Editing Cherokee (section)

===18th century===
[[File:Indians NW of South Carolina.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|An annotated copy of a hand-painted [[Catawba people|Catawba]] [[deerskin]] map of the [[Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands|tribes]] between [[Charleston, South Carolina|Charleston]] (''left'') and [[Province of Virginia|Virginia]] (''right'') following the displacements of a century of [[Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas#Depopulation from disease|disease]] and [[Slavery among the indigenous peoples of the Americas|enslavement]] and the 1715–7 [[Yamasee War]]. The Cherokee are labelled as "Cherrikies".]] 
{{Further|Cherokee military history}}

The Cherokee gave sanctuary to a band of [[Shawnee]] in the 1660s. But from 1710 to 1715, the Cherokee and [[Chickasaw]] allied with the British, and fought the Shawnee, who were allied with French colonists, forcing the Shawnee to move northward.<ref>Vicki Rozema, ''Footsteps of the Cherokees'' (1995), p. 14.</ref>

The Cherokee fought with the [[Yamasee]], [[Catawba (tribe)|Catawba]], and British in late 1712 and early 1713 against the [[Tuscarora people|Tuscarora]] in the Second [[Tuscarora War]]. The Tuscarora War marked the beginning of a British-Cherokee relationship that, despite breaking down on occasion, remained strong for much of the 18th century. With the growth of the [[deerskin trade]], the Cherokee were considered valuable trading partners, since deer skins from the cooler country of their mountain hunting-grounds were of better quality than those supplied by the lowland coastal tribes, who were neighbors of the English colonists.

In January 1716, Cherokee murdered a delegation of [[Muscogee Creek]] leaders at the town of [[Tugaloo (Cherokee town)|Tugaloo]], marking their entry into the [[Yamasee War]]. It ended in 1717 with peace treaties between the colony of [[South Carolina]] and the Creek. Hostility and sporadic raids between the Cherokee and Creek continued for decades.<ref name="oatis">{{cite book |last=Oatis |first=Steven J. |title=A Colonial Complex: South Carolina's Frontiers in the Era of the Yamasee War, 1680–1730 |location=Lincoln |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |year=2004 |isbn=0-8032-3575-5 }}</ref>  These raids came to a head at the [[Battle of Taliwa]] in 1755, at present-day [[Ball Ground, Georgia]], with the defeat of the Muscogee.

In 1721, the Cherokee ceded lands in South Carolina. In 1730, at [[Nikwasi]], a Cherokee town and Mississippian culture site, a Scots adventurer, Sir [[Alexander Cuming]], crowned [[Moytoy of Tellico]] as "Emperor" of the Cherokee. Moytoy agreed to recognize King [[George II of Great Britain]] as the Cherokee protector. Cuming arranged to take seven prominent Cherokee, including ''[[Attakullakulla]]'', to [[London]], England. There the Cherokee delegation signed the [[Cherokee treaties|Treaty of Whitehall]] with the British. Moytoy's son, [[Amouskositte|Amo-sgasite]] (Dreadful Water), attempted to succeed him as "Emperor" in 1741, but the Cherokee elected their own leader, [[Conocotocko I|Conocotocko]] (Old Hop) of [[Chota (Cherokee town)|Chota]].<ref name=ecc>Brown, John P. [http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Chronicles/v016/v016p003.html "Eastern Cherokee Chiefs"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060211113950/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Chronicles/v016/v016p003.html |date=February 11, 2006 }}, ''Chronicles of Oklahoma'', Vol. 16, No. 1, March 1938. Retrieved September 21, 2009.</ref>

Political power among the Cherokee remained decentralized, and towns acted autonomously. In 1735, the Cherokee were said to have 64 towns and villages, with an estimated fighting force of 6,000 men.<ref>{{cite book |last=Adair |first=James |author-link=James Adair (historian)|title=The History of the American Indians |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=df5SAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP18 227] |publisher=Dilly |location=London|date=1775 |oclc=444695506}}</ref> In 1738 and 1739, [[smallpox]] epidemics broke out among the Cherokee, who had no natural immunity to the new infectious disease. Nearly half their population died within a year. Hundreds of other Cherokee committed [[suicide]] due to their losses and disfigurement from the disease.
[[File:Three Cherokee.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|After the [[Anglo-Cherokee War]], bitterness remained between the two groups. In 1765, [[Henry Timberlake]] took three Cherokee chiefs to London meet the Crown and help strengthen the newly declared peace.]]

British colonial officer [[Henry Timberlake]], born in Virginia, described the Cherokee people as he saw them in 1761:

{{blockquote|The Cherokees are of a middle stature, of an olive colour, tho' generally painted, and their skins stained with gun-powder, pricked into it in very pretty figures. The hair of their head is shaved, tho' many of the old people have it plucked out by the roots, except a patch on the hinder part of the head, about twice the bigness of a crown-piece, which is ornamented with beads, feathers, [[wampum]], stained deer hair, and such like baubles. The ears are slit and stretched to an enormous size, putting the person who undergoes the operation to incredible pain, being unable to lie on either side for nearly forty days. To remedy this, they generally slit but one at a time; so soon as the patient can bear it, they wound round with wire to expand them, and are adorned with silver pendants and rings, which they likewise wear at the nose. This custom does not belong originally to the Cherokees, but taken by them from the Shawnese, or other northern nations.

They that can afford it wear a collar of wampum, which are beads cut out of clam-shells, a silver breast-plate, and bracelets on their arms and wrists of the same metal, a bit of cloth over their private parts, a shirt of the English make, a sort of cloth-boots, and [[moccasins|mockasons]] ([[sic]]), which are shoes of a make peculiar to the Americans, ornamented with porcupine-quills; a large mantle or match-coat thrown over all complete their dress at home ...<ref name=Timberlake>{{cite web|last=Timberlake|first=Henry|title=Memoirs of Henry Timberlake|publisher=London|date=1765|pages=49–51 |url=https://archive.org/details/memoirsoflieuthe00intimb/page/n5/mode/2up}}</ref>}}

From 1753 to 1755, battles broke out between the Cherokee and Muscogee over disputed hunting grounds in [[North Georgia]]. The Cherokee were victorious in the [[Battle of Taliwa]]. British soldiers built forts in Cherokee country to defend against the French in the [[Seven Years' War]], which was fought across Europe and was called the [[French and Indian War]] on the North American front. These included [[Fort Loudoun (Tennessee)|Fort Loudoun]] near Chota on the Tennessee River in eastern Tennessee. Serious misunderstandings arose quickly between the two allies, resulting in the 1760 [[Anglo-Cherokee War]].<ref name="Rozema, pp. 17–23">Rozema, pp. 17–23.</ref>

King George III's [[Royal Proclamation of 1763]] forbade British settlements west of the Appalachian crest, as his government tried to afford some protection from colonial encroachment to the Cherokee and other tribes they depended on as allies. The Crown found the ruling difficult to enforce with colonists.<ref name="Rozema, pp. 17–23"/>

From 1771 to 1772, North Carolinian settlers squatted on Cherokee lands in Tennessee, forming the [[Watauga Association]].<ref>[http://www.northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/98/entry "Watauga Association"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091113232925/http://www.northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/98/entry/ |date=November 13, 2009 }}, ''North Carolina History Project.'' . Retrieved September 21, 2009.</ref> [[Daniel Boone]] and his party tried to settle in Kentucky, but the Shawnee, [[Lenape|Delaware]], [[Mingo]], and some Cherokee attacked a scouting and forage party that included Boone's son, James Boone, and [[William Russell (Virginia politician)|William Russell]]'s son, Henry, who were killed in the skirmish.<ref>{{cite book |last=Faragher |first=John Mack |author-link=John Mack Faragher |title=Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer |date=1992 |publisher=Holt |isbn=0-8050-1603-1 |location=New York |pages=93–4}}</ref>

In 1776, allied with the Shawnee led by [[Cornstalk (Shawnee leader)|Cornstalk]], Cherokee attacked settlers in South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina in the [[Cherokee–American wars#The Second Cherokee War|Second Cherokee War]]. [[Overhill Cherokee]] [[Nancy Ward]], [[Dragging Canoe]]'s cousin, warned settlers of impending attacks. Provincial militias retaliated, destroying more than 50 Cherokee towns. North Carolina militia in 1776 and 1780 invaded and destroyed the [[Overhill Cherokee|Overhill towns]] in what is now Tennessee. In 1777, surviving Cherokee town leaders signed treaties with the new states.

[[Dragging Canoe]] and his band settled along [[Chickamauga Creek]] near present-day [[Chattanooga, Tennessee]], where they established 11 new towns. [[Chickamauga Town]] was his headquarters and the colonists tended to call his entire band the [[Chickamauga Cherokee|Chickamauga]] to distinguish them from other Cherokee. From here he fought a [[Cherokee–American wars|guerrilla war]] against settlers, which lasted from 1776 to 1794. These are known informally as the Cherokee–American wars, but this is not a historian's term.

The first Treaty of [[Tellico Blockhouse]], signed November 7, 1794, finally brought peace between the Cherokee and Americans, who had achieved independence from the British Crown. In 1805, the Cherokee ceded their lands between the [[Cumberland River|Cumberland]] and [[Duck River (Tennessee)|Duck rivers]] (i.e. the [[Cumberland Plateau]]) to [[Tennessee]].

====Scots (and other Europeans) among the Cherokee in the 18th century====
The traders and British government agents dealing with the southern tribes in general, and the Cherokee in particular, were nearly all of Scottish ancestry, with many documented as being from the [[Scottish Highlands|Highlands]]. A few were Scotch-Irish, English, French, and German (see [[Scottish Indian trade]]). Many of these men married women from their host peoples and remained after the fighting had ended. Some of their [[mixed-race]] children, who were raised in Native American cultures, later became significant leaders among the [[Five Civilized Tribes]] of the [[Southeastern United States|Southeast]].<ref>Mooney, James. ''History, Myths, and Scared Formulas of the Cherokee'', p. 83. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1900).</ref>
[[File:Mather Brown - Portrait of Major John Norton as Mohawk Chief Teyoninhokarawen - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|left|''Portrait of Major [[John Norton (Mohawk chief)]] as Mohawk Chief Teyoninhokarawen'' by [[Mather Brown]], ca. 1805. [[Yale Center for British Art]] (his father was a Cherokee while John Norton adopted by the Mohawks)]]

Notable traders, agents, and refugee Tories among the Cherokee included [[John Stuart (loyalist)|John Stuart]], Henry Stuart, Alexander Cameron, John McDonald, John Joseph Vann (father of [[James Vann]]), Daniel Ross (father of [[John Ross (Cherokee chief)|John Ross]]), John Walker Sr., Mark Winthrop Battle, John McLemore (father of Bob), William Buchanan, John Watts (father of [[John Watts (Cherokee chief)|John Watts Jr.]]), [[Chisholm Tavern (Knoxville)|John D. Chisholm]], John Benge (father of [[Bob Benge]]), Thomas Brown, [[John Rogers (Cherokee chief)|John Rogers]] (Welsh), John Gunter (German, founder of Gunter's Landing), [[James Adair (historian)|James Adair]] (Irish), William Thorpe (English), and Peter Hildebrand (German), among many others. Some attained the honorary status of minor chiefs and/or members of significant delegations.

By contrast, a large portion of the settlers encroaching on the Native American territories were [[Scotch-Irish Americans|Scotch-Irish]], Irish from [[Ulster]] who were of Scottish descent and had been part of the [[Plantations of Ireland|plantation of Ulster]]. They also tended to support the Revolution. But in the back country, there were also Scotch-Irish who were Loyalists, such as [[Simon Girty]].