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Show MOONEY] AUGUSTA TREATY ADVANCE OF SETTLEMENTS 45 war was ended. From an estimated population of at least 5,000 warriors some years before, the Cherokee had now been reduced to about 2,300 men. 1 In the meantime a force of Virginians under Colonel Stephen had advanced as far as the Great island of the Holston- now Kingsport, Tennessee- where they were met by a large delegation of Cherokee, who sued for peace, which was concluded with them by Colonel Stephen on November 19,1761, independently of what was being done in South Carolina. On the urgent request of the chief that an officer might visit their people for a short time to cement the new friendship, Lieutenant Henry Timberlake, a young Virginian who had already distinguished himself in active service, volunteered to return with them to their towns, where he spent several months. He afterward conducted a delegation of chiefs to England, where, as they had come without authority from the Government, they met such an unpleasant reception that they returned disgusted. 2 On the conclusion of peace between England and France in 1763, by which the whole western territory was ceded to England, a great council was held at Augusta, which was attended by the chiefs and principal men of all the southern Indians, at which Captain John Stuart, superintendent for the southern tribes, together with the colonial governors of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, explained fully to the Indians the new condition of affairs, and a treaty of mutual peace and friendship was concluded on November 10 of that year. 8 Under several leaders, as Walker, Wallen, Smith, and Boon, the tide of emigration now surged across the mountains in spite of every effort to restrain it,* and the period between the end of the Cherokee war and the opening of the Revolution is principally notable for a number of treaty cessions by the Indians, each in fruitless endeavor to fix a permanent barrier between themselves and the advancing wave of white settlement. Chief among these was the famous Henderson purchase in 1775, which included the whole tract between the Kentucky and Cumberland rivers, embracing the greater part of the present state of Kentucky. By these treaties the Cherokee were shorn of practically all their ancient territorial claims north of the present Tennessee line and east of the Blue ridge and the Savannah, including much of their best hunting range; their home settlements were, however, left still in their possession. 5 1 Figures from Adair, American Indians, p. 227, 1775. When not otherwise noted this sketch of the Cherokee war of 1760- 61 is compiled chiefly from the contemporary dispatches in the Gentleman's Magazine, supplemented from Hewat's Historical account of South Carolina and Georgia, 1778; with additional details from Adair, American Indians; Ramsey. Tennessee; Royce, Cherokee Nation; North Carolina Colonial Records, v, documents and introduction; etc. * Timberlake, Memoirs, p. 9 et passim, 1765. ' Stevens, Georgia, n, pp. 26- 29,1859. * Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 65- 70, 1853. * Royce, Cherokee Nation, in Fifth Ann. Rep. Bur. of Ethnology, pp. 146- 149, 1888. |
