On December 26, 1785, A group of 127 bedraggled Choctaw Indians arrived at Hopewell, Andrew Pickens's home on the Keowee River in South Carolina. They had trekked for over two months and traveled hundreds of miles from their central Mississippi homeland to represent the Choctaw people in a meeting with representatives of the United States government. Several days of negotiations resulted in the first treaty between these two powers. This encounter in the southern backcountry (which was the second in a series of three consecutive meetings at Hopewell during the winter of 1785-1786 between the U.S. and the Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, respectively) reveals several issues vital to an understanding of intercultural relations in the post-Revolutionary War South.1
