* Part 2 in a series
In June of 1760, Col. Archibald Montgomery led a force of 1,600 Scotch and English to engage a force of Cherokees. He was defeated and retreated to Fort Prince George.
Following that battle in June of 1761, Col.cJames Grant assembled a force of 2,600 Scottish Highlanders against the Cherokees – about two miles from the previous battle of 1760 – and defeated the Cherokees.
On Nov. 5, 1763, the governments of North Carolina and South Carolina sent representatives to meet with 25 chiefs and 700 Cherokee warriors. After six days, a treaty was signed, called the Treaty of Perfect and Perpetual Peace and Friendship.
But the treaty was broken by the whites and in 1776, when Gen. Griffith Rutherford crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains with many soldiers and burned 36 Cherokee towns, killing many. Other forces from North Carolina and Tennessee joined the fight against the Cherokees, forcing them to retreat into the Great Smoky Mountains.
The Federal Government agreed to pay the Cherokees $5.6 million for their lands and to give them an interest in the territory west of the Mississippi River. This agreement was also broken by the whites.
In 1838, Gen. Winfield Scott and his soldiers began rounding up the Cherokees for removal. A small band of Cherokees – led by Tsali – evaded the soldiers by hiding in the woods. Eventually, they were allowed to stay after Tsali was captured and executed by the soldiers.
This remnant of the Cherokees was without land of their own until the 1860s. Colonel W.H. Thomas was commissioned to purchase land for a reservation. He purchased land in what are now Swain, Macon, Jackson and Graham counties.
In 1875, Thomas was declared insane and a court had to untangle his affairs as to what land was his and what were the Cherokees. It was decided by an agreement of the chiefs that Thomas’s land would be valued by a commission, and the Cherokees would be given title to so much as totaled the amount spent on their behalf. This was the Gibald Deed of 1883.
Bear in mind that this is from a history project I wrote in 1957 or 1958, which stated that at that time about 2,200 descendants of the once-powerful Cherokees dwell on the Qualla Boundary in Swain and Jackson counties, and other sections of tribal land.
Around 20,000 more reside in the west.
Marshall McClung is the historical columnist for The Graham Star. He can be reached via email, mcclungs@email.com.