Editing Knoxville, Tennessee (section)

===Settlement===
[[File:James White's Fort 20.jpg|thumb|[[James White's Fort]] in downtown Knoxville]]
The end of the [[French and Indian War]] and confusion brought about by the [[American Revolutionary War|American Revolution]] led to a drastic increase in Euro-American settlement west of the [[Appalachian Mountains]].<ref>William MacArthur, ''Knoxville, Crossroads of the New South'' (Tulsa, Okla.: Continental Heritage Press, 1982), 1-15.</ref> By the 1780s, white settlers were already established in the Holston and French Broad valleys. The U.S. Congress ordered all illegal settlers out of the valley in 1785 but with little success. As settlers continued to trickle into Cherokee lands, tensions between the settlers and the Cherokee rose steadily.<ref>Yong Kim, ''The Sevierville Hill Site: A Civil War Union Encampment on the Southern Heights of Knoxville, Tennessee'' (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Transportation Center, 1993), 9.</ref>

In 1786, [[James White (general)|James White]], a [[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]] officer, and his friend James Connor built [[James White's Fort|White's Fort]] near the mouth of First Creek, on land White had purchased three years earlier.<ref name="ReferenceA">Kim, ''The Sevierville Hill Site'', 9.</ref> In 1790, White's son-in-law, [[Charles McClung]]—who had arrived from Pennsylvania the previous year—surveyed White's holdings between First Creek and Second Creek for the establishment of a town. McClung drew up sixty-four {{convert|0.5|acre|adj=on}} lots. The waterfront was set aside for a town common. Two lots were set aside for a church and graveyard (First Presbyterian Church, founded 1792). Four lots were set aside for a school. That school was eventually chartered as Blount College and it served as the starting point for the [[University of Tennessee]], which uses Blount College's founding date of 1794 as its own.

In 1790, President [[George Washington]] appointed North Carolina surveyor [[William Blount]] governor of the newly created [[Territory South of the River Ohio]]. One of Blount's first tasks was to meet with the Cherokee and establish territorial boundaries and resolve the issue of illegal settlers.<ref>MacArthur, 17.</ref> This he accomplished almost immediately with the [[Treaty of Holston]], which was negotiated and signed at White's Fort in 1791. Blount originally wanted to place the territorial capital at the confluence of the [[Clinch River]] and Tennessee River (now [[Kingston, Tennessee|Kingston]]), but when the Cherokee refused to cede this land, Blount chose White's Fort. Blount named the new capital Knoxville after Revolutionary War General and Secretary of War [[Henry Knox]], who at the time was Blount's immediate superior.<ref>William MacArthur, Jr., ''Knoxville: Crossroads of the New South'' (Tulsa, Oklahoma: Continental Heritage Press, 1982), 17-22.</ref>

Problems immediately arose from the Holston Treaty. Blount believed that he had "purchased" much of what is now East Tennessee when the treaty was signed in 1791. However, the terms of the treaty came under dispute, culminating in ongoing violence on both sides. When the government invited Cherokee chief [[Hanging Maw]] for negotiations in 1793, Knoxville settlers attacked the Cherokee against orders, killing the chief's wife. Peace was renegotiated in 1794.<ref>G. H. Stueckrath, "[http://www.knoxcotn.org/history/debow.html Incidents in the Early Settlement of East Tennessee and Knoxville] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090401050724/http://www.knoxcotn.org/history/debow.html |date=April 1, 2009 }}". Originally published in ''De Bow's Review'' Vol. XXVII (October 1859), O.S. Enlarged Series. Vol. II, No. 4, N.S. Pages 407-419. Transcribed for web content by Billie McNamara, 1999–2002. Retrieved: February 25, 2008.</ref>