When the confederacy of the tribes of the upper country was effected, and the Yamassees lifted the hatchet against the white people,1715 Governor Craven, who had promptly sent aid to the people of the northern provinces, as promptly met the danger at his own door. So secretly had the confederation been formed, and their plans matured, that the first blow was struck, and almost a hundred people were slain, ** before the Carolinians were aware of danger. The Yamassees, the Muscoghees or Creeks, and Apalachians, advanced along the southern frontier, spreading desolation in their track. The Cherokees, the Catawbas, and the Congarees joined them, and the Corees, and some of the Tuscaroras, also went out upon the war-path. Almost a thousand warriors issued from the Neuse region, while those of the southern division amounted to more than six thousand. Within forty days, the Indian tribes from the Cape Fear to the St. Mary's, and westward to the Alabama, were banded together for the destruction of the colony at Ashley River.
Governor Craven, whose character was the reverse of his name, acted with the utmost energy when the confederation and its purposes were made known. He immediately proclaimed martial law; laid an embargo on all ships to prevent men or provisions from leaving the colony, and seizing arms wherever they could be found, placed them in the hands of faithful negroes, to co-operate with the white people. With twelve hundred men, white and black, he marched to confront the Indians, now approaching with the knife, hatchet, and torch, in dreadful activity. In the first encounters of his advanced parties with the enemy the Indians were victors, but Craven finally compelled them to fall back to their chief camp upon the Salk-hatchie, *** whither the governor pursued them. Desperate were the conflicts which ensued, and for a while the victory was doubtful. The fate of the whole colony was suspended upon the result, and the Carolinians contended with all the energy of men fighting for life, home, and family. The Indians were repulsed, and, hotly pursued by the white people and their black aids, they were driven across the Savannah and sought shelter under the guns of the Spanish fortress at St. Augustine. No longer useful to them, the Spaniards drove their savage allies into the wilderness, and fearing to return to their hunting-grounds north of the Savannah, the Indians set up their wigwams among the everglades of Florida, and became, it is believed, the ancestors of the powerful Seminoles of our day.
When the division of the Carolinas occurred,1729and the southern portion became a
* Bancroft, iii., 246.
* This massacre was at Pocotaligo, an old village in the parish of Prince William, in Beaufort District. It then contained about three hundred inhabitants. There stood Fort Balfour, which was captured, during the Revolution, by a few Americans under Colonel Harden.
*** This is the name of the south fork of the Combahee River, which empties into St. Helena Sound. The place of the encampment was near Barnwell, the capital of Barnwell District.
Embassy to the Indians.—Erection of Forts.—War with the Cherokees.—Small pox at Charleston.
royal province, the first care of the administration was to secure the friendship of the neighboring tribes. In 1730, an embassy under Sir Alexander Cumming, visited and explored the Cherokee country, three hundred miles from Charleston. They made a favorable impression, secured advantageous treaties, and laid, as they hoped, the foundation of a permanent peace. For twenty years the treaty remained unbroken. In 1755, the Cherokees renewed their treaty with the Carolinians, and at the same time made cessions to them of large tracts of land. Upon this ceded territory, stretching along the Savannah to the Tennessee River, Glenn, then governor of South Carolina, built forts, and named them respectively Prince George, * Moore, and Loudon. The first was upon the Savannah, three hundred miles from Charleston; the second was about one hundred and seventy miles below; and the latter was upon the waters of the Tennessee River, five hundred miles from Charleston. These forts were garrisoned by troops from Great Britain, and, promising security, settlements rapidly extended in that direction. They served to awe the Indian nations, and peace might have been always secured, had the white people exercised ordinary prudence. But one rash act scattered the power of treaties to the wind, and lighted the flames of war along the Carolina frontier.
In 1757, during the administration of Governor Lyttleton (afterward Lord Wescott), while a large party of the Cherokees, who had been assisting the English against the French on the Ohio, were returning home, they took possession of some horses from the back settlers of Virginia. The white people pursued them, killed a number of warriors, and took several captive. This violence exasperated the Indians, and they retaliated by scalping every white man whom they met. Parties of young warriors fell upon the border settlements of the Carolinas, and war was kindled along the whole frontier. Lyttleton called the Carolinians to arms. The Cherokee chiefs were alarmed, and sent a deputation to Charleston to appease the wrath of the English. Lasting friendship might have been at once secured had not Lyttleton indiscreetly refused to listen. He collected fourteen hundred men upon the Congaree, conducted the Cherokee delegation thither, under guard, and, extorting a pledge of peace and alliance, he returned to Charleston, after sending to Fort George twenty-two hostages, whom he had demanded for the delivery of the warriors who had desolated the border settlements. The Cherokees were very indignant, and the governor had scarcely reached his capital, when he received intelligence that fourteen white people had been murdered within a mile of Fort George. Soon the Cherokees surrounded that fortress, led on by Occonastota, a chief of great influence, and the implacable enemy of the English. Perceiving the power of his arms to be vain, he had recourse to stratagem. Withdrawing his warriors, he spread them in ambush, and while conferring with the commander of the garrison and two other officers, whom he had decoyed to the margin of a stream by expressions of friendship, he gave a signal, and instantly they were surrounded by armed savages. The commander was slain, and the other two were wounded and made prisoners. The garrison proceeded to put the hostages in irons. They made a deadly resistance, and were all slain. This event maddened the whole Indian nation, and, with gleaming hatchets, they swept along the Carolina frontier like the scythe of Death. Men, women, and children were butchered without mercy; and the war-belt was sent to the Catawbas and other tribes, inviting them to confederate for the extermination of the English.
About this time, Charleston was severely scourged by the small-pox, and was too weak to send efficient succor to the frontiers. Lyttleton had been appointed governor of Jamaica, and, sailing for that island about this time, was succeeded by William Bull, a native Carolinian. Bull sent to Virginia and North Carolina for aid, and those states furnished seven troops of rangers for the service. These, with the British regulars under Colonel Montgomery (afterward Earl of Eglinton), sent from Canada by General Amherst, marched into the