Lyttelton's Treaty with the Cherokees 26 Dec 1759 - Part IV
The treaty stipulated on 26 Dec 1759, among other things, that 24 “murderers,” Cherokees accused of revenge killings of white settlers, would be delivered to Gov Lyttelton.
This treaty was just a way out for Lyttleton to declare success of his goal. it allowed him to end the mission. It allowed him to go home. He could not force his goal of obtaining those 24 murderers by going to war. His army was falling apart anyway from Disease of all kinds and desertion and supplies running out. And the Cherokees saw all this. This whole thing had a time limit. That was 1 Jan 1759. That's the date ordered by the South Carolina legislature for disbanding the army.
Royally appointed South Caroline Governor Lyttelton just turned 35 on 24 Dec 1759. He didn't know that London appointed him Governor of Jamaica on 14 Nov 1759. Packets and ships take about 6 weeks to cross from the colonies to London, but take 8 weeks from London to the Colonies, going against the Gulf Stream if not storms.
Lyttelton finally departs from Charles Town (today's Charlston SC) in March 1760 to take up his post as Governor of Jamaica.
But by then, the multiple attacks by Cherokees through January and February 1760 turned the people of Charles Town against Lyttelton for his miscalcuations and mistakes made in his expedition and in his ultimatums towards the Cherokees.
Virginia's Part
While this expedition was going on, Virginia was standing by, poising itself only for defense of its borders,. The VA Executive Council approved on 8 Dec 1759 moving to its own southern border some Virginia Regiment stationed in "Pittsburg". Virginia did honor on 12 Dec 1759 only one of Lyttelton's requests to hold off handing over the "presents" and supplies promised the Cherokees for helping Virginia in the Forbes Expediton in 1758. They expanded the original promise on 13 June 1759 to add special presents just for 2 Cherokee leaders. But for now all "presents" and supplies were sitting near Salisbury NC, near the Yadkin River of Daniel Boone country. More on the status of those "presents" and supplies in the section below.
The Treaty
These "Cherokee murderers" were the only result the Royally appointed Governor of South Carolina, Lyttelton wanted.
Lyttelton wouldn't agree to Little Carpenter's suggestion to what a previous Gov James Glenn had accepted. That solution offered was to have the Cherokees bring back French and enemy Indian scalps in lieu of the English they had killed over last several months. Little Carpenter handed over to Lyttelton 8 French scalps. Lyttelton did not accept it.
Lyttelton wouldn't agree to stop encroachment, destroying their hunting grounds.
Lyttelton wouldn't agree to policing White traders and White soldiers and officers raping Cherokee women.
The Cherokees could not turn in their own people to the English. They just could not. Those Cherokees were avenging previous wrongs done them by the Whites ever since their return from the Forbes Expedition in 1758.
The whites said the Cherokee were stealing their horses. The Cherokees at Fort Loudoun Winchester VA promised they would take what was promised them if they did not recieve "presents" for their help.
Quid pro Quo. This for that. A circle of insult, revenge and horror.
The signing of the Treaty was under duress.
While this treaty of December 26, 1759, triggered two years of hostilities that shook Carolina and Cherokee society, the campaign [Lyttelton's Expedition] was, on the surface, less eventful than the two expeditions that followed.
No shots were fired during the Lyttelton Expedition. However, the soldiers brought smallpox home with them to South Carolina. And the hostage-taken created a crisis of epic proportions, as revealed in Carolina in Crisis.
Image from a copy of “The Treaty of Peace and Friendship,” signed at Fort Prince George, December 26, 1759. Treaties with the Cherokees, 1759–1777, South Carolina Department of Archives and History, S131005.
VA's "presents" and supplies
On 12 Dec 1759 The Executive Council of Virginia met. They considered a letter from Lyttelton. Lyttelton stated if all goes well, then let the men guarding the supplies and gifts promised to the Cherokees to proceed and deliver those items to the Cherokee nation. Those supplies and gifts have been sitting in Salisbury NC.
His Honor also communicated a Letter from Governor Lyttelton , dated Charles - Town the 25th of Octor , promising , if Matters are brought to a successful Issue , in the Cherokee Nation , to take the first Opportunity of acquainting those who remain with the Goods at Salisbury therewith .
Source from House of Burgesses Journal
What became of those "promised" presents and supplies to the Cherokees?
Do not give the presents
21 Feb 1760
His Honor was pleased to communicate to the Board a Letter from Governor Lyttleton , dated Fort Prince George Decemr . 27th 1759 , transmitting a Copy of the Treaty which he concluded the Day before with the Cherokees - Also another Letter from him , dated Charles - Town Feby . 2d
informing that since the Treaty of Peace concluded with those Indians , they have renewed their Hostilities , and slain a considerable Number of his Majesty's Subjects trading in their Towns , and that he has strong grounds to apprehend they will very speedily make Incursions in that , and the neighbouring Provinces - inclosing a Copy of a Letter to him from Lieutenant Coytmore , dated Fort Prince George giving a
.particular Relation of the late Behaviour of the said Indians-in- treating his Honor to send a Reinforcement of Men and Provisions to Fort Loudoun as soon as possible, to secure that Post from falling into the Hands of the Indians-adding that he had dispatched an Express to Salisbury; in No. Carolina with a Letter to the Store keeper of the Indian-trading-Goods lodged there, belonging to this Prov- ince, a Copy of which was inclosed....
Not much left
17 Oct 1761
...Also a Letter from Colo. Stephen dated Fort Chiswell September the 7th informing he had received a Letter from Colo. Waddell directed to Colo. Byrd dated Salisbury; the 26th of August advising he had just arrived there with 374 Men and 52 Indians that he had not above 50 Stands of Arms for the whole, but would use his endeavours to collect a sufficient Number thro' the Province, and was ready to obey his Orders; that thereupon he had dispatched an Express to Colo....
Houlston and there act according to circumstances that he shall order all the Cherokees to leave the Camp , and never to return but with the certain News of a Peace , or with all the Chiefs of the Nation on their Way to Williamsburg to confirm it .
Compiled and researched Sept, Oct, Nov 2023, update 12/2/23, 12/3/23, 12/5/23, 12/6/2023, 12/30/2023
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Ben Franklin's travel times across the Atlantic
1 Jan 1759. That's the date ordered by the South Carolina legislature for disbanding the army.
Page 185 The Cherokee Frontier, Conflict and Survival 1740-1762, by David H Corkran, published by the University of Oklahoma Press 1962).
Lyttelton just turned 35 on 24 Dec 1759. He didn't know that London appointed him Governor of Jamaica on 14 Nov 1759. page 79 Carolina in Crisis: Cherokees, Colonists, and Slaves in the American .Southeast 1756-1763 By Daniel J. Tortora, published by the University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2015.
24 “murderers
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THE LYTTELTON EXPEDITION OF 1759: SOME THOUGHTS
While finishing my free e-book on South Carolina colonial governor William Henry Lyttelton, I found myself revisiting the French and Indian War in South Carolina by looking more closely at that colony’s ill-advised and ineffectual 1759 expedition against the Cherokee Indians. It was the first of three campaigns against the Cherokees during the French and Indian War. I wrote about it in chapter 4 in my book Carolina in Crisis.
Background to the “Lyttelton Expedition” After a series of Cherokee revenge killings on the southern frontier, Governor Lyttelton detained Cherokee diplomats who had come to Charleston (then Charles Town) to discuss their grievances.
Lyttelton raised an army consisting mainly of militiamen and marched the army (and the detainees) across South Carolina to Fort Prince George. The fort, opposite the Cherokee village of Keowee, was in use from 1753 to 1768, and is today under the waters of Lake Keowee. The governor forced a handful of Cherokee leaders to sign a treaty.
map from Alan Calmes, “The Lyttelton Expedition of 1759: Military Failures and Financial Successes,” South Carolina Historical Magazine 77, no. 1 (January 1976): 10–33. The treaty stipulated, among other things, that 22 Cherokees would be held at Fort Prince George until Cherokee “murderers,” accused of the revenge killings of white settlers, would be delivered up in their place.
While this treaty of December 26, 1759, triggered two years of hostilities that shook Carolina and Cherokee society, the campaign was, on the surface, less eventful than the two expeditions that followed.
No shots were fired during the expedition. However, the soldiers brought smallpox home with them to South Carolina. And the hostage-taken created a crisis of epic proportions, as revealed in Carolina in Crisis.
image from a copy of “The Treaty of Peace and Friendship,” signed at Fort Prince George, December 26, 1759. Treaties with the Cherokees, 1759–1777, South Carolina Department of Archives and History, S131005.
A Closer Look I reexamined the available muster rolls (South Carolina Department of Archives and History (SCDAH) in Columbia, and transcribed in Colonial Soldiers of the South); issues of the South Carolina Gazette newspaper; assembly and council journals; Soldiers and Uniforms by Fitzhugh McMaster; and Lyttelton’s papers (Clements Library, University of Michigan, and on microfilm at SCDAH), and here are some observations. . . . Future South Carolina Patriots Future patriots Christopher Gadsden and Francis Marion served with the “gentlemen volunteers.” William Moultrie was one of Lyttelton’s aides-de-camp. Militia officers included future revolutionaries Richard Richardson, George Gabriel Powell, and William “Danger” Thomson.
Disease and Desertion There were never more than 1,700 men in service at a time, 1,300 of them “fighting men” and the rest servants, slaves, and wagoneers. That number could have been much higher if not for disease and desertion. Measles, respiratory illnesses, intestinal illnesses, and eventually, smallpox, posed a grave danger to the troops’ health. These men, many of them the poorest of the poor, were under-supplied, averse to military discipline, and perhaps feared leaving their families alone. There are approximately 170 deserters listed by name in the available records. View fullsizeRichard Richardson Sr., ca. 1770. Private collection. Richardson died in 1780 and is buried in Rimini, SC. From the small militia detachments from Granville, Upper Berkeley, and Colleton counties, 20 men deserted. From Colonel John Chevillette’s Upper Berkeley County battalion, at least 23 men deserted. (Records are incomplete.) From Richard Richardson’s Upper Colleton County militia battalion, 27 men deserted. From George Gabriel Powell’s Upper Craven County militia battalion, roughly 100 men deserted, including 4 officers.
In Powell’s battalion, one company lost 18 of 28 men to desertion; another 9 of 40; a third 10 of 72. Captain John Hitchcock was one of 16 men in his 24-man company who deserted. The unpublished assembly journals of 1761 reveal that he paid a £300 fine by liquidating his assets and selling his boat and five enslaved people. He unsuccessfully petitioned the assembly to overturn his fine. Indians and Free Black Men
The expedition included 8 Catawbas and, for a time, 27 Savannah River Chickasaws. The latter were recruited and led by Ulrich Tobler, a Swiss man from New Windsor Township. “Indian Tom” and “Indian Charles” were with the Granville County militia detachment commanded by Captain John McPherson. A notation next to their names says “Port Royal.” Free men of color were eligible to serve in the colonial militia. Several of them served in the Lyttelton expedition: teenager James Ashworth, in Captain James Leslie’s company, Colonel Richardson’s battalion; future frontier outlaw Winslow Driggers, in Captain Alexander McIntosh’s company, Colonel Powell’s battalion; John Graves, with Driggers in McIntosh’s company, Powell’s battalion; and Thomas Chevas, a deserter from Capt. John Hitchock’s company, Powell’s battalion. The assembly journals (October 4, 1759) reveal that these soldiers of color would have made 7 shillings per day, South Carolina currency. The typical white militiaman made 8 shillings per day. Soldiers with skills as carpenters, wheelwrights, blacksmiths, gunsmiths, or harness-makers earned additional pay.
Who Else Accompanied Lyttelton’s Army? Lyttelton’s army included slaves, and servants to clear the road and take care of the horses and wagoneers. There were “hunters,” “butchers,” and men gathering wood and water. There were at least 5 drummers. Four men were hired to drive two 3-pound iron field pieces and two 4-pounders. Several dozen Cherokee detainees with the army—led by Oconostota of Chota, the highest-ranking Cherokee warrior—were under armed guard.
Sixty colonists from Rocky-River and twenty-five from Long Canes also joined the expedition. The rector at St. Bartholomew’s Parish, Rev. Robert Baron, was in Captain Samuel Elliott’s Colleton County militia detachment. Future revolutionary Andrew Pickens does not appear on any muster rolls and apparently did not serve in the expedition. Stay tuned for more insights from the archives and more articles on colonial South Carolina! Thanks for reading, –Daniel
GET THE FREE E-BOOK ON SC GOVERNOR LYTTELTON P.S. If you’re looking for names of the South Carolina militiamen who were part of this expedition, you can find those in Murtie June Clark, Colonial Soldiers of the South, 1732–1774 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Col., Inc., 1986). Clark transcribed the original pay rolls and muster rolls in the South Carolina Department of Archives and History in Columbia. I think these are also in the Early State Records microfilm (available at the Library of Congress, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and CRL Libraries). Many of the men in Lyttelton’s retinue are only mentioned in the South Carolina Gazette, the assembly journals or council journals, or the William Lyttelton Papers at the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan (microfilm copy, South Carolina Department of Archives and History). A list of the gentleman volunteers under Christopher Gadsden has been printed in The Writings of Christopher Gadsden, edited by Richard Walsh (Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press, 1966), 12–13, but it is a poor transcription. The original is in the William Lyttelton Papers, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, box 12 (microfilm copy, South Carolina Department of Archives and History). I have never seen the names for the Catawbas and Chickasaws who were, for some time, with the army.
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