Chapter 11 (cont.)
Less is known about the clothing of Cherokee women, although evidence indicates they were dressing like Europeans by the mid-1700's. Fancy traditional styles were still worn, however, by both sexes for ceremonies and dances, and both men and women also began wrapping themselves with blankets for warmth. To decorate their new fashions, the Cherokee traded for belts, buttons, brooches, bells, and even mirrors, which they sewed on the clothing.
Glass beads in white and black were worn as jewelry and used to adorn elaborate smoking pipes. The beads were also potent symbols to the Indians-white ones signified peace, black beads meant war. Knowing this, colonial officials sometimes sent white beads to the Indians to display good intentions.
The Indians eagerly sought European-made earbobs, but they also continued to make their own, using brass wire and other metals obtained in trade. Sometimes they twisted wires into bracelets or used wire and glass beads to make ornaments for hanging from their noses.
Their metal-working skill included converting gun barrels into drills, which they used in crafting jewelry. The Cherokee also learned to repair rifles, but many continued to use bows and arrows throughout the 1700's for several reasons. Arrows were silent, important to the sneak attacks they preferred, and the colonists restricted the number of guns traded to the Cherokee during war. Even so, there were always White traders willing to defy officials and provide weapons anytime for the right price, and to sell rum, for which some Indians had also acquired an almost irresistible taste.
Swapping with colonists for straight razors ended another Cherokee practice, hair plucking. Before, many of the men had removed all but a tuft of hair from their heads by plucking, while women, who wore their hair long, had plucked all other body hair, excluding their eyebrows.
The Indians didn't obtain everything through trade. They took some of the Whites' goods as spoils in attacks on the colonists, and acquired other items in peacetime thefts. Some Whites, of course, also stole goods from the Indians.
By the 1740's, the Cherokee owned many horses. They usually rode bareback because saddles and bridles were exorbitantly expensive, luxuries obtainable only by the chiefs and other elite. Generally, there tended to be little difference among most Indians in their personal wealth, but the leaders sometimes could afford more expensive goods such as better guns, silver jewelry, and wooden trunks.
While the clash of cultures altered Indian life, it also changed the Europeans. The colonists learned new farming, hunting, and fighting techniques, methods the Indians had demonstrated from long experience were best suited to the Eastern Woodlands. Some Europeans also copied Indian clothing and cooking, and picked up a hard-to-break habit from the Indians when they began to smoke tobacco.
The
Cherokee and British maintained good relations during the early 1750's.
The construction and garrisoning of Fort Prince George was welcomed
by both sides, with the British offering a good-will gesture by acceding
to a Cherokee demand that their burial mounds nearby be preserved. The
British agreed to erect a fence to protect the graveyard.
Workers, colonial and Indian, cooperatively built the fort, directed by Governor James Glen. The governor helped choose the site for the fort near the Cherokee town Keowee and worked diligently to smooth relations between the natives and the colonial settlers. The cordiality extended to the commander of Fort Prince George, who, at least once, gave the Keowee residents a barrel of rice and a barrel of bread.
Within a few years, however, relations soured. The Cherokee were displeased with the growing number of Europeans violating treaties by establishing farms on Cherokee land. This pattern was to escalate and continue, despite repeated promises that the Whites would go no farther than an agreed boundary. Too, White traders persisted as a sore point.
The Indians considered many of them liars and cheats, a view shared by many Whites of the era, although there were a few traders who were well respected by both groups. If the Cherokee grew to distrust Whites, the feeling was reciprocated by many colonists who viewed the Indians as savages. British officials were also losing some of their good will towards the Cherokee because of reports that the Indians were secretly dealing with French traders.
These smoldering hostilities eventually erupted into bloodshed in 1756 in a dispute over horses. Details are sketchy, but apparently the trouble started as a large group of Lower Cherokee men returned from helping Virginia colonists fight the French-backed Shawano Indians. According to one report, the Cherokee came upon some grazing, unattended horses, which they caught, and prepared to lead home. Suddenly, colonists appeared, claiming the animals as theirs and accusing the Indians of stealing. Shots were fired and several Whites were killed.
Learning of the incident, British authorities demanded that Cherokee leaders turn over all involved, which the Indians refused to do, despite British threats of retaliation. Matters worsened some time later when another incident occurred on a day when many of the Cherokee men had left the village to go hunting. In their absence, three young officers from Fort Prince George reportedly raped three Cherokee women in their homes. Further hostile episodes followed, with blood spilled on both sides, leading up to the British formally declaring war on the Cherokee in 1759.
Yet, some Indians
still desired peace. An Indian delegation of 31, including important
Cherokee 
leaders,
traveled to Charleston to confer with Governor William Henry Lyttleton,
who had replaced Glen in 1756. But the governor refused to see them,
and instead ordered them imprisoned. All 31 Indians were eventually
jailed at Fort Prince George in a room designed to hold only six people.
Their arrest on a mission of peace was the final insult, prompting outraged
Cherokee to surround the fort, placing it under siege. In February 1760,
the Indians somehow tricked the fort commander into stepping outside
the stockade where they shot him dead. The soldiers inside retaliated
by killing all their Cherokee captives.
Soon an army of some 1,000 British soldiers arrived and destroyed all Lower Cherokee villages, burning the houses and crops and sending survivors fleeing to the high mountains. They found shelter there among the Middle Cherokee.
The British army soon pursued them, however, only to be repelled at an Indian village called Echoee. The unsuccessful British were forced to retreat back to Fort Prince George. But another British army soon followed, and this time the soldiers triumphed in their mountain assault, destroying all Middle Cherokee villages. When peace was finally negotiated, the price the Indians paid was the surrender of more land, including additional parts of the Russell Reservoir area. Again, the colonists gave their word that in the future no more Indian property would be seized.
With
their victory, the British had pushed the colony's borders north to
include all of Abbeville County, South Carolina. The northern section
of the reservoir, in what is now Anderson County, South Carolina, still
belonged to the Cherokee. Across the Savannah River in Georgia, the
reservoir land remained in Indian hands because the colony of Georgia
was slower to be settled. James Edward Oglethorpe and the English colonists
he brought to Yamacraw Bluff to establish the city of Savannah didn't
arrive until 1733, 63 years after the first Charles Town settlers.
Architects for the growth of South Carolina sought to strengthen their hold on former Indian territory by enticing homesteaders inland with free land grants. Many resisted the offer. There were only 23 White families counted in all the backcountry in 1761, and only three of those lived within the Russell Reservoir land.
By 1763, there were reports in a newspaper that about 1,000 families had moved into the Long Canes Creek area, land the Cherokee forfeited in 1747. But J. W. Joseph, after examining information developed during the Russell investigations, concluded that the newspaper account exaggerated and that far fewer colonists had settled there.
Sparse White settlement was probably caused by fear of Indians, including the Creeks, who still claimed land just across the Savannah River in what would become Georgia. Events proved such fears justified. Cherokee or Creeks attacked in the early 1760's in a major assault on White settlers near Long Canes Creek, killing at least 20 people and sending other Whites fleeing to the coast. Among the dead were members of the Calhoun family.
Originally from Donegal, Ireland, the Calhouns first settled in western Virginia. Like a number of pioneers who moved once, twice, even three times or more looking for an ideal homesite, they left Virginia and in 1756 chose property in the Long Canes Creek area. Calhoun survivors of the Indian assault eventually returned to rebuild on another site in the area. They established a family presence that played a major role in the history of the Russell Reservoir area, the state of South Carolina, and the entire nation.
Indian and White relations in Georgia, meanwhile, were relatively placid and continued that way for some time, possibly because of the colony's slow growth and the Georgians' concerted good-will efforts to compete with the South Carolinians for Indian trade. Some Whites did move into the Indians' Georgia territory as early as the 1750's, but apparently provoked little hostility. The Creeks possibly became too preoccupied with their war against the Choctaws to the west in the 1760's and 1770's to give the White intruders much thought.
Why did colonists ignore treaty boundaries and live on Indian land? There were probably many reasons. The earliest arrivals in any area snared the richest farmland for themselves, and the settlers had covered many hard miles to find and obtain rich soil for their crops. Too, the settlers were a scrappy lot, often driven by a desire to live far apart from others and free of any government rules. Some paid dearly for their independence and isolation because when the Indians attacked, there was often no help around for miles.
The Georgia Indians soon lost more land through a series of treaties. Government officials forgave Indian debts with traders in exchange for their property, steadily pushing colonial borders north from the Augusta and Savannah region. In 1773 at the Indian Congress in Augusta, Georgia, the Creeks and Cherokee made one of their biggest land concessions. They signed away over 1.5 million acres-the so-called "New Purchase"-to the colony of Georgia. The land handed over to the colony included parts of what is now the Russell Reservoir region.
Acquiring Indian land through their indebtedness from trading with Whites was a deliberate plan first envisioned by Thomas Jefferson, who proposed placing trading posts close to the Indians expressly for that purpose. The scheme was disastrously effective against Indians, few of whom could resist the merchandise Whites had to offer, and who soon became dependent on the goods.
William Bartram, a noted writer and botanist from Philadelphia, attended the Indian Congress in Augusta, and described the proceedings:
".the negotiations continued undetermined many days; the merchants of Georgia demanding at least two millions of acres of land from the Indians, as a discharge of their debts, due, and of long standing.
"The Creeks, on the other hand, being a powerful and proud spirited people, their young warriors were unwilling to submit to so large a demand."
The warriors appeared impatient to wage war, according to Bartram, who wrote that the Indians were unwilling "to listen to reason and amicable terms."
"However, at length, the cool and deliberate counsels of the ancient venerable chiefs, enforced by liberal presents of suitable goods, were too powerful inducements for them any longer to resist, and finally prevailed."
Bartram, later accompanying surveyors marking Georgia's new borders resulting from the treaty, wrote his impressions as he went. Near the reservoir area, he found much to delight him:
".the land rises very sensibly, and the country being mountainous, our progress became daily more difficult and slow; yet the varied scenes of pyramidal hills, high forest, rich vales, serpentine rivers, and cataracts [waterfalls], fully compensated for our difficulties and delays."
An astute naturalist, Bartram observed that the country was already bereft of some animal species because of humans:
"The buffalo once so very numerous, is not at this day to be seen in this part of the country; there are but few elks, and those only in the Appalachian mountains."
But the continued presence of some creatures drew less favorable comment:
"The dreaded and formidable rattlesnake is yet too common, and a variety of other serpents abound. The alligator, a species of crocodile, abounds in the rivers and swamps, near the coast, but is not seen above Augusta. Bears, tigers, wolves, and wild cats are numerous enough.."
Bartram,
also a skilled illustrator, drew sketches of the flora and fauna he
saw; some of these efforts accompanied his published writing, and several
of his drawings are now displayed in the Exposition Center in Savannah.
A man of considerable religious faith, Bartram sometimes explored all
alone in the wilderness. He covered countless miles seeing Georgia,
South Carolina, Florida, and Alabama, and was readily accepted into
many Indian villages, where he characteristically
recorded
what he observed in great detail, providing succeeding generations with
some of the most thorough records of Indian lifestyles. Unlike many
others who preceded him, Bartram described the Indians realistically,
rather than in stereotypes, while the Indians had their own view of
this curious white man. They called him "Puc Puggy", The Flower Hunter.
Many readers of his time were influenced by Bartram's words; some were even encouraged to move into places he described. While occasionally his writing painted a picture of an almost frightening wilderness, at other times he described a land rich in potential for the motivated. He predicted the region would be excellent for growing corn, other grains, indigo, grapes, and sundry fruits, as well as for raising silkworms, and he foresaw that the many "delightful glittering streams of running water" would someday be ideal for powering mills to grind the grain. Although he was sometimes wrong in his visions for the future, Bartram captured the excitement many came to share about the country, and he left for the rest of us a chronicle of what it was once like.
Pioneers migrated to the reservoir territory by different routes. Some traveled by ship to Charleston or Savannah, then moved inland from there. Perhaps the biggest cluster of settlers arrived in 1764, when 200 French Protestants, called Huguenots, left Charleston to establish the inland town they named Abbeville, in honor of a town in their homeland.
But it was the Scots, English, and Scotch-Irish who first predominated, with a few Germans and Dutch in the mix. Many came from Northern colonies by way of the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road, a slow journey that took them across the Potomac River and into the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. From there, they continued south through Appalachian mountain passes, and into the Piedmont regions of South Carolina, heading for the village of Camden.
At Camden, just north of Columbia, the trail split in two. One route headed southwest to Augusta, the other towards the west and an Indian trading post called Ninety Six. The post took its name from its distance to the village of Keowee (and later Fort Prince George) along the Cherokee Path. Ninety Six was the jumping off point for those seeking to venture a bit farther into the frontier towards what was to become the Russell Reservoir. The post also proved significant in South Carolina's future as the base for the Ninety Six Militia, which fought the British army in many Revolutionary War battles, including the battle for control of the city of Savannah.
Trails that the Indians had blazed when they were the only people in the land were often followed by White traders, whose horses helped beat down the brush and make the routes more distinct. Later, the trails were widened to accommodate wagons. Because the paths often crossed rivers and streams at the easiest spots and followed valleys, the railroads later were often built alongside them. Ultimately, what began as narrow footpaths for the Indians became the arteries and veins of a major transportation network.
While there were certainly rugged loners among the initial colonists, many others were part of extended families of several generations that traveled and settled together. The kinship must have helped them endure the rigors and dangers of a primitive life when miles often separated them from other settlers. Vigilante rule was frequently the only law in the frontier where, besides potentially hostile Indians, the colonists sometimes had renegade Whites to fear as well.
The outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1775 reverberated through the South and heightened the dangers facing homesteaders. Everyone was now on guard. The Lower Cherokee had moved back to their traditional lands in the foothills of what would one day be South Carolina and Georgia and rebuilt some of their villages, but they were apparently weaker than before. A government report of the time explained that trading with them was no longer profitable. The report, however, advised continuing the trade because the Cherokee could still serve as a defensive screen between the colonists and the French and hostile western tribes.
But the Whites misjudged the strength of the Cherokee who were angrily losing even more land to the continuing flow of settlers debarking from the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road. The Indians saw the war between the British and the colonists as a chance to avenge themselves on the colonists, an attitude cheered by the British, who provided them with guns and supplies.
The
British fleet's attack on Charleston in June 1776 was the signal that
launched the Cherokee assault on settlements in Georgia, the Carolinas,
and Virginia. The Indians chose their targets randomly, indiscriminately
killing men, women, and children, those who were a party to the American
Revolution, and those who were loyal to the British.
A few Creeks joined the battle against Whites, but most other Southeastern
Indians stayed on the sidelines.
Reaction from the affected colonies was swift and deadly. All the colonies sent citizen armies to hunt down and kill every Cherokee they could find, including women and children. Burning villages and crops as a matter of course, the colonists, by the time they finished, left not a single Lower Cherokee town standing, and none would ever be rebuilt. Defeated, the Cherokee signed a peace treaty in 1777, with the now familiar proviso agreeing to concede forever still more of their territory. Now, all of the reservoir land was in the hands of the colonists. Many Cherokee turned their backs on the land of their ancestors and moved to Alabama, Tennessee, and northwest Georgia. In a relatively short time, they would be expelled again as more Whites poured in and took their land.
But for awhile, the Cherokee were able to exist under their own rule. They eventually created their own constitutional government, which they patterned after that of the United States. They established New Echota in north Georgia as their capital. Sequoyah, their leader, invented a syllabary of the Cherokee language, which helped many learn to read and write. Sequoyah also started a newspaper, The Cherokee Phoenix, which he published in Cherokee and English to convey important information and strengthen common ties. Many federal and state officials, however, including President Andrew Jackson, didn't accept the sovereignty of any Indian nation, and continued the pattern of seizing Indian land through whatever worked, a scheme repeated throughout the country.
There was little the Indians could do to stop the loss because they were outnumbered and outgunned, and Whites justified their actions with laws. In Georgia, for instance, state representatives drafted legislation in 1829 dissolving all Cherokee laws, leaving the Indians with no legal rights.
Steadily, more Cherokee left, heading west to Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas. But too many still remained on land Whites wanted, so mass exoduses were ordered by federal officials.
The worst such journey began in June, 1838, and involved some 18,000 Cherokee. Nearly 4,000 of them died before arriving at the end of what has become known as "The Trail of Tears." A few Indians eluded the round-up by hiding, and a group in the western North Carolina mountains managed to get permission to stay. But most Indians were banished from the Southeast, effectively ending the hold of a once proud people on millions of acres so that a new nation could advance.
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