John Sevier - Southwest Territory

Southwest Territory

In February 1789, Sevier took the Oath of Allegiance to North Carolina. He was elected to the North Carolina state senate, and was pardoned by North Carolina Governor Alexander Martin. When the senate convened in November 1789, Sevier worked in support of the state's ratification of the U.S. Constitution. After it was ratified on November 23, Sevier helped engineer a second cession act, which passed with little opposition in December, essentially handing over what is now the state of Tennessee to the federal government.

To administer the new cession, Congress created the Southwest Territory in the Spring of 1790, which would be administered under the Northwest Ordinance. Sevier was appointed brigadier general of the territorial militia, and fellow land speculator and North Carolina politician, William Blount, was appointed governor. In June 1791, Blount negotiated the Treaty of Holston, which resolved the land disputes with the Cherokee created by the Treaty of Dumplin Creek.

In the Fall of 1793, following the Cherokee attack on Cavet's Station west of Knoxville, Sevier led the territorial militia south into Georgia, where he defeated a Cherokee force at the Battle of Hightower and destroyed several villages. The following year, he was appointed by President Washington to the territorial council, a body which had a function similar to that of a state senate. That same year, he was appointed to the first Board of Trustees of Blount College, the forerunner of the University of Tennessee.