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.
Richard Pearis was born in Ireland in 1725, the son of George and Sarah Pearis, who were Presbyterians of considerable affluence. The family immigrated to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia when Richard was ten, and by 1750, Richard owned 1,200 acres (4.9 km2) 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, Tennessee. During the mid-1750s Pearis also began trading with the Cherokee in South Carolina and fathered a son, George, by a Cherokee woman. "An orator of rude, savage eloquence and power," 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 twelve square miles in the area that is now Greenville County, South Carolina. 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.”
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