Instrument Note
Parties
United States (Secretary of War Knox) and the Cherokee Nation
Context
Executed at Philadelphia on February 17, 1792. An additional article to the Holston treaty, negotiated by Secretary of War Henry Knox directly with Cherokee representatives. It clarifies the annuity obligation established in Article XIV of Holston.
Significance
One article, establishing that the $1,500 annual Cherokee annuity would be paid in goods rather than cash, with the President determining the goods and their value. The significance is administrative: this article established the precedent of executive discretion over the form and content of treaty consideration. The nation was owed a fixed annuity; the U.S. controlled what that annuity consisted of.
Legal Observation
Paying an annuity in goods the President selects at executive discretion is materially different from paying a fixed dollar amount. The Cherokee had no independent mechanism to verify whether the goods delivered matched the treaty obligation in value. This gap between the stated obligation and its execution was structural across the annuity system.
ADDITIONAL ARTICLE
To the Treaty made between the United States and the Cherokees on the second day of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-one. Ir is hereby mutually agreed between Henry Knox, Secretary of War, duly authorized thereto in behalf of the United States, on the one part, and the undersigned chiefs and warriors, in behalf of themselves and the Cherokee nation, on the other part, that the following article shall be added to and considered as part of the treaty made between the United States and the said Cherokee nation on the second day of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-one; to wit: The sum to be paid annually by the United States to the Cherokee nation of Indians, in consideration of the relinquishment of land, as stated in the treaty made with them on the second day of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-one, shall be one thousand five quads dollars instead of one thousand dollars, mentioned in the said reaty.
In testimony whereof
, the said Henry Knox, Secretary of War, and . the said chiefs and warriors of the Cherokee nation, have hereunto
Source: U.S. Statutes at Large, Vol. VII. Edited by Richard Peters, Esq. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1846. Reprinted by Dennis & Co., Inc., Buffalo, N.Y., 1962. Source lines 4622–4650.