Show This article is from the Encyclopedia of North Carolina edited by William S. Powell. Copyright © 2006 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher. At the time the war broke out, South Carolina could produce fewer than 1,500 men capable of bearing arms, so South Carolina governor Charles Craven appealed to North Carolina and Virginia for assistance. Virginia sent guns, and North Carolina sent a force of 100 white men and a company of Tuscarora Indians under the command of Cols. Maurice Moore and Theophilus Hastings. Hastings took about half of the men south by boat, while Moore marched overland with the rest to join forces with Governor Craven. On his march south, Moore learned that the Waccamaw and Cape Fear Indians were planning an ambush. With a force of 60 whites and 60 Indians, Moore marched directly into the Indian towns, seizing a large quantity of ammunition and arms and capturing and enslaved 80 American Indian people. Craven's plan to join Moore in a campaign against the Saura (Cheraw) was thwarted because he was forced to turn back and protect Charles Towne against an Indian attack from the south. Initially, the Cherokee remained neutral during the Yamassee War despite efforts by both sides to gain their support. But when Moore led an army of 300 men into Cherokee country to conduct negotiations on behalf of South Carolina, his mission was successful and marked the turning point in the war. By the spring of 1716, most of the Yamassee had settled in Florida. Other Indian tribes, including the Catawba and the Santee, made peace by fall. Subsequently, the Catawba turned on their former allies, killing many of the Waxhaw and Waccamaw Indians and scattering or enslaving the rest. Encyclopedia of North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press. 1 January 2006 | Williams, Wiley J. Despite its name, the Yamassee War also involved the Cherokees, Creeks, and Choctaws in a far-ranging rebellion from the Savannah River to Charleston. The Yamassee War was a major eighteenth-century conflict between the colony of Carolina and its trade partners the Yamassees. Based along the Savannah River, this tribe had established strong trade ties with Carolina, at first exchanging deerskins for trade items. As commercial hunters, however, the Yamassees and other tribes heavily depleted their deer supplies. Consequently, the Yamassees began raiding Florida tribes, such as the Apalachees, and trading those they kidnapped as slaves to Carolina merchants. Unscrupulous traders overextended credit to tribes such as the Yamassees, hoping to force land concessions from them when they could not pay their trade bills. In 1707 the South Carolina government created the Board of Indian Commissioners to regulate trade and enforce fair trade practices. The board, however, and its Indian agent Thomas Nairne had little success in reining in the traders. The Yamassee trade debt continued to increase and eventually required at least two years’ labor from every adult male Yamassee. The Yamassees were further angered by the intrusion of white settlers onto their lands. In spring 1715 Charleston heard rumors of an uprising by the Yamassees. On April 14, 1715, William Bray, Samuel Warner, and Nairne met at Pocotaligo Town, southwest of modern Charleston, in an attempt to defuse the violence. Having exhausted their deer and slave supplies, the Yamassees decided to resolve their trade debt by killing their creditors and attacking white settlements along Carolina’s southern frontier on Good Friday, April 15, 1715. Intending to kill not only their traders and creditors but most Euro-Americans in their area, they immediately killed Bray and Warner. Nairne died after several days of ritual torture. The Yamassees then struck against plantations near the coast. Despite its name, the Yamassee War also involved the Cherokees, Creeks, and Choctaws in a far-ranging rebellion from the Savannah River to Charleston. Just as Nairne was put to death, other ally tribes, such as the Creeks, Choctaws, Apalachees, Saraws, Santees, and Waccamaws, also executed their traders, ninety percent of whom were killed by June 1715. Initial Yamassee attacks along plantations near Port Royal killed one hundred colonists. Some three hundred lucky planter families boarded a ship seized for smuggling and made their escape while the Yamassees attacked their farms and killed their livestock. White inhabitants fled the countryside for the relative safety of Charleston. There colonists struggled to achieve a defense perimeter around the city. Charles Craven, the governor, utilized all white males and even armed black slaves for the colony’s defense. Surrounding southern colonies sent little or no assistance, although Massachusetts did send weapons to South Carolina. Rumors swirled around the city that either the Spanish or the French had encouraged the uprising. The turning point in the conflict came at the battles of Port Royal and Salkehatchie, where the Yamassees were defeated and driven south of the Savannah River. The Yamassee allies, however, remained a potent force. One historian described this alliance as the greatest in colonial American history because it could have destroyed the Carolinas and Virginia. The alliance continued to attack Carolina settlements until 1716, when the Carolinians managed to convince the Lower Cherokees to side with them against the Creeks, launching a deadly war between these two groups that continued for the next forty years. The worst of the Yamassee War was over by April 1716, and South Carolina officials finally brought the conflict to a close by 1718. The damage inflicted by the war was tremendous. The former prosperity of the trade in deerskins was not reached again until 1722. Carolina farmers had been driven from half the cultivated land in the colony. Approximately four hundred settlers had been killed, and property damage stood at £236,000 sterling. Military costs to defend the colony rested at £116,000 sterling, more than three times the combined value of all exports. No English colony came as close to eradication by a native population as South Carolina did during the Yamassee War. As a result of this trade-based war, South Carolina government assumed a direct monopoly over the Indian trade in 1716, replacing private Indian traders with government agents charged with obeying stringent new trade guidelines. A company of rangers was created to patrol the backcountry, and scout boats regularly sailed along the southern coastline of South Carolina. The failure of the Lords Proprietors to assist the colony in this time of crisis further added to the dissatisfaction with them and helped to hasten the demise of the proprietary regime in 1719. Crane, Verner. The Southern Frontier. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1928. Edgar, Walter. South Carolina: A History. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998. Hudson, Charles. The Southeastern Indians. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1976. Moore, Alexander, ed. Nairne’s Muskhogean Journals: The 1708 Expedition to the Mississippi River. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1988. Morris, Michael P. The Bringing of Wonder: Trade and the Indians of the South- east, 1700–1783. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999.
The Yamasee War was a conflict that took place in the early 18th century. It was fought between a large alliance of Native American tribes and the British colonists. The colonial forces suffered heavy losses during the war and one of the British colonies reached the verge of complete destruction. Ultimately, however, the colonists gained the upper hand and achieved a victory. When and where was the war fought?The Yamasee War was fought in the modern-day South Carolina state. It took place from 1715 to 1717. Who fought in the war?At one side were the British colonists, mainly from the South Carolina colony. At the other side was an alliance of a large number of Native American tribes. Most notable among these were the Yamasee although the alliance included a number of other tribes such as Ochese Creeks, Catawba, Cherokee, Waxhaw and Santee.  Yamasee War American American History Timeline Background of the WarIn the early 18th century, British colonies of North Carolina and South Carolina existed along the eastern coast of North America. In 1711, North Carolina faced attacks from the neighboring Indian tribes. South Carolina colony sent support to North Carolina in order to fight off the Indian attacks. This support included warriors from many allied tribes, including the Yamasee. Yamasee and other tribes saw the organization, strengths and weaknesses of the British colonies and militias during this period. They would later use this knowledge to their advantage in the Yamasee War. Events Leading to the WarYamasee were trading partners with the British colonies, most notably South Carolina. They would supply the colonists with furs, trading them for items like firearms. However, excessive hunting greatly reduced the supply of deer and other game animals in the region. This ultimately caused the Yamasee to become indebted to the colonists, as they bought things on credit. The colonists, on the other hand, sought to take over the Yamasee lands against their debts. These factors contributed to the outbreak of the war. When a delegation from South Carolina visited Yamasee in 1715, most of the delegation members were killed. This marked the beginning of the war. The FightingAlthough the Yamasee initiated the war, it was soon joined by a large number of other Indian tribes. The tribes attacked white settlements all along the South Carolina colony and neighboring areas. Hundreds of colonists were killed during these attacks. Other colonists left their farms and lands, fleeing to the safety of Charles Town which was better fortified against attacks. But the large number of refugees soon led to starvation as the colonists couldn’t go out for supplies. In 1716, things improved for the colonists when the Native American Cherokee tribe decided to support them. Cherokee helped in bringing food supplies to the colony and offered much needed help. This finally began to turn the tide in favor of the colonists. Result and AftermathBy 1717, most of the Native American tribes who fought the colonists had stopped fighting or signed peace treaties. Some like Yamasee continued their raids over the next years but the war was over in 1717 for the most part. The colonists suffered hundreds of deaths during the war. Yamasee also lost a large portion of their population which was either killed or enslaved. Following the war, Yamasee became scattered and ceased to exist as a large tribe. Yamasee War Fast Facts
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