Oconostota, who
had led them to victory in 1780, was now a broken old man. and in
this year, at Echota, formally resigned his office in favor of his son,
The Terrapin. To complete their brimming cup of misery the small-
pox again broke out among them in 1783. 1 Deprived of the assistance
of their former white allies they wee left to their own cruel fate,
the last feeble resistance of the mountain warriors to the advancing
tide of settlement came to an end with the burning of ( 'owee town, 8 and
the way was left open to an arrangement. In the same year the North
Carolina legislature appointed an agent for the Cherokee and made
regulations for the government of traders among them.'
Relations with the United States
from the first treaty to the removal — 1785-1838
Passingover several unsatisfactory and generally abortive negotia-
tions conducted by the various state governments in L783-84, includ-
ing' the treaty of Augusta already noted. 4 we come to the turning-
point in the history of the Cherokee, their first treaty with the new
government of the United States for peace and boundary delimitation,
concluded at Hopewell (25) in South Carolina on November 28, 17s.">.
Nearly one thousand Cherokee attended, the commissioners for the
United States being Colonel Benjamin Hawkins (liti). of North Caro-
lina; General Andrew Pickens, of South Carolina; Cherokee Agent
Joseph Martin, of Tennessee, and Colonel Lachlan Mcintosh, of
Georgia. The instrument was signed by thirty-seven chiefs and prin-
cipal men. representing nearly as many different towns. The negotia-
tions occupied ten days, being complicated by a protest on the part of
North Carolina and Georgia against the action