page_title: Cherokee history
section_title: 18th century history
hierarchical_section_title: Cherokee history / 18th century history
caption_attribution_description: English: The Three Cherokees. came over from the head of the River Savanna to London.From l to r: Outacite (Man-killer), Austenaco (Judd's friend), and Uschesees ye Great Hunter (Cunne Shote?)
context_page_description: Cherokee history is the written and oral lore, traditions, and historical record maintained by the living Cherokee people and their ancestors. In the 21st century, leaders of the Cherokee people define themselves as those persons enrolled in one of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes: The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, The Cherokee Nation, and The United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians. The first live predominantly in North Carolina; the latter two tribes are based in Oklahoma. The Cherokee people have extensive written records, including detailed genealogical records, preserved in the Cherokee language, the Cherokee syllabary, and in the English language.
context_section_description: In the 1660s, the Cherokee had given sanctuary to a band of Shawnee. But 50 years later, from 1710 to 1715, the Cherokee and Chickasaw, allied with the English, fought the Shawnee, who were allied with the French, and forced them to move north. The Cherokee were also allied with the English and the Yamasee, and Catawba in late 1712 and early 1713, against the Tuscarora in the Second Tuscarora War. Following their defeat, most of the Tuscarora, another Iroquoian-language tribe, migrated north to New York. By 1722 they had been accepted as the 6th Nation in the League of the Iroquois. 
  In the Southeast, the English and Cherokee began an alliance that remained strong for much of the 18th century. In January 1716, Cherokee warriors murdered a delegation of Muscogee Creek leaders who were visiting at Tugaloo, marking the Cherokee's entry into the Yamasee War. This ended in 1717 with peace treaties between South Carolina and the Creek. Hostility and sporadic raids between the Cherokee and Creek continued for decades. These raids came to a head at the Battle of Taliwa in 1755 (in present-day Ball Ground, Georgia),  resulting in the defeat of the Muscogee.
  In 1721, the Cherokee ceded lands to South Carolina. In 1730, at Nikwasi, Sir Alexander Cumming persuaded the Cherokee to crown Moytoy of Tellico as "Emperor." Moytoy agreed to recognize King George II of Great Britain as the Cherokee protector. Seven prominent Cherokee, including Attakullakulla, traveled with Cuming back to London, England. The Cherokee delegation signed the Treaty of Whitehall with the British. Moytoy's son, Amo-sgasite (Dreadful Water) attempted to succeed him as "Emperor" in 1741, but the Cherokee elected their own leader, Old Hop of Chota (sometimes spelled or recorded as Echota).
  Political power among the Cherokee remained decentralized, with towns acting autonomously. In 1735 the Cherokee were estimated to have sixty-four towns and villages and 6000 fighting men. A significant interaction between European and American peoples was embodied in the assimilation of Gottlieb Priber into Cherokee society, a German radical who advocated for a trans-tribal region-wide Indian confederation to oppose European colonization of Native land. In 1738 and 1739 smallpox epidemics broke out among the Cherokee, who had no natural immunity to the new infectious disease. It was endemic among English and European populations, who had been living (and dying) with the virus for centuries. Nearly half the Cherokee population died within a year. Many other —possibly hundreds —of Cherokee survivors committed suicide, due to the disfigurement of their skin from the disease.
  From 1753 to 1755, battles broke out between the Cherokee and Muscogee over disputed hunting grounds in North Georgia. The Cherokee were victorious in the Battle of Taliwa. British soldiers built forts in Cherokee country to confront the French during the years of the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years War in Europe. These included Fort Loudoun, along the Little Tennessee River near Chota, a major Cherokee town. 
  In 1756 the Cherokee fought alongside the British in the French and Indian War; however, serious misunderstandings between the two allies arose quickly, resulting in the 1760 Anglo-Cherokee War. In the  peace treaty ending the Seven Years War, Britain took over the North American territories of defeated France east of the Mississippi River. King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763 forbidding British settlements west of the Appalachian crest, attempting to afford some protection from colonial encroachment to the Cherokee and other tribes, but the prohibition proved difficult to enforce.
  In 1769–72, predominantly Virginian settlers squatting on Cherokee lands in Tennessee, formed the Watauga Association. In "Kentuckee", Daniel Boone and his party tried to create a settlement in what would become the Transylvania colony. Some Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware), Mingo, and Cherokee attacked a scouting and foraging party that included Boone's son. This sparked the beginn
caption: Three Cherokee diplomats in London, 1765
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