continued up that ridge and from 
thence to the Cumberland in such a manner as to leave all the white 
settlers in the Cumberland country outside of the Indian limits. 
At the time, it was supposed this could be accomplished by running a 
northeast line from the ridge so as to strike the Cumberland forty miles 
above Nashville. This portion of the boundary, not having been affected 
by the treaty of 1791 (as was supposed by the Cherokees), was reiterated 
in that treaty in a reverse direction. But the language used—whether 
intentional or accidental—rendered it susceptible of a construction 
more favorable to the whites. This language read, ‘“‘ Thence down the 
Cumberland River to a point from which a southwest line will strike 
the ridge which divides the waters of Cumberland from those of Duck 
River, 40 miles above Nashville.” As this line was not actually sur- 
veyed and marked until the fall of 1797,? and as the settlements in that 
‘Report of Treaty Commissioners, dated Hopewell, December 2,1785. See Ameri- 
can State Papers, Indian, Affairs. Vol. I, p. 40. 
2 American Sta‘e Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 628, and letter of General Win- 
chester to General Robertson, November 9, 1797. 

