The Cherokee controlled 140,000 square miles throughout seven present-day Southern states when Europeans began arriving in the 1600s – western sections of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, east to middle Tennessee, southwest area in Virginia, small southeast area in Kentucky, and northeast area in Alabama.
In 1670, the British began to colonize South Carolina. The Catawba allied themselves with the new settlers for protection against their traditional enemies, most notably the Cherokee.
The first land cession by the Cherokee was in 1721. The tribe gave up land in South Carolina. The treaty also regulated trade and set a boundary between the tribe and settlers.
In 1730, Cherokee leaders visited London and met with King George II. They pledged friendship to the English and agreed to return runaway slaves and to trade exclusively with the British.
There were seven young Cherokee in the group. One was Oukanaekah, later named Attakullaculla or the Little Carpenter.
The interpreter was Robert Bunning, an Englishman. It was stated in London newspapers that he lived in Cherokee country for 14 years.
http://rictornorton.co.uk/grubstreet/indians1.htm
In 1735, the Cherokee had “64 towns and villages, populous and full of children,” with an estimated population of 16,000, including 6,000 fighting men.
The colony of North Carolina established an Indian Trade Commission to regulate trade with American Indians in the colony in 1736.
From 1738 to 1739, a smallpox epidemic decimated the Indian population in North Carolina, especially in the east and Piedmont. The population of the Catawba decreased to a few hundred. The epidemic decreased the number of Cherokee by 50 percent.
During the 1750s armed conflicts between the Cherokee and settlers increased. The settlers continued to expand areas of settlement farther west in violation of treaties.
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War was fought from 1754 to 1763 between England and France. Some American Indians chose to fight with the British and others chose to fight with the French.
The Catawba always allied themselves with the British. The population of the Catawba was extremely small. Smallpox had almost decimated the population.
At first, the Cherokee sided with the British in military campaigns against the French and Shawnee Indians. About 100 Cherokee went as far north as western Pennsylvania with British troops. On the return trip through Virginia, all their provisions were lost in a river crossing. The starving Cherokee, who were traveling on foot, took horses belonging to Virginia colonists. The colonists attacked, killing more than 20 Cherokee. The Cherokee dead were mutilated and scalped.
Young Cherokee warriors began raiding border settlements in retaliation (clan revenge). Thirty-two Cherokee, including war chief Oconostota, went to Fort Prince George on the Keowee River in Pickens County, S.C., to attempt peace negotiations. They were taken as prisoners. Chief Attakullakulla (Little Carpenter, see above) negotiated the release of Oconostota and two others. Oconostota then laid siege to the fort in an attempt to rescue the other Cherokee. The commander of the fort was killed. The men in the fort killed the remaining 29 Cherokee captives.
The Cherokee then began fighting the British.
In 1760, the North Carolina Assembly passed an act that gave permission to militia units and American Indians fighting against the French to enslave American Indian captives who were fighting against the British. This included women and children.
In February of 1760, the Cherokee attacked Fort Dobbs in North Carolina. Fort Dobbs was located near the Yadkin River, north of present-day Statesville. It was a refuge for settlers and “friendly” Indians. It was used by white settlements near Bethabara and along the Yadkin and Dan rivers.
The Cherokee also began a siege at the British garrison at Fort Loudoun near present-day Vonore, Tenn.
The governor of South Carolina called on British Gen. Jeffrey Amherst for help. Amherst sent Col. Archibald Montgomerie, commander of the 77th Foot, known as Montgomerie’s Highlanders, with 700 men from his regiment and 400 from the 1st Foot, the Royal Scots. They left New York and landed in Charleston in April 1760. They were joined by Carolina militia units. The total number of men was about 1,600.
They marched northwest and reached Fort Prince George in Pickens County, S.C., on June 2. On June 24, they began following an Indian trading path across the Keowee and Oconee Rivers, burning every Cherokee village along the way.
At 4 a.m. on June 27, they crossed Rabun Gap, at the border of Georgia and North Carolina, and headed for the village of Echoe, near Dillard, Ga.
As Montgomerie’s advance guard passed through the gap, Cherokee warriors led by Chief Occonostota attacked the column on both sides, forcing Montgomerie’s men to fall back. Having regrouped, the British commander ordered the South Carolina provincials to move forward while the 77th Foot mounted the ridge to his left and the 1st Foot the ridge to the right. After four hours of intense fighting, Oconostota’s men withdrew, allowing the British to ford the river just north of the battlefield.
Montgomerie’s force entered Echoe briefly, burned what they could, and then retreated back to Fort Prince George, which they reached on July 1.
He did not continue the fight against the Cherokee and was not successful in lifting the siege of Fort Loudoun.
Two months later the Cherokee captured Fort Loudoun, killed 29 soldiers and took the remainder prisoner.
British Gen. Amherst then ordered British Lt. Col. James Grant to lead another expedition against the Cherokee. His orders were to “not think of coming away till you have most effectivally punished these scoundreal Indians, as without, that, it will be ever to begin again. As to treating with them, it will be time enough when they are so low that you may be sure they cannot hurt the Province again soon.” Grant arrived in South Carolina in the spring of 1761.
Grant’s army consisted of two battalions of the 1st Foot, the Royal Scots, as well as several South Carolina militia units, two detachments of Catawba and Chickasaw Indians, six Mohawk warriors, and 81 African slaves. The total number of men was from 2,600 to 2,800. Among the young men were Andrew Pickens, Thomas Sumter, William Moultrie, and Francis Marion.
They left Charleston in May 1761, following Montgomerie’s route, stopped at Fort Prince George in Pickens County, S.C., and followed the same route into Georgia and to the North Carolina border.
Grant burned crops and villages along the way until he was ambushed near the Cherokee town of Echoe (near Franklin) on June 10, 1761. For nearly five hours Grant’s force and an Indian army led by Oconostota waged battle, until finally the Indians withdrew. British losses amounted to 10 killed and 53 wounded, while Cherokee casualties were estimated in the hundreds.
Grant burned Echoe, continued into North Carolina as far as Murphy, burning towns along the way.
Francis Marion wrote: “We proceeded, by Col. Grant’s orders, to burn the Indian cabins. Some of the men seemed to enjoy this cruel work, laughing heartily at the curling flames, but to me appeared a shocking sight. But when we came, according to orders, to cut down the fields of corn, I could scarcely refrain from tears. Who, without grief, could see . . . the staff of life sink under our swords with their precious load, to wither and rot untasted in their mourning fields?”
Grant wrote that they drove the Cherokee “into recesses in the mountains, burned their granaries, laid waste to their fields and pushed the frontier 70 miles west.”
Fifteen Cherokee towns were destroyed.
Chief Attakullakulla negotiated a treaty with South Carolina.
British Lt. Henry Timberlake visited the Cherokee, volunteering as a hostage to ensure that peace remained. He stayed at the remains of the Echoe village for nearly three months, before taking three Cherokee leaders – Ostenaco, Cunne Shote and Woyi – to London where they met with King George III.
In 1763, King George III issued a proclamation that defined the western edge of settlement. This “proclamation line” was meant to separate the Cherokee and colonists.
This proclamation line states “where the easterly and westerly waters divide.” “Its contour was defined by the headwaters that formed the watershed along the Appalachia.” “All land with rivers that flowed into the Atlantic was designated for the colonial entities while all the land with rivers that flowed into the Mississippi was reserved for the native Indian population” (Continental Divide).
In the same year, the Treaty of Paris ended the Seven Years’ War in Europe and the French and Indian War in North America.
The British victory ended the need for the British to use the Cherokee as a buffer between the British and the French.
Colonists immediately began moving into Cherokee land, ignoring the “proclamation line.”
That same year South Carolina established a 15-square-mile reservation for the Catawba.
On May 18, 1767, North Carolina British Royal Gov. William Tryon left from Salisbury to the “Cherokee hunting grounds” with about 100 people to “run a line between the Frontiers of North Carolina and the Cherokee Hunting Grounds.”
Tryon and his group met with the Cherokee at several camps in North and South Carolina. One of the camps was at the foot of Tryon Mountain in today’s Polk County. From primary source documents it appears his boundary commissioners named the mountain for him.
Tryon negotiated a dividing line with the Cherokee.
July 30, 1767
The Pennsylvania Gazette
CHARLESTOWN (SOUTH CAROLINA) June 30.
July 14. From North Carolina we are informed, that Governor Tryon with the commissioners appointed for that purpose, joined by the chiefs of the Cherokee nation, on the 4th of June, began to run out the boundary line between North Carolina and the Cherokee Hunting-Grounds, at the Corner Tree on Reedy River, where the line behind the province terminates. The surveyors went a north course 53 miles, marking as they went into the mountains; and on the 13th of June, they marked several trees on the top of Mount Tryon, on the head waters of White Oak and Pacolet Creeks, running into Green and Broad Rivers; but several obstacles having impeded a further survey, it was agreed by the whole, that the boundary should be a direct line from the said marked trees to Chiswell’s mines in Virginia (Continental Divide); which being settled and agreed upon, proper instruments were drawn up, and signed by the parties present, to be transmitted to his Majesty.— The Indians were so highly pleased with his Honour’s condescension to their several Requisitions, that they complimented him with the war name of the Great Wolf of North Carolina.
Exact wording of the treaty:
“Beginning at a Waughoe or Elm tree on the South side of Reedy River Standing on the Bank of the River where the South Carolina Line Terminates and Runs thence a North Course about Fifty Three Miles into the Mountains to a Spanish Oak marked with the Initial Letters of the Commissioners names and several other Trees with the names and marks of Juds Friend Sallowee Ecoy and others standing on the Top of a Mountain called by us Tryon Mountain on the head Waters of White Oak and Packet Creeks, White Oak running into Green River and Packet running into Broad River and as it was found Impracticable that a Line should be Run and marked through the Mountains to Colo Chiswell’s Mines it is further agreed between the said John Rutherford Robert Palmer and John Frohock Commissioners as aforesaid in behalf of his Most Excellent Majesty and the said Alexander Cameron Esquire Deputy Superintendant as aforesaid and Juds Friend Tufftoe Sallowee Ecoy Chenesto and the Wolf of Keowee in behalf of themselves and the head Beloved Men and Warriors of the Cherokee Nation that the Line between the Frontiers of the Province of North Carolina and the Cherokee Hunting Grounds be continued as follows. Running from the Top of Tryon Mountain aforesaid. Beginning at the marked tree thereon by a direct Line to Chiswell’s Mines in Virginia—shall and is hereby declared to be the Boundary line between the said Frontiers of North Carolina and the Cherokee Hunting Grounds—and Commissioners aforesaid in behalf of his Most Excellent Majesty and the said Alexander Cameron Esquire, Juds Friend Tufftoe Sallowee Ecoy Chenesto and the Wolf of Keowee in Behalf of themselves and the head beloved men and Warriors of Cherokee Nation, agree determine and conclude that the Boundaries as aforesaid herein described shall stand be and remain the Boundary Line between the Frontiers of the Province and the Cherokee Hunting Ground until his Most Excellent Majesty’s pleasure shall be further known thereon. In testimony of which the several parties herein mentioned have hereunto interchangeably set their hands and seals the day and year first above written.”
The treaty in 1763 and the treaty in 1767 opened up sections of Henderson County for colonial settlement.
The treaty of 1763 was the Continental Divide (see geography map).
The treaty of 1767 was almost identical to that of 1763. The line from Tryon Mountain to Virginia was the Continental Divide, again opening areas east of the Continental Divide in Henderson County to settlers.