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Andrew Pickens (congressman)
Andrew Pickens (September 13, 1739 – August 11, 1817) was a militia leader in the American Revolution. A planter and slaveowner, he developed his Hopewell plantation on the east side of the Keowee River across from the Cherokee town of Isunigu (Seneca) in western South Carolina. He was elected as a member of the United States House of Representatives from western South Carolina. Several treaties with the Cherokee were negotiated and signed at his plantation of Hopewell. Early lifePickens was born in 1739 in Bucks County in the Province of Pennsylvania. He was the son of Scots-Irish immigrants, Presbyterians of primarily Scottish ancestry from Carrickfergus in County Antrim, Ireland (in what is today Northern Ireland.) His parents were Andrew Pickens Sr. and Anne (née Davis). But his paternal great-grandparents were ethnic French Huguenots: Robert Andrew Pickens (Robert André Picon) had migrated to England and Northern Ireland; his wife Esther-Jeanne, widow Bonneau, was from La Rochelle, France and had settled in South Carolina along with other Huguenot refugees fleeing religious persecution as Protestants.[1][2] His family traveled the Great Wagon Road in the Shenandoah Valley in hopes of finding a new home. Records show they first settled in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. In 1752, his family moved to the Waxhaws on the South Carolina frontier. Move to frontier South CarolinaPickens sold his farm there in 1764 and bought land in Abbeville County, South Carolina, near the Georgia border. He married Rebecca Calhoun there and they started a family. In addition to meeting other ethnic Scots-Irish and new immigrants to the area, he became acquainted with his Cherokee neighbors. He built a blockhouse as a base for training.[3] He established the Hopewell Plantation on the east side of the Keowee River. Several treaty negotiating sessions were held here with the Cherokee. Each resulted in a Treaty of Hopewell. Just across the river was the Cherokee town of Isunigu, also known as "Seneca". A religious man, Pickens was known as the "Fighting Elder" because of his strong Presbyterian faith.[4] Military careerPickens served in the Anglo-Cherokee War in 1760–1761. When the Revolutionary War started, he sided with the rebel militia and was made a captain. He rose to the rank of brigadier general in the South Carolina militia during the war.[5] He emerged as a military leader in Long Cane, fighting against the Cherokee who had allied with the Loyalists. In the year 1779 Henry Clinton deployed British soldiers to both South Carolina and North Carolina to encourage Loyalist support. On February 14, 1779, Colonel Pickens and his 300-man militia overtook the larger British force of 700–800 men under Colonel Boyd at the Battle of Kettle Creek in Wilkes County, Georgia, just south of the Long Canes. His victory at Kettle Creek slowed the recruitment of the Loyalists. However, when the British defeated the Southern Continental Army in 1780 in the Siege of Charleston, Pickens surrendered a fort in the Ninety-Six District. He, along with his 300 militia men, on parole oath, agreed to sit out the war.[6] Pickens's parole did not last, however. After Tory raiders destroyed most of his property and frightened his family, he informed the British that they had violated the terms of parole. He rejoined the war. During this period, Pickens joined Francis Marion (known as the Swamp Fox) and Thomas Sumter as the most well-known partisan leaders in the Carolinas. Sumter also resumed fighting under similar circumstances. He saw action at the Battle of Cowpens, Siege of Augusta, Siege of Ninety-Six, and the Battle of Eutaw Springs. .JPG) Pickens also led a campaign in north Georgia against the Cherokee late in the war; they had allied with the British in an effort to expel European Americans from their territory. His victorious campaign resulted in the Cherokee ceding significant portions of land between the Savannah and Chattahoochee rivers in the Long Swamp Treaty, signed in what is currently Pickens County, Georgia. Pickens led a detached militia of 25 men to battle against a Cherokee force of an estimated 150 men in what came to be called the "Ring Fight."[7] Pickens gained the respect of these Natives. After the war, he was well-regarded by Native Americans that he dealt with; he was given the name Skyagunsta, "The Wizard Owl," which is reportedly a name based on a well-regarded previous chief of the Cherokee.
Political careerAt the end of the war, Pickens was elected to public office in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1781 to 1794. He was a South Carolina delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Pickens was later elected to the Third Congress, served from 1793 to 1795 as an Anti-Administration member, opposing the policies of US Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton.[11] He was one of nine representatives, and the only representative of the Anti-Administration party, to vote against the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution.[12] FamilyPickens married Rebecca Floride Calhoun in 1765. They had 12 children: Mary Pickens (1766–1836); Ezekiel Pickens (1768–1813), Ann Pickens (1770–1846), son (1772), Jane Pickens (1773–1816); Margaret Pickens (1777–1830); Andrew Pickens, Jr. (1779–1838), son (1782); Rebecca Pickens (1784–1831); Catherine Pickens (1786–1871) and Joseph Pickens (1791–1853). Ezekiel Pickens was elected as lieutenant governor of South Carolina, serving from 1802 to 1804. His younger brother Andrew Pickens, Jr. also went into politics; he was elected as governor of South Carolina, serving 1817–1819. A grandson was Francis Wilkinson Pickens, who was also elected as governor of South Carolina, serving from 1860 to 1862. Pickens died near Tamassee, South Carolina, in Oconee County, on August 11, 1817. He is buried at Old Stone Church Cemetery in Clemson, South Carolina. Pickens was an uncle (through his marriage to Rebecca Florida Calhoun) to John C. Calhoun (1782–1850), who was a leading American politician and political theorist from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century. Calhoun's home, Fort Hill, is now located on the campus of Clemson University in Pickens County, South Carolina. It is a noted historic landmark in the state of South Carolina. Legacy and memorials_cemetery.JPG) Fort Pickens in Florida is named in his honor. Also named after him are Pickens County in Alabama; Georgia;[13] and South Carolina. There is also a city of Pickens, South Carolina. He is the namesake of Pickens High School. His Hopewell plantation is now owned and maintained by Clemson University. Pickens was a 7th great-grandfather of former US senator and 2004 presidential candidate John Edwards. Pickens and his actions served as one of the models for the fictional character of Benjamin Martin in The Patriot, a motion picture released in 2000. In a scene prior to the Battle of Cowpens, Benjamin Martin (character) asks the militia for two rounds before they retreat, reminiscent of Daniel Morgan in the Battle of Cowpens. References
Further reading
External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to Andrew Pickens (congressman).
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