over.) TREATY OF JUNE 26, 1794. 173 
that purpose. It was communicated by President Washington to the 
Senate on the 30th of December, 1794.! 
CHEROKEE WOSTILITIES. 
While this treaty was being negotiated, and for some months there- 
after, a portion of the Cherokees were engaged in the bitterest hostili- 
ties against the white settlements, which were only brought to a close, 
as has been incidentally remarked in discussing the treaty of 1792, by 
the expedition of Major Ore against the Lower Cherokee towns in Sep- 
tember, 1794. 
Peace conference—Following this expedition the hostile Cherokees 
sued for peace, and at their request a conference was held with them 
by Governor Blount, at Tellico Block House, on the 7th and 8th of 
November of that year.” 
This council was attended by Col. John Watts, of Willstown, princi- 
pal leader of the hostiles; Scolacutta, or the Hanging Maw, head chief 
of the nation, and four hundred other chiefs and warriors. A general 
disposition seemed to be manifested among them to abandon their habits 
of depredation and secure for themselves and their families that peace 
to which they, as well as their white neighbors, lad long been strangers. 
Governor Blount met them in a friendly spirit and sought, by every 
means in his power, to confirm them in their good disposition. 
In reporting the facts of this conference to the Secretary of War he 
asserted one of the most fruitful causes of friction between the whites 
and Indians to be the stealing and selling of horses by the latter, for 
which they could always find a ready and unquestioned market among 
unscrupulous whites. As measures of frontier protection he suggested 
the continuance of the three military garrisons of Southwest Point at 
the mouth of the Clinch, of Fort Granger at the mouth of the Holston, 
and of Tellico Block House, opposite the remains of old Fort Loudon, 
and also the erection of a military post, if the Cherokees would permit 
it, on the north bank of the Tennessee, nearly opposite the mouth of 
Lookout Mountain Creek. Subsequently? he held a further conference 
with the Cherokees and endeavored to foster hostilities between them 
and the Creeks by urging the organization of a company of their young 
warriors to patrol the frontiers of Mero District for its protection 
against incursions of the Creeks. To this the leading Cherokee chiefs 
refused assent, not because of any objection to the proposition, but be- 
cause they desired time for preparation. 
INTERCOURSE ACT OF 1796, 
Early in the following year* President Washington, in an emphatie 
message, laid before Congress 1 communication from Governor Blount 

‘American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 543. 
*American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 536. 
* January 3,1795. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 536. 
*Pebruary 2,1796. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. 1, p. 581. 

