HISTORIC OCONEE COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA Subject: Hopewell Treaty of 28-Nov-1785 With The Cherokee, Treaty of DeWit's Corner in 1777 & Treaty of Washington in 1816 Version 1.0, 7-Jan-2003, FCH-19.txt **************************************************************** REPRODUCING NOTICE: ------------------- These electronic pages may not be reproduced in any format for profit, or presentation by any other organization, or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. Paul M Kankula - nn8nn Seneca, SC, USA Oconee County SC GenWeb Coordinator Oconee County SC GenWeb Homestead http://www.rootsweb.com/~scoconee/oconee.html Oconee County SC GenWeb Tombstone Project http://www.rootsweb.com/~scoconee/cemeteries.html http://www.rootsweb.com/~cemetery/southcarolina/oconee.html Contributor: Frederick C. Holder, Box 444, Pickens, SC 29671 **************************************************************** DATAFILE INPUT . : Paul M. Kankula at kankula1@innova.net in Jan-2003 DATAFILE LAYOUT : Paul M. Kankula at kankula1@innova.net in Jan-2003 HISTORY WRITE-UP : Frederick C. Holder in 2003 HOPEWELL TREATY OF NOVEMBER 28/ 1785 WITH THE CHEROKEE (along with select information on the Treaty of DeWit's Corner in 1777 and the Treaty of Washington in 1816) The Hopewell Treaty is an important negotiation as regards the fledgling United States Government and Native Americans in the southeast. The treaty was concluded in late 1785 between the Cherokee. (Certain other southeastern Indian groups has signed related treaties by early 1786.) The physical location where the negotiations occurred was near the lodge of Andrew Pickens on the Seneca River. (Pickens was not then residing in the region, living instead in what is now Abbeville County.) Though the site itself is a part of American History, the treaties signed there really have very little to do with land boundaries in South Carolina - - other than restating the already existing line between South Carolina and the Cherokee established in 1777. A few pieces of contested territory in other states passed to the United States Government under the Hopewell Treaty with the Cherokee, just as a few pieces of territory claimed by other states were assigned to the Cherokee. None of these boundary alterations are relative to South Carolina. The South Carolina boundaries restated in the Hopewell Treaty with the Cherokee are discussed first, followed by mention of how a few area residents helped influence eventual Treaty negotiations. Article IV of the Hopewell Treat (discussing boundaries) and signed with the Cherokee reads in part: "The boundary allotted to the Cherokees for their hunting grounds, between the said Indians and the citizens of the United States, within the limits of the United States of America, is, and shall be the following: . . . thence south to the North-Carolina line; thence south to the South-Carolina Indian boundary, and along the same south-west over the top of the Oconee mountain til it shall strike Tugaloo river . . . ." This boundary line for South Carolina offered in the Treaty crossed the top of Oconee Mountain and then continued on to the Tugaloo River. It is NO DIFFERENT from a boundary between South Carolina and the Cherokee called for in the Treaty of DeWit's Corner of 1777 (concluded near present-day Due West, SC) and surveyed out in part or whole in the fall of 1777. This same line is merely restated in the Treaty of Hopewell in 1785 and in a later treaty with the Cherokee signed in 1791. Under the terms of the Treaty of DeWit's Corner (1777) and the subsequent survey (late 1777), as well as the various treaties where the South Carolina boundary established in 1777 was restated thereafter, a strip of land remained to the Cherokee in what is present-day South Carolina. That strip ran northeast from a point along the Tugaloo River through present-day Oconee County and the extreme northwestern portion of present-day Pickens county. Basically, the Cherokee retained the mountainous areas of present-day Oconee and part of the mountainous area of present-day Pickens County. In The Treaty of Washington of March 1816, the Cherokee sold this remaining strip of land in South Carolina for the sum of $5000. HOW AREA RESIDENTS HELPED INFLUENCE EVENTUAL TREATY NEGOTIATIONS Prior to the Hopewell Treaty with the Cherokee, considerable concern had been expressed about various whites encroaching upon the lands reserved to the Cherokee. Specific among a mention made by Andrew Pickens is the encroachments of Colonel Benjamin Cleveland and friends who resided near the Tugaloo River and not far distant from the line surveyed between South Carolina and the Cherokee in 1777. To prevent tensions escalating or confrontation, settlements and encroachments above the Indian boundary were banned. It was the many encroachments by whites, and their attempts to claim Native American lands, that caused the US Congress to early decide to establish Indian boundaries by treaty. (NOTE: for slightly more information on this topic, see pps. 323-24 of Chapman J. Milling's RED CAROLINIANS, republished by the University of South Carolina press in 1969 from the 1940 edition - - as well as select other works discussing Benjamin Cleveland and/or the Cherokee during the late 1700s)