Keowee ( chr, ᎫᏩᎯᏱ, translit=Guwahiyi) was a

Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...

town in the far northwest corner of present-day

South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

. It was the principal town of what were called the seven Lower Towns, located along the

Keowee River The Keowee River is created by the confluence of the Toxaway River and the Whitewater River in northern Oconee County, South Carolina. The confluence is today submerged beneath the waters of Lake Jocassee, a reservoir created by Lake Jocassee D ...

(Colonists referred to the lower reaches of the river as the

Savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the Canopy (forest), canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to rea ...

in its lower reaches, with its mouth at the city they named Savannah). Keowee was situated on the Lower Cherokee Traders' Path, part of the Upper Road through the

Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

. In 1752 the Cherokee established New Keowee Town nearby, off the traders' path but in a more defensible location. Both historic sites are within present-day

Oconee County, South Carolina Oconee County is the westernmost county in the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 78,607. Its county seat is Walhalla and its largest city is Seneca. Oconee County is included in the Seneca, SC Micropol ...

at the foot of the

Blue Ridge Mountains The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsylvania through Maryland, West Virgin ...

. European Americans developed the town of

Clemson, South Carolina Clemson () is a city in Pickens and Anderson counties in the U.S. state of South Carolina. Clemson is home to Clemson University; in 2015, ''the Princeton Review'' cited the town of Clemson as ranking #1 in the United States for " town-and-gown" ...

, south of here after they began to populate the area. When the

was dammed in a mid-20th century hydropower project, both former Keowee sites were submerged in the early 1970s beneath the waters of

Lake Keowee Lake Keowee is a man-made reservoir in the United States in the state of South Carolina. It was developed to serve the needs of power utility Duke Energy and public recreational purposes. It is approximately long, wide, with an average depth of ...

. Before that, archeological excavation was conducted by specialists from the University of South Carolina to establish history and recover thousands of artifacts. Human and animal remains were also discovered at the site.

Early history

In the first half of the 18th century, approximately 2100 Cherokee inhabited sixteen towns east of the

.Edgar, Walter, ''South Carolina: A History''. University of South Carolina Press, 1998 The Cherokee people were geographically divided into three regions: the Lower Towns of the

, the Middle Towns of more mountainous areas and river valleys in Western North Carolina, which included Valley and Outer Towns; and the Overhill Towns on the far western side of the Appalachian Mountains.McFall, Pearl. ''The Keowee River and Cherokee Background''. Pickens, S.C. 1966 The Cherokee were highly decentralized, and their towns were the most important units of government. There were seven Cherokee towns in the Lower Towns, of which Keowee was a principal one. The leaders or chiefs of each exercised substantial authority. Keowee Town is translated as "place of mulberries." It was also known as "Old Keowee," to distinguish it from other, later towns of the same name. The first was established near here in a more defensible position. After the Cherokee moved south and west later in the eighteenth century, deeper into Georgia and Alabama, they named other towns Keowee.

Role during French and Indian War

During the French and Indian War (1754–1763) (the North American front of the

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (1754� ...

in Europe between Britain and France), the Cherokee allied with the British and played a significant role. The alliance was partly the result of diplomacy by Sir Alexander Cuming, who had earlier visited Keowee (the Old Towne) on March 23, 1730 and solicited the Cherokee as allies. Fearing an attack by the

Muscogee The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language), are a group of related indigenous (Native American) peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands As tensions rose with France in the mid to late 1750s, the English built a fort east of the old Keowee town on the

Savannah River The Savannah River is a major river in the southeastern United States, forming most of the border between the states of South Carolina and Georgia. Two tributaries of the Savannah, the Tugaloo River and the Chattooga River, form the norther ...

Governor Glen had ordered this structure and named it

Fort Prince George Fort Prince George was an uncompleted fort on what is now the site of Pittsburgh, at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The site was originally a trading post established by Ohio Company t ...

. During the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...

, trader

Nathaniel Gist Nathaniel Gist (15 October 1733 – 1812) was born in Maryland and fought during the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War. He was reputed to be the father of Sequoyah the famous Cherokee by Wurteh Watts. Like his father Christ ...

urged one hundred Cherokee warriors to attack the

Shawnee The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...

tribe, allies of the French in the

Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...

region. The alliance between the Cherokee and British collapsed due to mutual suspicion. During the

Anglo-Cherokee War The Anglo-Cherokee War (1758–1761; in the Cherokee language: the ''"war with those in the red coats"'' or ''"War with the English"''), was also known from the Anglo-European perspective as the Cherokee War, the Cherokee Uprising, or the Cherok ...

(1758–1761), the British razed Keowee Old Towne, and launched a successful attack on Keowee New Towne, sparing the women and children. Keowee New Towne was razed during the first British campaign under the command of Archibald Montgomery. A second army under James Grant campaigned through the remaining Lower Towns and into the Middle Towns in 1760, destroying the Cherokee mother town of

Kituwa Kituwa (also spelled Kituwah, Keetoowah, Kittowa, Kitara and other similar variations) or ''giduwa'' (Cherokee: ᎩᏚᏩ) is an ancient Native American settlement near the upper Tuckasegee River, and is claimed by the Cherokee people as their ori ...

Late 18th century to present

When American naturalist

William Bartram William Bartram (April 20, 1739 – July 22, 1823) was an American botanist, ornithologist, natural historian and explorer. Bartram was the author of an acclaimed book, now known by the shortened title ''Bartram's Travels'', which chronicled ...

visited the Keeowee New Towne site in South Carolina in May 1776, he noted no Cherokee lived there. p330 Anglo colonists had razed the town in 1760 during the

. In the late 20th century, the former sites of Old Keowee and New Keowee towns, including the burial ground, was planned for submersion by creation of

in the early 1970s in connection with a Duke Energy project. The Keowee and Little rivers were to be dammed to provide hydropower and cooling water for the

Oconee Nuclear Station The Oconee Nuclear Station is a nuclear power station located on Lake Keowee near Seneca, South Carolina, and has a power output capacity of over 2,500 megawatts. It is the second nuclear power station in the United States to have its operat ...

. These were part of a multi-million-dollar project to provide energy for upstate South Carolina. Oconee was the first of three nuclear power plants built by

Duke Power Duke Energy Corporation is an American electric power and natural gas holding company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. Overview Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Duke Energy owns 58,200 megawatts of base-load and peak generation in ...

. Prior to creation of the lake, the sites of both the former towns of Keowee and of Fort Prince George were surveyed and archeological excavations conducted by the University of South Carolina. Thousands of artifacts, plus human and animal remains, were found at Old Keowee. More limited evidence was found at the former fort site, which had been occupied for a brief period. Michael Hembree and Dot Jackson (ed.) (1997) ''Keowee: The Story of the Keowee River Valley in Upstate South Carolina.''

References

{{Cherokee Cherokee towns Native American history of South Carolina