Lest we forget that when the first European settlers arrived in what would become known as the backcountry of colonial South Carolina, the land had been utilized for millennia by the Cherokee and their Native American contemporaries and ancestors. Historic hostilities between the Cherokee and Catawba had resulted in the creation of common hunting grounds bounded on the east by the Catawba River and the Broad River on the west.  Animals hunted include deer, bear, turkey, elk, and even buffalo.  It was within these plentiful grounds that the newcomers first explored and later settled in the mid 1700’s.  Negotiations in Charles Town between the English and the Cherokee in 1755 resulted in tribal recognition of the King’s sovereignty over specific southeastern provincial territory. By 1758, however, concessions gave way to discontent as tensions and distrust carried over from the French and Indian War led to bloody conflict.  Violent retaliations resulted in the Anglo-Cherokee War of 1760-61 and the expulsion of the Cherokee from the Upcountry by 1777.