The Treaty of Dewitts Corner ended the initial Overhill Cherokee targeted attacks on colonial settlements that took place at the beginning of the American Revolution. A peace document signed by the Cherokee and South Carolina, the treaty instead laid the foundation for the decades long Cherokee–American wars fought between the European-Americans and the Chickamauga Cherokee people. Background In 1773 the Treaty of Augusta, which was initiated at the request of both Cherokee and Creek Indians, ceded more than 2,000,000 tribal acres in Georgia to relieve Indian indebtedness to white traders. In 1775 the Overhill Cherokee had been persuaded at the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals to sell an enormous tract of land in central Kentucke to settlers from the colonies; specifically, the Transylvania Land Company operating out of the Province of Virginia. Although these agreements violated British law, they nevertheless became the basis for a colonial takeover of those areas. Unexpected attacks Feeling threatened by colonial encroachment upon their hunting grounds, the Cherokee joined with tribes from the north (the Shawnee, Delaware, and Mohawk) in the Spring and Summer of 1776 to raid frontier settlements in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia in an effort to push settlers from their lands. By July 1776, Chiefs Dragging Canoe and Ostenaco had gathered a force of 600-700 Cherokee warriors, who attacked Eaton’s Station and Ft. Watauga in surprise, coordinated actions. Both of these assaults failed. These raids were part of a series of attacks perpetrated by Cherokee and their northern allies; as well as their southern Muscogee and Choctaw allies on all the "over mountain" settlements (colonial enclave settlements located west of the Appalachian Mountains). The frontier-wide attacks, however, elicited a vigorous response from both militia and regulars from the southern colonies, which largely took place during September and October of that year. Colonial response Major Colonel Andrew Williamson led a large force of South Carolina Continental Army troops and militia on an expedition against the Indians, destroying most of their towns east of the mountains, and then joined with the North Carolina militia (including Colonels Joseph Hardin and Francis Locke), to do the same in that state, taking part in the coordinated attack which later became known as the Rutherford Light Horse expedition, at the end of which Cherokee regional power was broken; their crops and villages destroyed; and their warriors largely dispersed. The treaty Defeated in skirmishes and with their