Historical records matching Capt. Richard Pearis, Sr.
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About Capt. Richard Pearis, Sr.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Pearis
Richard Pearis (1725 – 1794) was an Indian trader, a pioneer settler of Upstate South Carolina, and a Loyalist officer during the American Revolution. Born in Ireland in 1725, he was 10 years old when his family immigrated to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. By 1750, Pearis owned 1,200 acres of land near Winchester, where he lived with his wife Rhoda and three children. By 1753, Pearis was trading with the Cherokee Nation; and in partnership with Nathaniel Gist, he opened a trading post near present Kingsport, Tenn. Shortly thereafter, Pearis was in South Carolina trading among the Cherokees, where he fathered a son, George, by a Cherokee woman. Pearis gained favor with Virginia governor Robert Dinwiddie; and during the French and Indian War, Pearis led a company of Cherokee warriors and served under British General John Forbes when he retook Fort Duquesne. At the conclusion of the war, Pearis became Indian agent for colonial Maryland.
In 1770, Pearis and another member of the frontier gentry, Jacob Hite, forged letters from Cherokee leaders, including Oconostota, declaring the Indians’ willingness to cede land to the colony of Virginia. Pearis also claimed a deed from the Cherokee of 12 square miles in the area that is now Greenville County. An Indian interpreter, one John Watts, wrote the British Indian superintendent, John Stuart, that Pearis was “a very dangerous fellow who will breed great disturbances if he is let alone, for he will tell the Indians any lies to please them.”
With the help of an Indian ally, Saluy, Pearis secured approval of his land grant from the chiefs at Chota, apparently in exchange for the cancellation of their trading debts. But in 1772, Stuart complained to the governor of South Carolina that Pearis had gained his title by plying the Indians with liquor. The governor then urged Stuart to prosecute Pearis for violating a 1739 statute that forbade British citizens to own Indian land. Meanwhile, Pearis had begun to transfer the land to other whites. In November 1773, the circuit court at Ninety Six found Pearis guilty of holding Indian land, and he surrendered his deed. But the following month he secured another deed from Cherokee leaders granting his son George more than 12 square miles of land—most of which George then conveniently transferred to his father.
Sometime after 1770, Pearis, his family, and their twelve slaves began to clear a 100 acres near the falls of the Reedy River, at the heart of modern Greenville, where they planted grain and orchards on a plantation Pearis called “Great Plains.” Pearis built “a substantial house” and a store as well as a grist and sawmill. In 1775, Pearis sought an appointment as a patriot commissioner to the Indians, and after the post was given to another, Pearis became a Tory captain. On December 12, 1775, patriot Colonel Richard Richardson captured Pearis and eight other Tory leaders. Pearis was kept in irons at Charleston for nine months, after which he made his way to British West Florida. Pearis's house and plantation buildings were burned by Pearis's backcountry opponents in July 1776. Pearis continued to serve with Loyalist forces during the American Revolution. After the fall of Augusta, Georgia to the patriots in June 1781, Pearis was captured, and General Andrew Pickens saved Pearis's life “by putting him in a boat and sending him down river, away from the angry soldiers who would have killed him.” Pearis’s land was confiscated by the state of South Carolina and Pearis spent his remaining years as a planter in the Bahamas. He was more than amply compensated by the British government for South Carolina lands that, arguably, he had never legally owned. Paris Mountain and Paris Mountain State Park are named in his honor. Abe Hardesty
Notes
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Parris-953
Recent dna test comparisons between descendants of the Cherokee man George Parris and descendants of Richard’s daughter Sarah and with descendants of Richard’s brother George Pearis do not confirm a match. There may be several reasons for this, but it does question whether George Parris was his biological son.
"The first white settler in present Greenville County, SC was Irish-born Richard Pearis, who came from Virginia in 1765 as a trader. He married a Cherokee woman and in his association with the native Americans, he acquired large tracts of land which today occupy the town of Greenville."[1]
He was a white man who married simultaneously a white woman named Rhoda and a high born Cherokee woman, probably of the town of Toqua, and sister of the Raven Savanoke a leading warrior of Toqua.
Much of this is inferred from a letter by the South Carolina rival trader Ludovic Grant. Richard Pearis acknowledged his Cherokee son in both his deposition as a Loyalist and through the large land transaction that his natural son George transferred to him via the Cherokee tribe consisting of vast lands around Greenville, SC.
Richard left a will in the Bahamas that does not mention his Cherokee son and none of his children seem to have acknowledged their Cherokee kin, though much of their wealth was derived from the tribe.
Richard's deed regarding the slave Pratchy is not evidence of George's mother and is clearly a false identification that is bandied about on the net. George Parris' mother was related to James Van's mother as George is called cousin and was executor of James Van's great estate. From this we infer she was a member of the Cherokee elite and not a slave.
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Capt. Richard Pearis, Sr.'s Timeline
| 1725 |
1725
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Virginia, United States
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| 1730 |
1730
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| 1748 |
1748
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1748
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Virginia, United States
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| 1749 |
1749
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| 1754 |
1754
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| 1760 |
1760
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| 1794 |
April 7, 1794
Age 69
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Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas (Bahamas)
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