What is "keowee"

Keowee was a Cherokee town in the north of present-day South Carolina. Located along the Lower Cherokee Traders Path, part of the Upper Road through the Piedmont, it was settled in what is present-day Oconee County, the westernmost county of South Carolina, at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, just north of Clemson. Located on the banks of the Keowee River, Keowee was submerged beneath the waters of Lake Keowee when the river was dammed in a mid-20th century power project.

In the early half of the 18th century, approximately 2100 Cherokee inhabited sixteen towns east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Cherokee people were geographically divided into three regions: the Overhill Towns, the Middle Towns, and the Lower Towns. For the Cherokee, towns were the most important units of government. There were seven Cherokee villages, of which Keowee was one, and the rulers or chiefs of each had a substantial amount of authority. Keowee was principal among the Cherokee "Lower Towns". Keowee Town is translated into "place of mulberries." It was also known as "Old Keowee" to distinguish it from other towns of the same name.

Keowee was the birthplace (around 1770) of the father of John Norton. Norton, who became a chief of the Mohawk, was of half Cherokee and half Scots ancestry. His writings provide a rare American Indian perspective of the early 19th century in the United States. Norton spells the town name as Kuwoki.

When naturalist William Bartram visited the town site in May 1776, he noted no Cherokee lived there. Before then, the British colonists razed the town in the Anglo-Cherokee War.