A Tale of Three Treaties

Treaties between colonial governments and Natives often led to more problems then they solved.  There were several reasons for this, including the fact that these vast tracts of land were almost impossible to survey with precision, there was always self-dealing behind the scenes, and tribes with rights to specific hunting ranges were often overlooked.  The Royal Proclamation of 1763, issued by George III's ministers in London with the intent to placate Native tribes after the Seven Years War (1755-1763), caused total chaos on the ground.

The Royal Proclamation forbade settlement beyond an imaginary line drawn along the Appalachian Mountain chain.  The rule of thumb to differentiate open land from land off limits sounded simple enough.  Settlement was permitted along those rivers which flowed into Atlantic.  It was forbidden along Rivers which flowed into the Mississippi.  This put the Ohio River Valley and Tennessee off limits to White settlement.  The King's government reckoned without the rampant land speculation which took place during and after the war.  Wealthy landowners such as Sir William Johnson and George Washington had already staked claims to lands in the Ohio Valley.  Veterans of the War in most of the states had been promised land grants of seized French land as inducement to fight.  The Royal Proclamation threw a sprig in all these schemes and something had to be done. 

That something was the Treaty of Hard Labor signed between the Cherokee and John Stuart, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the British Indian Department in the South.  Why this Treaty received its colorful name is not known today, except that it took all of Stuart's trust with the Cherokee and personal diplomacy to get it agreed to.   The Cherokee agreed to give up claims to property west of the Allegheny Mountains and east of the Ohio River, namely all of present-day West Virginia.  The line drawn ran from the junction of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers, to the headwaters of the Kanawha, then south to the boundary of Spanish Florida, well beyond the Proclamation line.  Johnson signed the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in November, 1768 with the Iroquois, moving the Proclamation boundary west 300 miles.  

There were immediate problems.  For one, neither Stuart nor Johnson had reckoned with the Shawnee, Creek, or other Native tribes who also felt they had range rights in this land.  Further, the boundary lines did not jive.  Stuart called a parley with Cherokee leaders at Lochaber Plantation near Ninety-Six, South Carolina to redraw the lines again.  The treaty line in the south was moved to six miles east of Long Island of the Holston River.  The south fork of the Holston was agreed as the boundary.  However, the generic designation of north or south of the Holston River caused immediate confusion as Settlers poured into the Holston, Nolichucky and Watauga River valleys of Tennessee, quickly lapping over into Cherokee territory.  A survey confirmed that the boundaries lines of the Treaty of Lochaber were still not correct and settlers beyond the redrawn boundary were ordered to leave. 

At this point, the Settlers decided to circumvent the crown, the Cherokee who were actually living on the contested ground, and land speculators in the east.  They formed the Watauga Association and leased, later purchased the land from Cherokee leaders.  In doing so, they reckoned without the Chickamauga Cherokee, who were not willing to cede any of their land.  The Settlers also had another reason for grievance with the British crown, which refused to approve their purchase or defend them against Native attacks.  On the frontier, the Revolution wasn't about taxation without representation.  It was about land rights, pure and simple. 

Indian Agent: John Stuart

In the various colonial land wars that engulfed North America (including the American Revolution), we've seen various governments work with (some would say exploit or use), Native auxiliaries.  They did so through the work of skilled Agents on the ground.  Sir William Johnson for Great Britain or Benjamin Hawkins for the United States are two examples.  Today, we're looking at Johnson's colleague and counterpart, John Stuart, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the British Indian Department in the Southern Colonies (and secret agent of Spain, but we'll get to that).

John Stuart (1718-1779) was born in Inverness, Scotland, but by 1748 he had immigrated to South Carolina intent on becoming a successful trader, merchant and businessman.  He served as a militia captain in the Anglo-Cherokee War (1759-1761) and became prominent in local affairs, well known as a King's man (read Loyalist).  During that war, he was captured by Attakullakulla, whom we've met, and later ransomed back to South Carolina.  Throughout his merchant and trading business, and through this close encounter with Natives, he became familiar with and developed a respect for the Cherokee, which they reciprocated.  He was appointed in 1761 as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, opposite Johnson in the North.  Though his personal focus was on the Cherokee, his mission was to the Five Southeastern Tribes and the other tribes and bands in the South, mainly to prevent any confederations such as the one that gave rise to King Phillip's War.  Stuart was lucky in that his deputy, playing a role similar to that of George Croghan up North, was a fellow Scot named Alexander Cameron, whom the Natives nicknamed Scotchie and trusted even more than they did Stuart.

Stuart and Cameron played their parts well, keeping most of the southern tribes out of King Phillip's War and rallying the southern tribes to the British as the Revolution broke out.  As Johnson had done during the Seven Years War, Stuart would lead Loyalist units and Native auxiliaries during the Cherokee-American War adjunct to the Revolution.  As Patriots made gains in the South and on the frontier, Stuart fled to Pensacola, trying his best to direct Indian Affairs in the south from afar and also liaising with officials in Spanish Florida.  Spain was playing a double game during the Revolution.  Allied with the Patriots on paper to stave off war with the French, Spain was also trying to preserve its Florida possessions from incursions by the British, who'd already taken over Florida once, or from the Americans.  Both Stuart and Alexander McGillivray, leader of the Muscogee/Creeks, were on the Spanish payroll.  Stuart died in 1779 of unknown causes.  He did not live to see Britain lose its most lucrative colonies, or the ruthless raids against the Cherokee that characterized the later half of that frontier war.  His son, born in Georgia, became a famous British general during the Napoleonic Wars.  John Stuart's home in Charleston is now a National Historic Landmark.