(p. 68): William Blount, territorial governor of
Tennessee, was born in North Carolina in 1744 and died at Knoxville, Tennessee,
in 1800. He held several important offices in his native state, including two terms in
the assembly and two others as delegate to the old congress, in which latter capacity
he was .me of the signers of the Federal constitution in 1787. On the organization
of a territorial government for Tennessee in 1790, he was appointed territorial
governor and also superintendent for the southern tribes, fixing his headquarters
at Knoxville. In 1791 he negotiated an important treaty with the Cherokee, and
had much to do with directing the operations against the Indians until the close
of the Indian war. He was president of the convention which organized the state of
Tennessee in 1796, and was elected to thenational senate, but was expelled on the
charge of having entered into a treasonable conspiracy to assist the British in con-
quering Louisiana from Spain. A United States officer was sent to arrest him, but
returned without executing his mission on being warned by Blount's friends that
they would not allow him to be taken from the state. The impeachment proceedings
against him were afterward dismissed on technical grounds. In the meantime the
people of his own state had shown their confidence in him by electing him to the
state senate, of which he was chosen president. He died at the early age of fifty-
three, the most popular man in the state next to Sevier. His younger brother,
Willie Blount, who had been his secretary, was afterward governor of Tennessee,
1809-1815.
(28) St Clair's defeat, 1791 (p. 72):