34 MYTHS OF THE CHKRuKKE [eth.asn.I'J 



Steps were now tiikeii to secui'e pouce by iimugurating a satisfiu-toi'v 

 trade .system, for which purpose a large (iiiaiitity of .suitable goods 

 was pureha.sed at the pul)lic (expense of South ('aroiiiuu and a eorre- 

 spondingly large party was eljuipped for the initial tri]).' In 1721. 

 in order still more to systematize Indian afi'airs. Govei'uor Nicholson 

 of South Carolina invited the chiefs of the Cherokee to a conference, 

 at which thirty-seven towns were represented. A treaty was made 

 by which trading methods were regulated, a boundary line between 

 their teri'itory and the English settlements was agreed upon, and an 

 agent was appointed to superintend their atfairs. At the governor' .s 

 suggestion, one chief, called Wrosetasatow {{)' was formally connnis- 

 sioned as supreme head of the Nation, with authority to punish all 

 offen.ses, including nuu'der. and to represent all Cherokee claims to 

 the colonial government. Thus were the Cherokee reduced from their 

 former condition of a free people, ranging where their pleasure led. to 

 that of dependent vas.sals with bounds fixed by a colonial governor. 

 The negotiations were accompanied by a cession of land, the first in 

 the history of the tribe. In little more than a century thereafter they 

 had signed away their whole original territory.* 



The document of iTlti already quoted puts the strength of the Chero- 

 kee at that time at 2,870 warriors, but in this estimate the Lower 

 Cherokee seem not to have been included. In 1715. according to a 

 trade cen.sus compiled by Governor Johnson of South Carolina, the 

 tribe had thirty towns, with -1,000 warriors and a total population of 

 11,210.* Another census in 1721 gives them fifty-three towns with 

 3. 51(1 warriors and a total of 10.37!!.'' while the report of the board of 

 trade for the .same year gives them 8,soi» warriors," equivalent, by the 

 same proportion, to nearly 12.000 total. Adair, a good authority on 

 such inatter.s, estimates, about the year 1735. when the counti'v was 

 better known, that they had "", sixty-four towns and villages, populous 

 and full of (children." with more than 6,000 fighting men," equivalent 

 on the same liasis of computation to between 16,000 and 17.000 souls. 

 From what we know of them in later times, it is probable that this 

 last estimate is \'ery nearly correct. 



By this time the colonial government had become alarmed at the 

 advance of the French, who had made their tirst permanent establish- 

 ment in th(> Gulf states at Biloxi bay. Mississippi, in lt)99, and in 

 171+ had built Fort Toulouse, known to the English as "the fort at 



1 Journal of South Carolina Assembly, in North ("arolina Colonial Records, ii, pp. 22.V2'27, IS.S1;. 

 - For notic-e. see the glossary. 



^Hewat, South Carolina and Georgia, i. pp. 2',i7-2',is, ITT.s; Uoyee. Cherokee Nation, in Fifili .\nn. 

 Rep. Bureau o£ Ethnology, p. 144 ami map, l.s.ss. 

 ■iRoyee, op. cit., p. 142. 



'•rioeument of 1724. in Feriiow, Berthokl. Ohio Valley in Colonial Days, pp. 273-27.i: .\ll)any. 1890. 

 ' Report of Board of Trade. 1721, in North Carolina Colonial Records, n, p. 422, 1S.W. 

 ^.Vdair. James. American Indians, p. 227; London. 1775. 



