Isunigu

Isunigu(also calledSeneca,Esseneca,andSinica) was aCherokeetown on theKeowee River.It was on the west side of the Keowee River, near the mouth of Coneross Creek, in today'sOconee County, South Carolina.Present-dayClemsonandSeneca, South Carolinalater developed near here.

During the colonial period, Isunigu was classified by English traders and colonists as one of the Cherokee "Lower Towns", a geographical grouping that included Piedmont towns along the Keowee River in southwestern South Carolina and towns along theTugaloo Riverin northeastern Georgia. The principal town of this grouping was considered to beKeowee,on the river of the same name. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Cherokee ceded their land of the Lower Towns toSouth Carolina.

Andrew Pickensdeveloped his "Hopewell" plantation on the east side of the Keowee River. Following the American Revolution and conflict between the Cherokee and European Americans, this was where the 1785Treaty of Hopewellwas signed by both parties.

The site of Isunigu, a settlement that likely had more than a thousand years of previous indigenous habitation, as did other towns in the area, was flooded by the creation in the 20th century ofLake Hartwell.It was formed as the reservoir behindHartwell Damon the Keowee River. The meaning of the nameIsuniguis lost, along with the artifacts and other materials from prehistoric and historic years now submerged under Lake Hartwell.

References

• Mooney, James.Myths of the Cherokee(1900, reprint 1995). SeeJames Mooney.