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“C” is for Cherokee War (1759-1761)

“C” is for Cherokee War (1759-1761). The Cherokee War was partly a local, southeastern phase of the French and Indian War and partly the result of the Cherokees’ long-held resentments against abuses by English settlers. The conflict began in Virginia in 1758 and spread southward. South Carolina’s governor negotiated a treaty, but it did not secure peace. He then requested British troops to assist in the war effort. An expedition of sixteen hundred British soldiers marched into the upcountry, burned a number of Cherokee towns, relieved the garrison at Fort Prince George, and returned to Charleston proclaiming the frontier pacified. It was not. A second expedition of more than 2,400 troops defeated Cherokee forces and systematically destroyed fifteen towns and fifteen thousand acres of crops. A treaty, negotiated in Charleston in 1761, ended the Cherokee War.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.