During the American Revolution, the Cherokees sided with the British, and much to their surprise the Patriots won their independence. Starting in 1777, the Cherokees began to cede more and more of their territory to the newly-established state of South Carolina, and they began to withdraw from the western portion of the state. With this cession of Cherokee lands came new white settlers into what had previously been considered Indian territory with only the occassional trader outpost in the area. The new settlers quickly grabbed as much land as they thought prudent and once again started pushing the Cherokees further west, not always without conflict.

By 1791, there were significant enough numbers of white settlers in the previously-held Cherokee lands that the new state of South Carolina finally decided to officially recognize that these settlements were going to need state and local governmental supervision. In that year, two new Districts were created in the northwestern section of South Carolina - the Pinckney District and the Washington District. Each had District Seats designated with courts established in those seats. The Pinckney District was created out of parts of the Ninety-Six District and the Camden District.

The new Pinckney District included four (4) of the thirty-four (34) counties as created in 1785 - Chester County, Spartanburg County, Union County, and York County.

The Pinckney District was not enumerated within the first United States Census of 1790, but all of its previously-defined counties of 1785 were included separately. This is also true for the 1800 U.S. Census, so comparisons between the first two censuses would be fairly straightforward for each county.