Attakullakulla, “Little Carpenter,” was one of the most renowned Cherokee diplomats of the 18th century who had several ties to Abbeville. As a young man, Attakullakulla was one of a group of Cherokee leaders who traveled to England and met personally with the king to advocate for his people. Attakullakulla supported peace with the colonists and cooperation with their government, and became known as a great statesman, a “White,” or “Peace,” Chief to the Cherokees.

Prior to the Revolution, there was strife between the colonists and Great Britain, as well as among the Cherokees, as many saw the settlers in the backcountry as a threat. This strife led to bloody skirmishes and ill-will, which Attakullakulla tried to navigate. He traveled to Charleston to negotiate trade terms, befriending Alexander Cameron, whom he adopted as a son.

In 1770, Attakullakulla visited Alexander Cameron’s Lochaber Plantation in Abbeville and signed the Treaty of Lochaber there. After the Revolutionary War began, there was a split within the Cherokee Nation, with Attakullakulla preferring peace with the settlers, but his son Dragging Canoe supported the British, leading attacks on backcountry settlements.

In 1777, Attakullakulla came to Abbeville again as part of a delegation of 600 Cherokees, who tried to end the conflict by signing the Treaty of DeWitt’s Corner outside present-day Due West. This treaty gave almost all remaining Cherokee land in South Carolina to the settlers.

Born in 1738, Dragging Canoe was the son of renowned Cherokee leader Attakullakulla. As a child, he asked his father if he could accompany him on a war party, but his request was declined. The young boy hid in a canoe to try to follow his father, but when he was found, Attakullakulla told him if he could carry the canoe, he could come. The boy was able to drag the canoe alongside the men, earning him his name.

Leading up to the Revolution, Dragging Canoe became blood brothers with British Indian Agent Alexander Cameron, and both men ultimately supported the King against the colonists. Dragging Canoe saw the encroachment of the colonists onto the Cherokee hunting lands in Abbeville and surrounding areas as a threat to his people, and in 1775, when he was the chief of the Great Island Town, a treaty was proposed that would cede 20 million acres of land to the settlers. Dragging Canoe predicted that this would lead to the extinction of his people and refused to sign, saying “…you have bought a fair land, but you will find its settlement dark and bloody.”

During the Revolution and the Second Cherokee War, Dragging Canoe led military strikes against the backcountry, armed with British weapons. In 1782, he withdrew with his people into Tennessee, where they settled along the Chickamauga River and became known as the Chickamaugan Tribe.

Molly Cameron was a Cherokee woman, whose nation included Western South Carolina and the area that became Abbeville County, which was part of the tribe’s hunting grounds. Cherokee society was matrilineal, with women given positions of power, included in politics, and seen as the leader of the family.

Molly was an influential member of her tribe, and she met the Scottish Highlander Alexander Cameron when he came to negotiate with her people. She and Cameron married prior to the Revolutionary War, and she came with him to Abbeville, where they made a home at Lochaber Plantation with their children and served as de facto diplomats between the colonists and the Cherokees, with Molly delivering gifts from the King to tribal members of the Lower Towns to strengthen relationships.

Molly, as a woman with leadership abilities, was said to sit at the head of the Cameron table when they entertained residents and other indigenous peoples. Molly, and many other Cherokees, aligned themselves with King George and the British during the war. To them, the settlers had flagrantly disregarded treaties and boundary lines and taken over tribal land, and the British Army was defending the Cherokees’ rights and trying to enforce these treaties. The settlers, largely Patriots, represented a threat to the Cherokees’ way of life, and an alliance with the British meant protecting Cherokee land.

When these settlers turned on Alexander Cameron during the Revolution, Molly and her children were forced to leave Lochaber. After Cameron’s death in 1781, Molly married again and returned to the Cherokees.

Although her story is most closely tied to Tennessee, Nancy Ward, or Nanyehi, also had ties to Abbeville in the years surrounding the Revolution. One of her husbands was Brian Ward, a South Carolina trader who established the route in Abbeville that became known as Ward’s Road and which ran through Due West to the Savannah River.

Nancy was a member of the Wolf Clan, and was the niece of Attakullakulla. As a young woman, she fought in a battle between the Cherokees and the Creeks; because of the courage she had shown, she was made a Beloved Woman of the Cherokees, an important position both socially and politically.

The men of the tribe sought counsel from her on treaties and policies towards the settlers. Nancy Ward and Attakullakulla both counseled cooperation and peace between the two peoples, and when delegations of Cherokees and whites met, the settlers were taken aback to have a woman in a position of authority leading the discussions, just as Nancy and Attakullakulla were surprised to learn that the settlers did not allow women to participate in politics.

During the Revolution, Nancy’s family was divided when her cousin Dragging Canoe went to war against the Patriots, resulting in the destruction of many Cherokee towns in upstate South Carolina. Alexander Cameron sheltered in Chota, Nancy’s village, after he left Abbeville, and after the Revolution ended, Nancy Ward worked with Andrew Pickens to establish the Treaty of Hopewell in 1785, which promised peace between the new United States and the Cherokees.

This peace was short-lived, and Nancy Ward passed away before the Cherokees wrote a new constitution, which was designed to make Cherokee government more like that of the Americans to foster better relations. This document formally excluded Cherokee women from being a part of politics.

Oconostota was one of the skigagustas, or Warrior Chiefs, of the Cherokees in the years surrounding the Revolution. He was the cousin of Attakullakulla, Dragging Canoe, and Nancy Ward, and like them, he played a key role in the politics of the Cherokees.  Although he did not live in Abbeville, he had several connections to the area. While Attakullkulla was a White (peace) Chief, he was a Red (warrior) Chief, clashing with the British during the French and Indian War and even capturing a British fort before ultimately choosing to fight with them during the Revolution.

Despite his opposition to the settlers moving onto Cherokee land and his bitterness over losing tribal land in Western South Carolina, including Abbeville, he tried to maintain diplomatic relations, working with Alexander Cameron to enforce the boundaries laid out to protect Cherokee land, and interestingly, he was made a member of a Scottish Society in Charleston because of his connections to Cameron and John Stuart. 

He came to Abbeville in 1770 to negotiate and sign the Treaty of Lochaber and again in 1777 for the Treaty of DeWitt’s Corner in modern-day Due West. The devastation wrought on the Cherokees during the Revolution was difficult for him to overcome, and by the end of the war he was ready to negotiate with the colonists and make peace with them. The “Great Warrior of Chota” died in 1783.