Tellico Blockhouse

The Overhill Cherokee asked for this post. Dwindling in number and pressed by aggressive settlers, they sought an alliance with the new federal government, and in 1794 Governor William Blount agreed to Hanging Maw's request. The blockhouse became a federal trading post under the Factory Act of 1795, which aimed to assimilate Native people by teaching farming and spinning. Cherokee suppliers kept its market stocked with game, eggs and strawberries. A new treaty in 1805 moved the agency south to the Hiwassee, and the government gave up Tellico in 1807.

What the plaque says

Tellico Blockhouse One mile SW where Nine Mile Creek enters Little Tennessee River, this fort and garrison for U.S. Troops on the border of the Cherokee Nation was erected in the late 18th Century. It was visited in 1797 by the Duke of Orleans, later King Louis Phillipe of France, later by President Monroe on his tour of the southern United States.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sequoyah Birthplace Museum — 16 mi
  The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians' museum on Tellico Lake, near the town where Sequoyah was born, telling how he built the Cherokee syllabary and what the Tellico Dam drowned.
• Fort Loudoun State Historic Park — 17 mi
  A reconstructed 1756-57 British fort on the Little Tennessee River in Overhill Cherokee country, besieged in 1760 and surrendered on August 9 of that year.
• Cades Cove — 25 mi
  A Smokies valley ringed by mountains, once the Cherokee hunting ground of Tsiyahi and later a farming community of 685 people, kept by the park after its families were bought out.
• Ocoee Whitewater Center — 28 mi
  The Forest Service site on the Ocoee River in Cherokee National Forest that hosted the 1996 Olympic canoe slalom, on a river that TVA dams and releases by schedule.

More markers nearby

• Fort Loudoun Massacre — 9.9 mi
• Boyhood Home of Ray H. Jenkins — 9.9 mi
• Early Gold Mining — 12 mi
• Tenasee Cherokee Village — 12 mi