Treaty of Dumplin Creek

Only a token number of Cherokee (Tsalagi) chiefs signed this treaty in June 1785, but it was read by the short-lived State of Franklin as permission to settle well south of the French Broad, on ground North Carolina had set aside as a Cherokee reservation. That November a much larger Cherokee delegation met American commissioners at Hopewell, South Carolina, and agreed a boundary line north of Greeneville, Franklin's capital. The two treaties could not both stand, and the conflict between them soon turned into open warfare between Franklin's settlers and the Cherokee.

What the plaque says

Treaty of Dumplin Creek About 2 mi. E., at mouth of Dumplin Creek, was Henry's Station, founded by Maj. Hugh Henry. Here, the state of Franklin, represented by John Sevier, and the Cherokee Nation, represented by Ancoo, Chief of Chota, signed, on June 10, 1785, the treaty opening a large area south of the French Broad and Holston Rivers to settlement.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Beck Cultural Exchange Center — 15 mi
  Knoxville's Black history museum and archive, opened in 1975 in the 1912 Dandridge Avenue house the community bought for $22,500.
• Blount Mansion — 16 mi
  The 1792 frame house of William Blount, governor of the Southwest Territory, Knoxville's only National Historic Landmark, where the people he enslaved are named.
• Newfound Gap — 27 mi
  The lowest drivable pass through the Smokies, at 5,046 feet on the Tennessee and North Carolina line, where Roosevelt dedicated the park in 1940 and Kuwohi's Cherokee name was restored in 2024.
• Museum of Appalachia — 29 mi
  John Rice Irwin's 65-acre collection of moved log cabins and mountain objects north of Knoxville, opened in 1969, with a cabin believed to be Mark Twain's father's.

More markers nearby

• New Market Train Wreck — 6.1 mi
• Lewis C. Buckner — 6.7 mi
• Isaac Dockery — 7.9 mi
• The McMahan Indian Mound — 8.1 mi