William Henry Lyttelton

William Henry Lyttelton was governor of South Carolina and turned a manageable frontier quarrel into the Cherokee War. He came from a political family, sat in the Commons, and was appointed to Carolina in 1755, arriving to find the colony's most important relationship - with the Cherokee, who had been British allies against the French - deteriorating over killings on the Virginia frontier. Cherokee warriors returning from service with the British had been attacked by Virginian settlers who took their horses and then their scalps for bounty; the Cherokee retaliated under their own law of blood vengeance, and the settlements demanded protection. Lyttelton's response in 1759 was to invite a delegation of Cherokee leaders to Charleston to negotiate, and then to seize them as hostages and march them to Fort Prince George, where he held them against the surrender of the men accused of the killings. It was a violation of every diplomatic convention the alliance rested on. He then went home to Charleston with smallpox spreading through his militia. The Cherokee besieged Fort Prince George, the commander was killed luring them to a parley, and the garrison murdered all twenty-two hostages in reprisal. The war that followed took two British expeditions, burned fifteen Cherokee towns and their crops, and ended in 1761 with the Cherokee ceding territory and their power in the southeast broken. Lyttelton had already left, promoted to the governorship of Jamaica. He was later ambassador to Portugal and was made Baron Westcote and then Baron Lyttelton.

• Lived: 1724 CE – 1808 CE
• Nationality: British
• Roles: politician