Early Life in the Backcountry

Early Life in the Backcountry. Gouedy's Trading Post and Fort Ninety Six. , Robert Gouedy established a trading post on this site in 1753. He supplied cloth, tools, gunpowder, lead, and rum to the soldiers, Indians, slaves, and settlers who passed through Ninety Six on the way to or from Charleston and the Cherokee villages. Representatives of the British colonial government often came through here, as well. , As the backcountry population grew, so did violence between settlers and Indians. Indian attacks were often precipitated by the French, trying to wrest South Carolina from British control. In October 1759, British Governor Lyttleton formed a militia to protect settlers against Indian attacks. He searched for "a proper Place to build a Magazine and Stockade Fort." At the crossroads of Ninety Six, he found Gouedy's post. Lyttleton commandeered Gouedy's house, barn, and outbuildings, enclosed them in a 90-foot-square stockade, and garrisoned his militia. Renamed Fort Ninety Six, this was the site of at least two dramatic Indian attacks in 1760. , By the end of 1761 the British and Cherokee negotiated a truce. As the town of Ninety Six developed near the Island Ford Road, Fort Ninety Six was abandoned and all traces of it disappeared. Gouedy prospered, eventually owning over 1,500 acres of land in Ninety Six and 34 slaves until his death in 1775. , An account of the March 3, 1760 attack appeared in the South Carolina Gazette: , ...about 240 or 250 Indians attacked the Fort...and fired upon it for 36 Hours, without scarce any Intermission, even during the whole Night, but never came within 60 yards of the Stockade, except one fellow, who was killed and scalped, and whose body was given to the Dogs, and his Scalp hoisted along-side of the Colours, to provoke the Enemy to come nearer.