Indian trade was critically important to the fledgling colony of South Carolina. European demand for breeches, gloves, and hats made from deerskin created an expanding market for Carolina peltries. To meet this demand, Carolina traders penetrated to the Mississippi River by 1700. Until rice became the principal staple crop of the colony in the 1730s, deerskins were the most valuable commodity exported from Charles Town. Even after rice had surpassed deerskins in export value, deerskins remained an important asset. By mid-century, 150,000 deerskins per year left South Carolina. At that time the value of deerskins and other Indian commodities roughly equaled the combined total for beef, pork, indigo, lumber, and naval stores and accounted for 20 percent of the colony’s exports.

In the late seventeenth century, Charles Town merchants had established trade with the Lower Towns of the Cherokee, and by the 1750s virtually every Cherokee town had its own resident trader, many of whom were allied by marriage to the families of local headmen. Many early traders earned notorious reputations for abuse. Others were known for their fairness, and the best of them acted as unofficial agents for colonial South Carolina.

Over the course of the eighteenth century South Carolina attempted to regulate the Indian trade as evidenced by the act of 1716 pictured at right. Commissioners of the Indian Trade. Journal of the Commissioners of the Indian Trade, 1710-1718, p.16. S175001

The upper rank of frontier traders consisted of three tiers: Charles Town merchants who acted as importer-exporters; retail shopkeepers who set up stores at strategic locations in the interior such as the Congarees; and resident traders who actually established shops or "factories" in the Indian towns. Here goods were exchanged at prices set by the Commissioners of the Indian Trade.

For the Cherokee people, ownership of European trade goods conferred social status in addition to everyday utility. Costing as much as 35 skins apiece, firearms, known as trade muskets, were highly prized. A Cherokee hunter could kill 20 to 40 deer per season with such a weapon, thereby increasing his ability to acquire other popular items such as jewelry, paint, textiles, and tools. Commissioners of the Indian Trade. Journal of the Commissioners of the Indian Trade, 1710-1718, p.45. S175001

Packhorse men (pictured at top) occupied the lowest level of the Indian trade. Often entering the trade as teenagers, packhorse men served as apprentice traders who spent several years learning Indian languages, customs, and the fine points of bargaining. Although some packhorse men ultimately became traders, the less ambitious among them often fell prey to idleness and alcohol. Resident trader James Beamer, writing from the Cherokee town of Estatoe in 1753, described them as "desolute People, white Men, who under the notion of Traders, live a debauched and wicked Life, and have Nothing to do, and for Want of Subsistence become a Burthen to the Cherokee Indians…"

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