We next find an allusion to the Cherokees in the annals of Louisiana by
M. Pericaut, who mentions in his chronicle of the events of the year
1702, that "ten leagues from the mouth of this river [Ohio] another
falls into it called Kasquinempas [Tennessee]. It takes its source from
the neighborhood of the Carolinas and passes through the village of the
Cherokees, a populous nation that number some fifty thousand warriors,"
another example of the enormous overestimates of aboriginal population
to which the earlier travelers and writers were so prone.
Again, in 1708, the same author relates that "about this time two
Mobilians who had married in the Alibamon nation, and who lived among
them with their families, discovered that that nation was inimical to
the Mobilians as well as the French, and had made a league with the
Cheraquis, the Abeikas, and the Conchaques to wage war against the
French and Mobilians and burn their villages around our fort."
On various early maps of North America, and particularly those of De
L'Isle, between the years 1700 and 1712, will be found indicated upon
the extreme headwaters of the Holston and Clinch Rivers, "gros villages
des Cheraqui." These villages correspond in location with the great
nation alluded to in the narrative of Sir William Berkeley's expedition.
Upon the same maps will be found designated the sites of sundry other
Cherokee villages, several of which are on the extreme headwaters of
the "R. des Chaouanons." This river, although indicated on the map
as emptying into the Atlantic Ocean to the west of the Santee, from
its relation to the other streams in that vicinity, is believed to be
intended for the Broad River, which is a principal northwest branch of
the Santee. Other towns will also be found on the banks of the Upper
Catawba, and they are, as well, quite numerous along the headwaters of
the "R. des Caouilas" or Savannah and of the Little Tennessee.
Mention is again found of the Cherokees in the year 1712, when 218
of them accompanied Colonel Barnwell in his expedition against the
hostile Tuscaroras and aided in the subjugation of that savage tribe,
though along the route of Barnwell's march the settlers were very
nearly persuaded that they suffered greater damage to property from
the freebooting propensities of their Indian allies than from the open
hostilities of their savage enemies.
The old colonial records of South Carolina also contain mention in the
following year (1713) of the fact that Peter St. Julien was arraigned
on the charge of holding two Cherokee women in slavery.[9]
In 1715 the Yamassees, a powerful and hitherto friendly tribe,
occupying the southwesterly portion of the colony of South Carolina and
extending to and beyond the Savannah River, declared open hostilities
against the settlers. In the desperate struggle that ensued, we find
in full alliance with them the Cherokees, as well as the Creeks and
Appalachians.
In his historical journal of the establishment of the French in
Louisiana, Bernard de la Harpe states that "in January, 1716, some
of the Cheraquis Indians, who lived northeast of Mobile, killed MM.
de Ramsay and de Longueil. Some time after, the father of the latter
gentleman, the King's lieutenant in Canada, engaged the Iroquois to
surprise this tribe. They sacked two of their villages and obliged the
rest to retreat towards New England."