The first formal introduction of the Cherokees to the notice of the
people of that colony occurred in the year 1693,[7] when twenty
Cherokee chiefs visited Charleston, with proposals of friendship, and
at the same time solicited the assistance of the governor in their
operations against the Esau and Coosaw tribes, who had captured and
carried off a number of Cherokees.
The Savannah Indians, it seems, had also been engaged in incursions
against them, in the course of which they had captured a number of
Cherokees and sold them to the colonial authorities as slaves.
The delegation urgently solicited the governor's protection from the
further aggressions of these enemies and the return of their bondaged
countrymen. The desired protection was promised them, but as their
enslaved brethren had already been shipped to the West Indies and sold
into slavery there, it was impossible to return them.
The extreme eastern settlements of the Cherokees at this time were
within the limits of the present Chester and Fairfield districts, South
Carolina, which lie between the Catawba and Broad Rivers.[8]