Part 3

That the Virginians were the first to be brought in contact with the Cherokees is further evidenced by the fact that in 1690 an Indian trader from that colony, bearing the name of Daugherty, had taken up his residence among them, which is alleged by the historian[6] to have been several years before any knowledge of the existence of the Cherokees reached the settlers on Ashley River in South Carolina.

EARLY RELATIONS WITH CAROLINA COLONISTS.

The first formal introduction of the Cherokees to the notice of the people of that colony occurred in the year 1693,[7] when twenty Cherokee chiefs visited Charleston, with proposals of friendship, and at the same time solicited the assistance of the governor in their operations against the Esau and Coosaw tribes, who had captured and carried off a number of Cherokees.

The Savannah Indians, it seems, had also been engaged in incursions against them, in the course of which they had captured a number of Cherokees and sold them to the colonial authorities as slaves.

The delegation urgently solicited the governor's protection from the further aggressions of these enemies and the return of their bondaged countrymen. The desired protection was promised them, but as their enslaved brethren had already been shipped to the West Indies and sold into slavery there, it was impossible to return them.

The extreme eastern settlements of the Cherokees at this time were within the limits of the present Chester and Fairfield districts, South Carolina, which lie between the Catawba and Broad Rivers.[8]

MENTION BY VARIOUS EARLY AUTHORS.

We next find an allusion to the Cherokees in the annals of Louisiana by M. Pericaut, who mentions in his chronicle of the events of the year 1702, that "ten leagues from the mouth of this river [Ohio] another falls into it called Kasquinempas [Tennessee]. It takes its source from the neighborhood of the Carolinas and passes through the village of the Cherokees, a populous nation that number some fifty thousand warriors," another example of the enormous overestimates of aboriginal population to which the earlier travelers and writers were so prone.

Again, in 1708, the same author relates that "about this time two Mobilians who had married in the Alibamon nation, and who lived among them with their families, discovered that that nation was inimical to the Mobilians as well as the French, and had made a league with the Cheraquis, the Abeikas, and the Conchaques to wage war against the French and Mobilians and burn their villages around our fort."

On various early maps of North America, and particularly those of De L'Isle, between the years 1700 and 1712, will be found indicated upon the extreme headwaters of the Holston and Clinch Rivers, "gros villages des Cheraqui." These villages correspond in location with the great nation alluded to in the narrative of Sir William Berkeley's expedition.

Upon the same maps will be found designated the sites of sundry other Cherokee villages, several of which are on the extreme headwaters of the "R. des Chaouanons." This river, although indicated on the map as emptying into the Atlantic Ocean to the west of the Santee, from its relation to the other streams in that vicinity, is believed to be intended for the Broad River, which is a principal northwest branch of the Santee. Other towns will also be found on the banks of the Upper Catawba, and they are, as well, quite numerous along the headwaters of the "R. des Caouilas" or Savannah and of the Little Tennessee.

Mention is again found of the Cherokees in the year 1712, when 218 of them accompanied Colonel Barnwell in his expedition against the hostile Tuscaroras and aided in the subjugation of that savage tribe, though along the route of Barnwell's march the settlers were very nearly persuaded that they suffered greater damage to property from the freebooting propensities of their Indian allies than from the open hostilities of their savage enemies.

The old colonial records of South Carolina also contain mention in the following year (1713) of the fact that Peter St. Julien was arraigned on the charge of holding two Cherokee women in slavery.[9]

In 1715 the Yamassees, a powerful and hitherto friendly tribe, occupying the southwesterly portion of the colony of South Carolina and extending to and beyond the Savannah River, declared open hostilities against the settlers. In the desperate struggle that ensued, we find in full alliance with them the Cherokees, as well as the Creeks and Appalachians.

In his historical journal of the establishment of the French in Louisiana, Bernard de la Harpe states that "in January, 1716, some of the Cheraquis Indians, who lived northeast of Mobile, killed MM. de Ramsay and de Longueil. Some time after, the father of the latter gentleman, the King's lieutenant in Canada, engaged the Iroquois to surprise this tribe. They sacked two of their villages and obliged the rest to retreat towards New England."

TERRITORY OF CHEROKEES AT PERIOD OF ENGLISH SETTLEMENT.

At the time of the English settlement of the Carolinas the Cherokees occupied a diversified and well-watered region of country of large extent upon the waters of the Catawba, Broad, Saluda, Keowee, Tugaloo, Savannah, and Coosa Rivers on the east and south, and several of the tributaries of the Tennessee on the north and west. It is impossible at this late day to define with absolute accuracy the original limits of the Cherokee claim. In fact, like all other tribes, they had no definite and concurrent understanding with their surrounding savage neighbors where the possessions of the one left off and those of the other began. The strength of their title to any particular tract of country usually decreased in proportion to the increase of the distance from their villages; and it commonly followed as a result, that a considerable strip of territory between the settlements of two powerful tribes, though claimed by both, was practically considered as neutral ground and the common hunting ground of both.

As has already been stated, the extreme eastern settlements of the Cherokees in South Carolina in 1693 were in the district of country lying between the Catawba and Broad Rivers, and no claim has been found showing the existence at any time of any assertion of territorial right in their behalf to the east of the former stream. But nevertheless, on Bowen's map of 1752 (obviously copied from earlier maps), there is laid down the name of "Keowee Old Town." The location of this town was on Deep River in the vicinity of the present town of Ashborough, N. C. It was a favorite name of the Cherokees among their towns, and affords a strong evidence of at least a temporary residence of a portion of the tribe in that vicinity. A map executed by John Senex in 1721 defines the Indian boundary in this region as following the Catawba, Wateree, and Santee Rivers as far down as the most westerly bend of the latter stream, in the vicinity of the boundary line between Orangeburg and Charleston districts, whence it pursued a southwesterly course to the Edisto River, which it followed to the sea-coast. The southern portion of this boundary was of course a definition of limits between Carolina and the Creeks, or rather of certain tribes that formed component parts of the Creek confederacy. No evidence has been discovered tending to show an extension of Cherokee limits in a southerly direction beyond the point mentioned above on the Edisto River, which, as near as can be ascertained, was at the junction of the North and South Edisto. Following from thence up the South Edisto to its source the boundary pursued a southwesterly course, striking the Savannah River in the vicinity of the mouth of Stevens Creek, and proceeding thence northwardly along the Savannah.

On the borders of Virginia and North Carolina the ancient limits of the Cherokees seem to be also shrouded in more or less doubt and confusion. In general terms, however, it may be said that after following the Catawba River to its source in the Blue Ridge the course of those mountains was pursued until their intersection with the continuation of the Great Iron Mountain range, near Floyd Court-House, Va., and thence to the waters of the Kanawha or New River, whence their claim continued down that stream to the Ohio. At a later date they also set up a claim to the country extending from the mouth of the Kanawha down the Ohio to the ridge dividing the waters of the Cumberland from those of the Tennessee at the mouths of those streams, and thence following that ridge to a point northeast of the mouth of Duck River; thence to the mouth of Duck River on the Tennessee, and continuing up with the course of the latter river to Bear Creek; up the latter to a point called Flat Rock, and thence to the Ten Islands in Coosa River, &c.

That portion of the country thus covered, comprising a large part of the present States of West Virginia and Kentucky, was also claimed by the Six Nations by right of former conquest, as well as by the Shawnees and Delawares.

Adair, a trader for forty years among the Cherokees, who traveled extensively through their country about the middle of the eighteenth century, thus specifically outlines the boundaries of their country at that period: "The country lies in about 34 degrees north latitude at the distance of 340 computed miles to the northwest of Charlestown,--140 miles west-southwest from the Katahba Nation,--and almost 200 miles to the north of the Muskohge or Creek country. They are settled nearly in an east and west course about 140 miles in length from the lower towns, where Fort-Prince-George stands, to the late unfortunate Fort Loudon. The natives make two divisions of their country, which they term '_Ayrate_' and '_Otarre_,' the one signifying 'low' and the other 'mountainous.'"

POPULATION.

In point of numbers the Cherokee population now considerably exceeds that first enumerated by the early colonial authorities. As early as 1715 the proprietors of the South Carolina Plantation instructed Governor Robert Johnson to cause a census to be taken of all the Indian tribes within that jurisdiction, and from his report it appears that the Cherokee Nation at that time contained thirty towns and an aggregate population of 11,210, of whom 4,000 were warriors. Adair alleges that in 1735, or thereabouts, according to the computation of the traders, their warriors numbered 6,000, but that in 1738 the ravages of the small-pox reduced their population one-half within one year. Indeed, this disaster, coupled with the losses sustained in their conflicts with the whites and with neighboring tribes, had so far wasted their ranks that a half century after the census taken by Governor Johnson they were estimated by the traders to have but 2,300 warriors.[10] By the last report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs the total population is estimated to number 22,000.[11] It is true that considerable of this increase is attributable to the fact that several other small tribes or bands, within a few years past, have merged their tribal existence in that of the Cherokees. Independent of this fact, however, they have maintained a slow but steady increase in numbers for many years, with the exception of the severe losses sustained during the disastrous period of the late southern rebellion.

OLD CHEROKEE TOWNS.

It is perhaps impossible to give a complete list of the old Cherokee towns and their location; but in 1755 the authorities of South Carolina, in remodeling the old and prescribing new regulations for the government of the Indian trade, divided the whole Cherokee country into six hunting districts, viz:

1. _Over Hill Towns._--Great Tellico, Chatugee, Tennessee, Chote, Toqua, Sittiquo, and Talassee.

2. _Valley Towns._--Euforsee, Conastee, Little Telliquo, Cotocanahut, Nayowee, Tomatly, and Chewohe.

3. _Middle Towns._--Joree, Watoge, Nuckasee.

4. _Keowee Towns._--Keowee, Tricentee, Echoee, Torsee, Cowee, Torsalla, Coweeshee, and Elejoy.

5. _Out Towns._--Tucharechee, Kittowa, Conontoroy, Steecoy, Oustanale, and Tuckasegee.

6. _Lower Towns._--Tomassee, Oustestee, Cheowie, Estatoie, Tosawa, Keowee, and Oustanalle.

About twenty years later, Bartram,[12] who traversed the country, gives the names of forty-three Cherokee towns and villages then existing and inhabited as follows:

+---------------------+------------------------------------------ No. | Name. | Where situated. -----+---------------------+------------------------------------------ 1 | Echoe | } 2 | Nucasse | } On the Tanase east of 3 | Whatoga | } Jore Mountains. 4 | Cowe | } | | 5 | Ticoloosa | } 6 | Jore | } Inland, on the branches 7 | Conisca | } of the Tanase. 8 | Nowe | } | | 9 | Tomothle | } 10 | Noewe | } 11 | Tellico | } 12 | Clennuse | } On the Tanase over the Jore 13 | Occunolufte | } Mountains. 14 | Chewe | } 15 | Quanuse | } 16 | Tellowe | } | | 17 | Tellico | } 18 | Chatuga | } Inland towns on the branches of 19 | Hiwasse | } the Tanase and other waters over 20 | Chewase | } the Jore Mountains. 21 | Nuanba | } | | 22 | Tallase | } 23 | Chelowe | } 24 | Sette | } 25 | Chote, great | } 26 | Joco | } Overhill towns on the Tanase or 27 | Tahasse | } Cherokee River. 28 | Tamahle | } 29 | Tuskege | } 30 | -- -- Big Island | } 31 | Nilaque | } 32 | Niowe | } | | 33 | Sinica | } Lower towns east of the mountains on 34 | Keowe | } the Savanna or Keowe River. 35 | Kulsage | } | | 36 | Tugilo | } Lower towns east of the mountains 37 | Estotowe | } on Tugilo River. | | 38 | Qualatche | } Lower towns on Flint River. 39 | Chote | } | | 40 | Estotewe, great | } 41 | Allagae | } Towns on waters of other rivers. 42 | Jore | } 43 | Naeoche | } -----+---------------------+------------------------------------------

Mouzon's map of 1771 gives the names of several Lower Cherokee towns not already mentioned. Among these may be enumerated, on the Tugalco River and its branches, Turruraw, Nayowee, Tetohe, Chagee, Tussee, Chicherohe, Echay, and Takwashnaw; on the Keowee, New Keowee, and Quacoretche; and on the Seneca, Acounee.

In subsequent years, through frequent and long continued conflicts with the ever advancing white settlements and the successive treaties whereby the Cherokees gradually yielded portions of their domain, the location and names of their towns were continually changing until the final removal of the nation west of the Mississippi.[13]

EXPULSION OF SHAWNEES BY CHEROKEES AND CHICKASAWS.

In the latter portion of the seventeenth century the Shawnees, or a portion of them, had their villages on the Cumberland, and to some extent, perhaps, on the Tennessee also. They were still occupying that region as late as 1714, when they were visited by M. Charleville, a French trader, but having about this time incurred the hostility of the Cherokees and Chickasaws they were driven from the country. Many years later, in the adjustment of a territorial dispute between the Cherokees and Chickasaws, each nation claimed the sole honor of driving out the Shawnees, and hence, by right of conquest, the title to the territory formerly inhabited by the latter. The Chickasaws evidently had the best of the controversy, though some concessions were made to the Cherokees in the matter when the United States came to negotiate for the purchase of the controverted territory.

TREATY RELATIONS WITH THE COLONIES.

_Treaty and purchase of 1721._--The treaty relations between the Cherokees and the whites began in 1721, when jealousy of French territorial encroachments persuaded Governor Nicholson of South Carolina to invite the Cherokees to a general congress, with a view to the conclusion of a treaty of peace and commerce.

The invitation was accepted, and delegates attended from thirty-seven towns, with whom, after smoking the pipe of peace and distributing presents, he agreed upon defined boundaries and appointed an agent to superintend their affairs.[14]

_Treaty of 1730._--Again, in 1730, the authorities of North Carolina commissioned Sir Alexander Cumming to conclude a treaty of alliance with the Cherokees. In April of that year the chiefs and warriors of the nation met him at Requasse, near the sources of the Hiwassee River, acknowledged King George as their sovereign, and sent a delegation of six warriors to carry the crown of the nation (consisting of five eagle tails and four scalps) to England and do homage to the King, where they concluded a treaty of peace and commerce at Dover on the 30th of June.

In this treaty they stipulated:

1. To submit to the sovereignty of the King and his successors.

2. Not to trade with any other nation but the English.

3. Not to permit any but English to build forts or cabins or plant corn among them.

4. To apprehend and deliver runaway negroes.

5. To surrender any Indian killing an Englishman.[15]

_Treaty and purchase of 1755._--November 24, 1755, a further treaty was concluded between the Cherokees and Governor Glenn, of South Carolina. By its terms the former ceded to Great Britain a territory which included the limits of the modern districts of Abbeville, Edgefield, Laurens, Union, Spartanburg, Newberry, Chester, Fairfield, Richland, and York, and deeds of conveyance were drawn up and formally executed therefor.[16] This cession included a tract of country between the Broad and Catawba Rivers which was also claimed and generally conceded to belong to the Catawba Nation, the boundary line between the latter and the Cherokees being usually fixed as the Broad River.[17] One of the main objects of this treaty was to prevent an alliance between the Cherokees and the French.

_Treaty of 1756._--In the year 1756 Hugh Waddell was commissioned by the authorities of North Carolina to treat with the Cherokees and Catawbas. In pursuance of this authority he concluded a treaty of alliance with both nations.[18] Governor Glenn, also, in the same year erected a chain of military posts on the frontiers of his recent purchase. These consisted of Fort Prince George, on the Savannah, within gunshot of the Indian town of Keowee; Fort Moore, 170 miles farther down the river; and Fort London, on the south bank of Tennessee River, at the highest point of navigation, at the mouth of Tellico River.[19]

_Captain Jack's purchase._--A grant signed by Arthur Dobbs, governor of North Carolina, et al., and by The Little Carpenter, half king of the Over-Hill Cherokees, made to Capt. Patrick Jack, of Pennsylvania, is recorded in the register's office of Knox County, Tennessee. It purports to have been made at a council held at Tennessee River, March 1, 1757, consideration $400, and conveys to Captain Jack 15 miles square south of Tennessee River. The grant itself confirmatory of the purchase by Captain Jack is dated at a general council held at Catawba River, May 7, 1762.[20]

_Treaty of 1760._--The French finally succeeded in enlisting the active sympathy of the Cherokees in their war with Great Britain. Governor Littleton, of South Carolina, marched against the Indians and defeated them, after which, in 1760, he concluded a treaty of peace with them. By its terms they agreed to kill or imprison every Frenchman who should come into their country during the continuance of the war between France and Great Britain.[21]

_Treaty of 1761._--The hostile course of the Cherokees being still continued, the authorities of South Carolina in 1761 dispatched Colonel Grant with a force sufficient to overcome them. After destroying their crops and fifteen towns he compelled a truce, following which Lieutenant Governor Bull concluded a treaty with them at Ashley Ferry, or Charleston.[22] By this instrument the boundaries between the Indians and the settlements were declared to be the sources of the great rivers flowing into the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1767 the legislature of North Carolina made an appropriation and the governor appointed three commissioners for running a dividing-line between the western settlements of that province and the Cherokee hunting grounds.[23]

_Treaty and purchase of 1768._--Mr. Stuart, the British superintendent of Indian affairs, on the 14th of October, 1768, concluded a treaty with the Cherokees at Hard Labor, South Carolina. Therein it was agreed that the southwest boundary of Virginia should be a line "extending from the point where the northern line of North Carolina intersects the Cherokee hunting grounds about 36 miles east of Long Island in the Holston River; and thence extending in a direct course north by east to Chiswell's mine on the east bank of the Kenhawa River, and thence down that stream to its junction with the Ohio."[24]

This treaty was made in pursuance of appeals from the Indians to stop further encroachments of settlers upon their lands and to have their boundaries definitely fixed, especially in the region of the north fork of Holston River and the headwaters of the Kanawha.

_Treaty and purchase of 1770._--The settlements having encroached beyond the line fixed by the treaty of 1768, a new treaty was concluded on the 18th October, 1770, at Lochabar, South Carolina. A new boundary line was established by this treaty commencing on the south bank of Holston River six miles east of Long Island, and running thence to the mouth of the Great Kanawha.[25]

_Treaty and purchase of 1772._--The Virginia authorities in the early part of 1772 concluded a treaty with the Cherokees whereby a boundary line was fixed between them, which was to run west from White Top Mountain in latitude 36° 30'.[26] This boundary left those settlers on the Watauga River within the Indian limits, whereupon, as a measure of temporary relief, they leased for a period of eight years from the Indians in consideration of goods to the value of five or six thousand dollars all the country on the waters of the Watauga. Subsequently in 1775 [March 19] they secured a deed in fee simple therefor upon the further consideration of £2,000.[27] This deed was executed to Charles Robertson as the representative or trustee of the Watauga Settlers' Association, and embraced the following tract of country, viz: All that tract on the waters of the Watauga, Holston, and Great Canaway or New River, beginning on the south or southwest of Holston River six miles above Long Island in that river; thence a direct line in nearly a south course to the ridge dividing the waters of Watauga from the waters of Nonachuckeh and along the ridge in a southeasterly direction to the Blue Ridge or line dividing North Carolina from the Cherokee lands; thence along the Blue Ridge to the Virginia line and west along such line to the Holston River; thence down the Holston River to the beginning, including all the waters of the Watauga, part of the waters of the Holston, and the head branches of New River or Great Canaway, agreeable to the aforesaid boundaries.