Tennessee History Textbook and Video Lectures
Overview
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Text written by Dr. Carole Stanford Bucy.
Chapter 1 Overview
Chapter 1 Overview
History begins with a place - the land and its features. People make journeys to this place we call "Tennessee". Tennessee history is the story of this place and of all the people - even you - who have ever been here. It is your story. Enjoy it. Enjoy knowing about all the places you see every day and how they came to be the way they are today.
This Place We Call Tennessee
Your story of Tennessee history begins with you and the place where you live. Look all around you. No matter where you go, Tennessee history is there. Have you ever been to a Nashville Predators game? Why did a hockey team in Tennessee name itself the "Predators"? If you go to a Tennessee Titans game, how are the Titans are a part of our history? How did that team get to Tennessee? What happened after they arrived? What about a trip to the Smoky Mountains? How are the Smokies different from the place where you live? How has the land influenced the history of the Smokies?
This upcoming week, wherever you may go, take a look around you. What do you see? Start asking questions: What about that exit sign for Rock Castle on the Vietnam Veterans Bypass? What is Rock Castle? Who built it? Why has it been preserved as a historic site? Why is it so difficult to dig a deep hole in the ground in most parts of Tennessee?
Chapter 1 Objectives
Upon completion of this lesson with a 70% or above, students will be able to:
- Explain how history must be approached as a story rather than disconnected lists of facts to be memorized.
- Explain the overall approach to this course
- Describe different methods of historical interpretation.
- Identify & describe the basic features of Tennessee’s geography.
- Explain how geography has influenced Tennessee’s history.
- Interpret the point of view of "From Down in the Mississippi Mud Up to Rocky Top".
Chapter 1 Reading
From Down in the Mississippi Mud to Rocky Top: How the Land Has Shaped Tennessee's History
Mississippi Mud
When the sun goes down, the tide goes out,
The people gather 'round and they all begin to shout,
"Hey! Hey! Uncle Dud,
It's a treat to beat your feet on the Mississippi Mud.
It's a treat to beat your feet on the Mississippi Mud".1
Rocky Top
Wish that I was on ole rocky top,
Down in the Tennessee hills.
Ain't no smoggy smoke on rocky top,
Ain't no telephone bills.
Rocky top, you'll always be,
Home sweet home to me.
Good ole rocky top,
Rocky top Tennessee, rocky top Tennessee".2
For many years, when a traveler crossed the Mississippi River at Memphis there was a large sign in the middle of the bridge that said, "Welcome to the Three States of Tennessee," a reference to the symbolism of three stars on the Tennessee state flag and the state’s geographic diversity. When Memphis resident Winfield Dunn became governor of Tennessee in 1971, one of his first acts was to have those signs replaced with signs bearing the present slogan, "Welcome to the Great State of Tennessee." Dunn and many others saw the signs as divisive; he hoped that the new slogan would lessen the regional rivalries between the three grand divisions that are represented by the three stars on Tennessee's state flag. The changing of a slogan, however, could not change the vast differences among the people of East, Middle, and West Tennessee. Those differences— political, cultural, and economic—had been born early in the state’s history and reflected the state’s geographic diversity that has been a dominant theme of Tennessee history.
"The state of Tennessee has been especially cursed with the evil of sectionalism. The three divisions, so effectually cut off from easy communication with one another and characterized by essentially different economic interest, have developed as separate entities, each one apart from the others, with an almost complete absence of a community of interest, or a common point of view. Consequently, a state of bitter antagonism has been the rule rather than the exception, making exceedingly difficult the adoption of any logical policy designed to benefit uniformly the interests of the whole state rather than those of a single section. Furthermore, the great variety of geographic features characterizing each of the three major political divisions led inhabitants to develop local jealousies and conflicts among themselves which served to complicate the larger sectional controversies already in existence."
Stanley J. Folmsbee, History of Tennessee, Volume 1, 1960.
The Grand Divisions of Tennessee
Tennessee's first settlers were native people who built villages along the rivers of the area. Because the network of rivers was spread across the entire state, these Indian villages were frequently spread out and somewhat removed from other villages. When Tennessee became a state in 1796, it consisted of two pockets of Anglo-American settlements - one in upper East Tennessee and another beyond the Cumberland Plateau, some 250 miles west in the area of the lower Cumberland River, with Native-American tribes claiming the remainder of the territory. This land is now known as Tennessee and the patterns of its settlement were shaped long before Native Americans or Europeans set foot here. Why did people come to this area in the first place? What made them want to stay? How did they determine how to survive and support themselves? They survived according to how they could live off the land. How did the economy develop? The economy of each region was determined by how its settlers, Native American and European alike, used the land. How were their political positions shaped? They were in large part a result of people's economic interests. Even today, the differences caused by the state’s geography define the state today. The three stars on the state flag continue to serve as symbols of geographic differences that have influenced the state’s history.
The regional rivalries undoubtedly began when the Cumberland settlements were founded more than 200 miles west of the Watauga settlements. Although both pockets of settlement were part of the state of North Carolina, each had separate concerns and interests. When the Revolutionary War ended, the people living in the area around the Watauga settlements attempted to create a new state to be named “Franklin.” The United States Congress did not accept this request for statehood, primarily because North Carolina opposed it. Had that area became a state, the Cumberland settlements would have been in a precarious position since they would have continued to be part of the state of North Carolina.
These two regions continued to be rivals when Tennessee became a state in 1796. One famous feud that took place in early Tennessee history was a feud between John Sevier from East Tennessee and Andrew Jackson, a resident of Middle Tennessee. When the Chickasaw land in West Tennessee was opened to Anglo-American settlement with the removal of the Chickasaws, West Tennesseans felt the General Assembly spent too much money in Middle Tennessee. After threatening to secede from Tennessee in the 1840s and form the state of Jacksoniana, the General Assembly began appropriating more funds for road construction in West Tennessee to placate West Tennessee residents. East Tennessee also began discussing a similar plan in the 1840s to secede, but the topic never materialized to become more than political rhetoric. When it came time in 1843 to choose a site for the permanent capital for the state, both East and West Tennessee nominated numerous sites, with an attitude that seemed to be "anywhere but Nashville." To their dismay, despite their efforts, Nashville became the capital because the Cumberland River was navigable by steamboat.
Tennessee has a great variety of rivers, landforms, climate regions, and plant and animal species. Numerous groups of people have settled in Tennessee beginning with Native Americans about 12,000 years ago. The lasting impact of Native Americans can be seen in the number of places with Native American names. In fact, the name “Tennessee” comes from the Native American word “Tanasi.” Settlers came to Tennessee to take advantage of its abundant natural resources, so it seems fitting to begin by describing the land of Tennessee.
One of the best examples of how the land shaped Tennessee’s history can be seen in the state’s unique path in leaving the Union and joining the Confederate States of America at the beginning of the Civil War. No other state experienced such an intense debate on secession. As the national debate over the expansion of slavery intensified after the Mexican War, the rivalries between grand divisions were defined by slavery and ultimately led to Tennessee's secession. Even though the state did join the Confederate States of America in 1862, the debate in Tennessee was distinctly geographic in nature. The state was never fully united in support of the decision to leave the Union. In a February 1861 referendum East Tennessee, where the economy was not dependent on slaves, voted against even calling a state convention to address secession. West Tennessee, with a disproportionate number of slaves and a plantation economy, voted overwhelmingly in support of such a convention. It was Middle Tennessee that voted with East Tennessee against the calling of a convention.
Four months later, after the attack on Fort Sumter and President Lincoln’s call for troops, the General Assembly passed Tennessee’s Declaration of Independence, subject to approval by the voters. In the June 1861 referendum on secession, once again the East Tennessee vote was pro-Union and West Tennessee, pro-secession. This time, however, Middle Tennessee shifted its vote and voted with West Tennessee in favor of secession. Tennessee became the eleventh and final state to leave the Union. When Tennessee seceded, most of the citizens in East Tennessee and many who lived in Middle Tennessee remained opposed to secession. A month after Tennessee seceded, a group of East Tennessee leaders met in Greeneville to consider the possibility of seceding from Tennessee as the western counties of Virginia did. Although they did not take East Tennessee out of the state, those feelings of divisiveness remained strong throughout the entire Civil War.
After the voting rights of Tennessee’s ex-Confederates were restored in 1869 and the rights of the newly enfranchised freedmen were denied, the counties in West Tennessee where a large percentage of the state’s former slaves lived consistently voted Democratic in national and statewide elections. When the Democrats returned to power in 1870, they re-wrote the state constitution so that white Democrats could maintain political control of West Tennessee counties in which whites were in a minority. Middle Tennessee generally, but not always, voted with West Tennessee for Democratic candidates. Tennessee’s Republican Party, which had not existed before the Civil War, came into being with the ratification of the Constitution of 1870. East Tennessee, where the economy had not been centered on slavery, and the few African Americans who retained their voting rights consistently voted Republican, but those votes were a distinct minority unless the Democratic Party split its vote. Unlike the other states of the Confederacy that became known as "the solid South," the Democratic Party split from time to time over issues such as the payment of the state debt, prohibition, and woman suffrage, allowing a Republican candidate such as Alvin Hawkins in 1880, Ben Hooper in 1910, and Alfred Taylor in 1920 to be elected, often with support from Middle Tennessee Democrats. In 1891, John Buchanan who identified himself as a farm-labor candidate won the governor’s race without the support of either party.
These voting differences, based on racial politics, made Tennessee unique from the other “Solid South” states. In Tennessee, the Democrats never had complete control of the state. With the coming of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, West Tennessee began to vote Republican as white voters who had formerly been conservative Democrats in Tennessee and the other states of the former Confederacy left the Democratic Party because of voter registration for African Americans. Although these changing voting patterns were in large part racial, it was the land and its uses that had led to those patterns in the first place. Geography shaped this state's history. It continues to define Tennessee today. Since the land was here long before any people were here, an examination of the state’s unique geography and its settlement is necessary for a complete understanding of the state’s history. Each of the state’s three grand divisions comprised of eight physiographic regions has a unique landscape that has determined Tennessee’s history.
Although the boundaries of the three grand divisions roughly follow geographic lines of the Tennessee River in East and West Tennessee, the General Assembly by-laws determined the exact counties in each grand division. The first time that the grand divisions were mentioned was in the Tennessee Constitution of 1834, the state’s second constitution. By 1834, West Tennessee had been divided into counties with the departure of the Chickasaws after the War of 1812. Like the counties, the boundaries of the grand divisions are created by law. Over the years, a few counties on these two borders have requested to be moved to the adjoining grand division.
The Physiographic Regions of Tennessee
The land that became Tennessee was formed over millions of years. Long before the first humans came into this place, geologic changes sculpted the land. At one time Tennessee and the Southeast were covered by a shallow sea filled with small crustaceans that died out as the water became more and more shallow. Each of these shifts laid down large deposits of coal, iron, limestone, marble, and other minerals. In Middle Tennessee limestone, sandstone, and shale were deposited while great beds of coal were deposited in East Tennessee. As the earth shifted, the Appalachian Mountains and the rivers were formed. The earth cooled and glaciers covered North America. As these large sheets of ice began to melt, plants began to grow. As plant life developed, animals such as mastodons, camels, saber-toothed tigers, sloths, and even horses roamed Tennessee and all of North America. Humans followed the herds of mastodons into what became the state of Tennessee. According to archaeologists, the topography of the areas in which the most mastodon fossils have been found is the same as it was 10,000 years ago in spite of some human adaptations and modifications to the land. After the mastodons and wooly mammoths died out, humans began to settle in small villages along the rivers and streams of the area. Civilizations were born. (This is covered in detail in Chapter 2.)
Within the state’s well-known three grand divisions, geologists and geographers have identified six major physiographic natural regions and 2 minor regions in Tennessee which provide a system for studying the land. (Note differences in the major and minor regions of the two maps shown below.) Each of these regions has unique characteristics from the rock found underground to the thickness of the soil itself. A brief examination of each region from east to west demonstrates that the geographic factors influenced Tennessee's history. In almost every case, these regions are part of larger geographic areas that extend far beyond the state’s borders.
It is important to note that the boundaries of these physiographic regions are not precise and change as time passes. For this reason, no two maps of these regions, particularly those maps that have the physiographic regions superimposed over the 95 counties vary somewhat from map to map.
TENNESSEE’S PHYSIOGRAPHIC REGIONS NOTE THE DIFFERENCE IN THE TWO MAPS. IN WHICH REGION IS YOUR COUNTY LOCATED?
The Unaka Range of the Appalachian Mountains
The mountains that serve as the border between Tennessee and North Carolina attract more visitors than any other region of the state. Every year, millions of visitors from around the world flock to East Tennessee to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, part of the Unaka Range of the Appalachian Mountains system, the oldest mountain system in North America. The Appalachians extend from beyond the Canadian-United States border in the North into Alabama. The Unaka Range of the Appalachians is part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and it extends across the eastern end of the state from the Nolichucky River, a tributary of the Watauga River, a tributary of the Holston River, to the Nolichucky River, a tributary of the French Broad River. Several sections of the Unakas have local names such as the familiar Great Smoky Mountains, the Bald Mountains, and the Unicoi Mountains. Clingmans Dome is the highest mountain in Tennessee, and the third-highest east of the Mississippi River. (Mount Mitchell across the border in North Carolina is the highest mountain in the Appalachians.) Clingmans Dome is one of twenty-five mountains in the state that are more than a mile in height. (Note: One of the most popular hikes in the Smokies is the hike up to Mount Le Conte Lodge. Some of you may have taken that hike and spent the night in the lodge.)
Although the first Anglo-American settlers first crossed the mountains from Virginia and North Carolina and claimed the land as their own, the population of the area grew slowly. As soon as they arrived, they began displacing the Cherokees living in the mountains and the Anglo-American settlers and the Cherokees began signing treaties by which the Cherokees traded their ancestral lands in exchange for peace with the newcomers. The area's rough terrain discouraged all but the most determined settlers. Many who came from the thirteen English colonies simply passed on to lands that offered promise beyond the mountains, but the few who remained fiercely protective of their territory for generations to come. The people who stayed to become true mountain people were an independent group who needed little or no interaction with others outside the region.
Due to the steep ridges in the Unakas, the people who lived in the area were isolated from outsiders. Since row farming was impractical due to the terrain and the short growing season, most of the early European settlers were subsistence farmers who often sold timber for income. Because of the remoteness of much of this area, “moonshining” also flourished in this area, particularly during prohibition. The coming of the automobile and the creating of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park in the 1930s made tourism a major part of the economy of this area. The area is also rich in mineral deposits of iron, copper, zinc, and manganese.
Ethnologists believe that the name “Unakas” is a variation of the Cherokee word for “white.” Until about one hundred years ago, these mountains were covered with vast forests of American chestnut trees, which produced large white blossoms in the Spring. When the chestnut trees bloomed entire portions of the mountains seemed to turn “white,” which gave them their Cherokee name. For centuries, chestnut trees made up one-third of all the trees in the Smokies. Around 1900 a mysterious blight, a fungus, began to attack healthy chestnut trees in the United States. The fungus that caused the blight had been brought into the United States through a group of Japanese and Chinese Chestnut trees that were planted in the Bronx Zoo in 1904. The blight quickly began to spread through the air and by the 1940s, there were few chestnut trees left in the Smokies. Within fifty years, most of the mature chestnut trees in the Appalachians had died, making this one of the worst tragedies in the history of American forestry. Botanists estimate that before the blight attacked the chestnut trees, one in every four hardwood trees in the Appalachians was an American chestnut. Today all that remains are a few small spindly survivors. Volunteer State biology professor Joe Schibig was among a team of scientists who have worked with the American Chestnut Foundation to develop a blight-resistant chestnut tree.
Author’s note: When Professor Schibig offered the faculty an opportunity to test one of the new species, my husband and I planted in our yard. Ten years later, the tree is thriving. Hopefully, this is an indication of success. Today, another blight is threatening large sections of hemlock in the region.
The industrialization of the United States that developed after the Civil War, brought a new burst of energy to the Southern Appalachians. With the expansion of the railroad system, logging became a major industry of its own. Financed almost exclusively my investors from the Northeast, this boom had a profound impact on the region. By 1900, conservationists began to be concerned about the long-term impact of such massive logging in the mountains. Conservationists, making the connection between deforestation and the navigability of waterways, asked Congress and federal officials for help. Under Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, the U.S. Forest Service, under the Department of Agriculture conservation programs began so that the federal government could buy privately held property for the purpose of protecting the water flow of rivers and streams. In spite of tremendous opposition, the program succeeded.
After World War I, concerned citizens in Knoxville and North Carolina organized a campaign to get support for the creation of a national park in the Unakas, which many called the Smokies. These citizens believed that the Smokies were endangered because of the large commercial timber companies had purchased large landholdings, in anticipation of cutting many of the forests of the region. The supporters of the idea of a park formed an organization and began raising money privately to buy the land from the timber companies. To create a national park, land would have to be purchased from more than 6000 landowners, large and small alike, if the national park was going to become a reality. Some estimated that it would cost over ten million dollars to buy the land. The park’s promoters saw the potential that a national park could have for the economy of the area and urged potential contributors to consider the future. Since the widespread ownership of automobiles was already bringing visitors to the mountains, the park boosters saw potential economic possibilities that could come from providing services to tourists. They believed a national park Chestnut would Tree, allow Nashville the region to take advantage of these opportunities.
In 1926, Congress passed a bill for federal administration of the proposed park, but in order for the park to be created, Tennessee and North Carolina were going to have to donate thousands of acres of land necessary for a park. Residents of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina had raised over a million dollars for the new park for the purchase of this land. The Tennessee and North Carolina legislatures then responded by passing bills in 1927 to each give two million dollars for the park, and the following year, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. gave the last five million dollars as a gift to the memory of his mother. In spite of this success in raising the necessary funds, opposition to the creation of a park from the timber companies who saw the park as a threat to their economic interests continued. These companies went to court to try to prevent the forced sale of their land under the laws of eminent domain. These lawsuits and the 1929 stock market crash stalled the project until President Franklin Roosevelt was able to convince Congress to appropriate $743,265.29 to purchase the remaining land for the new national park. Roosevelt himself came to Tennessee for the dedication and opening of the Great Smoky National Park on September 2, 1940. The flow of tourists into the region intensified after World War II and tourism transformed the economy of the region.
The most controversial aspect of the creation of the park was the removal of over 4000 people who lived on the property. Some families had owned this land since the earliest days of settlement and did not want to live anywhere else. The National Park Service allowed many older people to stay in their homes for as long as they lived. Five elderly sisters continued to live in their cabin until well into the 1950s. One resident who was forced to move expressed the feelings of many when he said, "They tell me I can't break a twig nor pull a flower after there's a park. Nor can I fish with bait, nor kill a boomer, nor bear on land owned by my pap, and grandpap and his pap before him!" These independent folks did not want politicians in Washington telling them what they could and could not do.
The automobile that became popular in the early years of the twentieth century, made tourism a kind of industry and brought visitors to many areas that were once isolated. Until the coming of the national park, the population remained sparse and isolated. Today the Great Smoky Mountain National Park encompasses over 500,000 acres of diverse wilderness from high mountain peaks such as Clingmans Dome to beautiful meadows such as Cades Cove. The park is one of the "most biologically diverse ecosystems in North America." The number of visitors to the Smokies ranks first among the entire national park system. This has become an important economic factor for Tennessee and North Carolina since these visitors spend millions of dollars at surrounding businesses.
Unlike the wildfires that have plagued the mountain ranges in the Western United States, the Appalachians and the Smokies have not experienced as many severe fires. Lightning strikes were the major causes of many Smoky Mountain fires, and they were generally quickly contained and subdued. In November 2016, however, the combination of drought and high winds caused one of the worst fire disasters in Appalachian history. When the fire was first reported in late November, the park rangers thought that they could control it, but high winds allowed the fire to spread into Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, two of the state’s most popular tourist destinations. It quickly became critical that residents and tourists alike had to be evacuated quickly. By the time the fires were contained in mid-December more than 16,000 acres, a total of 24 square miles, had burned. Fourteen people were killed with many more injured.
The Great Valley of the Tennessee River
Like the people who settled the Appalachian Mountains, those who claimed the land which was sometimes referred to as the Ridge & Valley Country, between the Tennessee River and the mountains were largely self-sufficient families with few, if any, slaves. The settlers who came to this region became subsistence farmers with little need for a workforce beyond family members. They too were independent folks who often lived miles apart. Towns developed in the area where business could be conducted but their populations grew slowly. Those towns with river access became part of the state’s expanding transportation system; some of those communities often became the county seat, where the citizenry could conduct official business with the state, such as the registration of deeds, the probating of wills, and the payment of taxes.
The land surface of the Great Valley is a low-lying area between the Cumberland Plateau and the Unaka Mountains. Ridges and valleys across the Great Valley vary in height from the 2600-foot Clinch Mountain to the 640-foot point where the Tennessee River crosses from Tennessee into Alabama just west of Chattanooga. In between the ridges are broad valleys with rich soil that makes much of this area ideal for farming. The Great Valley makes up almost twenty percent of the area of Tennessee. Although the Smoky Mountains can be seen from Knoxville, Sevierville, and Pigeon Forge, only Gatlinburg is actually in the mountains.
At the southern end of the Great Valley sits Chattanooga, a city largely re-built by former Union soldiers who had been stationed in the area during the Civil War. After the war ended, these men saw investment potential in the region and hoped to establish Chattanooga as "the Pittsburgh of the South" because of its location near rich iron deposits. By the end of the 19th century, the Chattanooga Foundry and Pipe Company produced large volumes of pig iron used in machine shops and a variety of manufacturing plants, but the steel mills of Birmingham, Alabama quickly surpassed Chattanooga's production ability and earned that city the title of "Pittsburgh of the South." The coming of the Tennessee Valley Authority to the region in the 1930s boosted industrialization in the Great Valley. Industrialization led to dramatic growth in towns and cities such as Bristol, Kingsport, Johnson City, Alcoa, Oak Ridge, and Cleveland, as well as the larger cities of Knoxville and Chattanooga. Knoxville and Chattanooga, which were both located at specific points on the Tennessee River, are the third and fourth-largest cities in Tennessee. Knoxville, which was founded in 1791 before Tennessee became a state, was located just south of where the Holston and French Broad Rivers come together to form the Tennessee River. When football fans converge on Knoxville to watch "Big Orange" football, for a brief period of time, Neyland Stadium alone becomes the fifth largest "city" in Tennessee. The Knoxville campus of the University of Tennessee, sometimes known by its students as "the hill," lies at the edge of the Appalachian Mountains in the Great Valley of East Tennessee.
The city of Chattanooga lies in the Moccasin Bend of the Tennessee River, nestled in between the ridges of Lookout Mountain and Signal Mountain. In the 1920s, Garnet Carter who lived atop Lookout Mountain began to consider the economic potential of his wife’s gardens. Frieda Carter had used the ordinary rocks that were abundant on the mountain to enhance their ten-acre property and filled her gardens with more than 400 native plants. In 1932, in the middle of the Depression, the Carters decided to open their gardens to the public with a small charge for admission. They realized that when the Depression ended, people would begin traveling further distances in their automobiles and would want to see special things along the way. They simply needed to find a way to let travelers know about the gardens so that they would want to visit the “Rock City Gardens” as they passed through Tennessee on their way to Florida. Garnet Carter came up with the idea of painting the roofs of barns with the slogan, “See Rock City.” Carter hired Clark Byers, a local painter, to paint “See Rock City” on barn roofs in nineteen states along highways heading south. The size of a barn roof alone gave drivers a great opportunity to learn about Rock City. This inexpensive but highly effective marketing plan soon made Rock City on Lookout Mountain a well-known tourist site. Soon everyone traveling by automobile knew about Rock City and tourists began to flock to Tennessee to see Rock City. When World War II ended, the Carters expanded their enterprise by incorporating Ruby Falls and an incline railroad up the side of Lookout Mountain to Rock City. Today, Rock City continues to be a major tourist attraction and continues to be operated by members of the Carter family.
The Cumberland Plateau
Every autumn on some Friday nights or Saturday mornings, a steady stream of automobiles bearing "Go Vols!" flags, makes its way on Interstate 40 east from middle Tennessee to Knoxville to watch a college football game at Neyland Stadium. No matter how fast those fans are driving, between Cookeville and Monterey, the traffic always slows down as the cars and commercial vehicles ascend the Cumberland Plateau. Drivers go up the flat-topped ridge that is a thousand feet higher than the Highland Rim where Cookeville is located.
The Cumberland Plateau posed many geographic challenges to explorers, hunters, and settlers. When the James Robertson and John Donelson parties arrived in what is now Middle Tennessee to claim the land in the Cumberland Basin where Nashville and much of Sumner County sit today, they took circuitous routes to go around the Plateau rather than cross it directly from east to west. This area was generally ignored until the value of the area’s coal deposits and timber attracted entrepreneurs who saw financial opportunities in the region late in the nineteenth century.
Known by some as “the Tableland,” “the Wilderness” or "the great wall of Tennessee," the Plateau served as a barrier that limited movement and provided isolation for Indians and English settlers alike. James Robertson, Thomas Sharp Spencer, and Daniel Boone who lived in western settlements of Virginia and North Carolina in the Watauga region came to the area as long-hunters on expeditions that lasted for months at a time. The barrier of the Plateau limited access to the mid-Cumberland River area where the hunting was good. There were only a few footpaths such as the Warrior's Path through the Cumberland Gap.
Because the Plateau, rising 1000 feet about the Tennessee River Valley, was almost impossible to cross from east to west, James Robertson sent the women and children of his party with John Donelson on flatboats that floated down the Tennessee River from Fort Patrick Henry to the Ohio River, up the Ohio River to the Cumberland River, and then up the Cumberland to the Salt Lick when the Cumberland region was settled in 1779 and 1780. Only Robertson and a few men came by foot through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky and then south into middle Tennessee. Going around the plateau was far easier than attempting to cross it directly. When roads such as the Avery Trace finally appeared on the Cumberland Plateau, they were simply trails connecting Knoxville and East Tennessee with Nashville and middle Tennessee. This prompted local Cumberland County historian Helen Krechniak to call the county "The Road to Somewhere Else."
After the Civil War, the coming of the railroads brought economic development to the Cumberland Plateau. Northern developers saw the value of the area's coal and timber resources; railroad companies bought up much of the land on the Plateau as a source for coal to run the locomotives and timber for railroad ties. Much of the area of the Plateau continued to remain isolated at the end of the 20th century with subsistence farming continuing in isolated parts of the region.
The Sequatchie Valley
The Sequatchie Valley, a long valley in the Cumberland Plateau, is one of the most beautiful sites in the entire state. Driving from Chattanooga to Nashville along the northern side of Monteagle Mountain, the valley's rich farmlands can be seen from the mountain along Interstate 24. In 1834, University of Nashville geologist Gerard Troost visited the area and identified the large chasm on the Plateau as "the gulf," now part of the state park.12 The valley itself is noticeable because of its flatness, but on either side of it are the steep slopes of the Cumberland Plateau. The eastern escarpment is known as Walden's Ridge. Fall Creek Falls State Park is located in the Cumberland Mountains on the western escarpment. Here the Fall Creek Falls descend over 250 feet to make it the highest waterfalls in the eastern United States. In the heart of the valley lies the Sequatchie River, which runs the valley's length of over 100 miles from Grassy Cove above Crab Orchard to below Jasper. It flows into the Tennessee River near the location of the Chickamaugan villages of Nickajack and Running Water.
The Unaka Range, the Great Valley, and the Cumberland Plateau became known as East Tennessee, with the Plateau serving as the dividing line between East and Middle Tennessee. By the time of the writing of the Constitution of 1834, the geographic uniqueness of the three grand divisions had become so accepted that the writers of the 1834 Constitution identified counties by name within each division so that the divisions became creations of state government. A few of the counties along the border between East and Middle Tennessee and the border between Middle and West Tennessee have moved from one grand division to another, the three grand divisions remain.
THE HIGHLAND RIM
Driving from Gallatin to Portland or Westmoreland in the northern part of middle Tennessee; driving from Nashville to Springfield; or driving from Lebanon to Carthage or Cookeville, cars must go up a steep hill that the local residents refer to as "the ridge." "The ridge" is actually the Highland Rim that surrounds the Central Basin on all sides. While the borders of the basin and the Highland Rim are indistinct in some places due to erosion, in Sumner and Robertson counties there is no doubt as to its location. From the Southern steps of the Tennessee capitol in Nashville, you can see the Highland Rim, surrounding the Central Basin in all directions.
The eastern side of the Highland Rim was the site of several popular resorts where mineral waters from underground springs attracted visitors seeking cures for a variety of ailments in the early 20th century. Just east of Westmoreland, on the border between Sumner and Macon Counties, the 15 Epperson Springs Hotel and Resort was built after the Civil War. Many people believed that bathing in the waters from the spring cured many diseases. Visitors from all parts of the United States came to the Epperson Hotel, which was considered to be one of the most impressive buildings in middle Tennessee. It had 170 guest rooms, a grand ballroom, two large dining rooms, a billiard room, a barbershop, and a bowling alley. Although the hotel had been built before the Civil War, it was the coming of the railroad to Westmoreland that turned the hotel into a place for many tourists to visit. On the Fourth of July each year, the hotel held a large celebration. Many organizations held statewide conventions there. In the early morning hours of April 26, 1926, the Epperson Springs Hotel burned to the ground. It was not rebuilt. Today all that remains are ruins of a few concrete porches pushed off the side of a hill and a footpath leading into the valley below where the springs were once located. The hotels of Macon County's Red Boiling Springs also became important destinations for people looking for cures in the water from nearby Sulphur Springs. Most of these hotels were hit hard by the impact of the Great Depression on tourism and never recovered from the losses. When World War II ended, travelers sought out other more easily reached destinations, such as the beaches of Florida or the Smoky Mountain National Park. Red Boiling Springs became a shadow of the resort town it had been in the 1920s. In 2001, the economic climate of the town changed when the Nestle Company purchased the Bennett Hill Spring and built a bottling plant on the adjacent property. Nestle now produces several million gallons of water each year. It has become the largest employer in Macon County.
Epperson Springs Hotel, located near Westmoreland, was one of Sumner County's first tourist attractions.
People came from miles around to enjoy what they believed to be the healing powers of the spring water.
Just across the Davidson County line in Robertson County, there is a town known as "Ridgetop." In the 1890s, wealthy Nashvillians built expensive summer homes in Ridgetop to escape the air pollution caused by industrialization. This area became known as “The Enclosure” because it was enclosed with a white picket fence. Train service between Ridgetop and Nashville allowed prosperous businessmen, such as George O’Bryan to move their families to “The Enclosure” during the summer and take the train into Nashville to work during the week. Today, the O’Bryan house is one of the few original houses left there.
When Nashville doctors and other concerned citizens built a hospital for patients suffering from tuberculosis, a deadly lung disease, they built the Watauga Sanatorium in Ridgetop because they believed the quality of the air there was beneficial to persons with breathing disorders. Known as the "Home of the World's finest Dark Fired Tobacco," tobacco is the major agricultural crop raised in Robertson County as well as other counties on the Highland Rim.
Iron deposits found by the early Cumberland settlers on the western side of the Highland Rim provided the raw material for Tennessee’s first industry. Some geologists consider the Western Highland Rim to be a separate physiographic region because of its unique characteristics. With an area of approximately, 7500 square miles, by itself, this area, which has been referred to as “cannonball country,” is one of Tennessee's largest regions.16 Less than 20 years after James Robertson’s arrival, he had begun to operate an iron furnace known as Cumberland Furnace and a forge that he named for his wife Charlotte, west of Nashville in what is now Dickson County. Pig iron from the furnace was made into bars at the forge. Robertson sold this profitable business to Montgomery Bell in 1804, and Bell expanded the operation using slave labor to perform this dangerous work. The local legends of the area include a story that Cumberland Furnace, one of Bell’s properties, provided the U.S. Army with the cannonballs that Andrew Jackson used to defeat the British at the Battle of New Orleans. At the peak of its production, the iron industry on the Western Highland operated at least nineteen furnaces as far west as the Decatur Furnace on the western side of the Tennessee River and the Iron City Furnace in Wayne County near the Alabama border. By the 1830s, however, so much of the timber in the areas surrounding the furnaces as well as the iron ore itself had been exhausted and many of the furnaces began to shut down operation. When Montgomery Bell attempted to sell his Bellview Furnace in 1839, he was unable to find a buyer. That property was still on the market at the time of Bell’s death in 1855. Bell’s Cumberland Furnace, however, continued to produce some iron until shortly before World War II.
The Central (or Cumberland) Basin
When the first French trappers and traders followed the Cumberland River from the Ohio upstream, they came to the mouth of a creek fed by a salt spring that flowed into the Cumberland River. There they saw an abundance of wildlife gathered around the salt lick that fed the creek as well as the beauty of the rolling hills surrounding the entire area. Deer, buffalo, and all manner of birds gathered around this salt lick that became known as the French Lick as well as other salt licks in the area. Tribes of Native Americans fought over these hunting grounds but by 1710, when the French trader Charles Charleville set up a trading post at the salt lick, the Cherokees and Chickasaws has pushed the Shawnees who had occupied this area out. English trappers and traders, known as long hunters because of the length of time they were away from their homes in Virginia and the Carolina colonies began to come in and out of this area and returned home laden with deer skins. It was the French Lick that James Robertson, a Longhunter, and surveyor, had identified as the location for a settlement that ultimately became Nashville.
The Central Basin is a 600-foot-deep inverted dome in the middle of the state. One of the many nicknames for Nashville is "the Dimple of the State" because Nashville sits down in this 600-foot bowl, or dimple, properly called the Central Basin. A person driving along the interstate highways leading in and out of Nashville, you cannot help but notice the large cuts through solid limestone rock that were cut when the roads were built. This rearranging of the vertical element of the road by lowering the profile of the earth made driving easier and safer. In some places, the topsoil covering the limestone is no more than ten to twelve inches deep. Explosives must be used for almost all excavations in the basin.
The Central Basin is a bed of limestone. Digging is difficult because there is such a shallow layer of topsoil covering the limestone in most areas of the basin. When the state capitol was built in the late 1840s and 1850s, the members of the Tennessee General Assembly insisted that the architect use only Tennessee materials in the construction of the building. Unfortunately, Tennessee limestone which was quarried in Davidson County near the building site proved to be quite soft and porous so that 100 years later the exterior of the building was deteriorating. After World War II ended, the General Assembly in the 1950s agreed that extensive work had to be done to replace the Tennessee limestone with more durable Indiana limestone.
from the TN Capitol building pediments
Most people who live in Nashville do not realize that they live "down in a bowl" until they leave town in any direction. Smog and polluted air began to be a major problem in Nashville with the industrialization of the city after the Civil War. Coal which was burned for fuel lingered in the Central Basin because of its unique geography. George Cate, a native Nashvillian, remembered the city as being covered by a grey haze from the use of coal on many occasions throughout the year. In the late 1940s, the burning of coal for heat and energy left so much soot in the air that his shirts were frequently grey with a white imprint of his tie where it has served as a stencil on the front of his shirts by the end of the day. According to Cate, coal pollution continued until a natural gas pipeline constructed after World War II under the Cumberland River near Ashland City allowed the city to gradually convert much of its heating to natural gas. Although there is far less use of coal in the Central Basin than there was fifty years ago, it remains under air pollution restrictions because soot blown into the air has a difficult time rising up out of the basin beyond the Highland Rim. Today, the standards of the Environmental Protection Agency have improved the air quality of the Central Basin.
Early middle Tennessee settlers found a vast forest on the eastern side of the Central Basin. Although these trees were actually Virginia juniper, the settlers mistakenly called them red cedars and later established the Cedars of Lebanon State Park in Wilson County in recognition of this forest. Exposed limestone recessions known as sinkholes can be seen from many of the trails in the state park. Natural rock gardens in this forest are known as cedar glades, where the limestone comes up near the surface. In some of these glades, the topsoil is completely absent, however, nineteen rare and endangered species of plants grow profusely here and nowhere else in the world." (Thus, the town of Gladeville, Tennessee was named.) Few things can be successfully grown in this shallow soil heavily nurtured by lime, but bluegrass thrived in this soil.
Gallatin itself was once the heart of Tennessee's bluegrass country and thoroughbred horse breeding was an important component of the Sumner County economy until recent years. An international steeplechase was held in Gallatin in the late 1920s but the Great Depression of the 1930s ended that enterprise.
Although slave ownership was common in the Central Basin and the Highland Rim, only in the southernmost part of Middle Tennessee did slavery become a significant part of the economy. Nashville in the Central Basin became the capital of the state in large part because of the fact that the Cumberland River was navigable all the way to Nashville. Nashville developed as a commercial center with significant banking and transportation interests before the Civil War.
The Western Valley of the Tennessee River
When Tennessee seceded from the Union, several counties along the Tennessee River in West Tennessee voted against leaving the Union. The residents of those counties owned few slaves and were staunchly pro-Union during the Civil War, and after the war ended, they began voting Republican long before the population of the Plateau Slope and Mississippi River Valley. The Western Valley of the Tennessee River is a minor physiographic region.
Some of the largest Clovis campsites of the earliest Paleo-Indian groups have been found in this long, narrow strip of land along the Tennessee River in West Tennessee. Here, the abundance of high-quality chert (flint) used in the making of tools and spear points aided the Paleo-Indian hunters, later known as the Eva people, in their pursuit of large mammals in the area. With the coming of the Tennessee Valley Authority in the 1930s, archaeologists began a comprehensive survey of the lands along the Tennessee River and its tributaries. Working at a site near the present town of Camden on the western side of the Tennessee River in 1940, they determined that a village existed there 4000 to 5000 years ago. (See chapter 2.)
Today the Tennessee River in West Tennessee is quite different from the river on which the Donelson party traveled in 1780. With the building of the Pickwick Dam at the Tennessee-Alabama-Mississippi border and Kentucky Dam at the Tennessee-Kentucky border, the TVA widened the river considerably and opened that section of the river to commercial traffic up and down the river. In addition to the dams, the Johnsonville steam plant between the two dams near Waverly, produces electricity to heat over 400,000 homes in West Tennessee. This plant burns coal in ten furnaces to heat water and create steam that generates electric power; it is the oldest fossil plant in the TVA system.
The Plateau Slope of West Tennessee
Most of the counties of West Tennessee are on the Plateau Slope. Most people consider West Tennessee to be flat, but it slopes gently downward from the Western Valley of the Tennessee River to the Mississippi River. On the eastern side of the slope, it stands more than 300 feet above the Tennessee River and its western edge is almost 200 feet above the Mississippi River.
From the time of statehood until the War of 1812, all of West Tennessee was considered to be part of a Congressional reservation for the Chickasaw Indians in spite of the claims of squatters who had moved into the area without permission. When the War of 1812 ended, General Andrew Jackson, now a national hero due to his victories as Horseshoe Bend and New Orleans, used threats and economic coercion to negotiate two treaties with the Chickasaws. With the Jackson Purchase of 1818, the Chickasaws abandoned all their claims to their tribal lands, opening almost twenty million acres of Chickasaw land in West Tennessee. Some Chickasaws held on to land holdings in upper Mississippi until the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, but by 1820, West Tennessee was open to settlement.
For the 2021 crop year, USDA Farm Service Agency’s certified cotton acres planted in Tennessee totaled 267,396 acres. Current reported acreage (acres will be added between now and the final report) is 4.9 percent more acres in 2021 than 2020’s 254,949 acres. Final reported acreage for the 2021 crop year will be published in January/February of 2022. The top five counties for cotton planted acres in Tennessee were Haywood, Crockett, Fayette, Lauderdale and Gibson Counties. The top five counties planted 59 percent of Tennessee’s total cotton acres.
Image and Info Source: https://extension.tennessee.edu/publications/Documents/W442.pdf
Since the climate and soil conditions of much of West Tennessee seemed ideal for the production of cotton, land speculators and buyers poured into the area. General James Winchester of Sumner County, along with General Andrew Jackson and John Overton of Davidson County invested heavily in land in West Tennessee. In 1821, these men founded the city of Memphis on the Mississippi River. With the coming of cotton production in West Tennessee also came a dramatic increase in the number of slaves in the state. Surplus slaves from the Atlantic states were sold to cotton producers in West Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. The increased economic dependence on slavery in West Tennessee became a major factor as slavery became the subject of a national political debate in the 1850s.
The Mississippi River Valley
During the Woodland and Mississippian periods, prior to the coming of the Europeans, various native peoples settled along the Mississippi River. Although often short-lived, these villages were part of a vast trading network that existed up and down the river. The last of these pre-historic settlements produced an advanced agricultural chiefdom, now known as Chucalissa, that was still in existence and occupied by the Chickasaw tribe at the time of the crossing of the river by the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto in 1540-41. The entire Mississippi River Valley, the second minor physiographic region, was later claimed for France by Robert de Cavalier de la Salle, an explorer who led an expedition down the Mississippi River from French settlements in the Great Lakes region. (See chapters 2 & 3.)
In the fall of 1811, Captain Nicholas Roosevelt departed from Pittsburgh in route to New Orleans as the commanding officer of the New Orleans, a newly manufactured steamboat that was expected to make history as the first steamboat to travel down the Ohio River to the Mississippi River and on to New Orleans. Throughout their voyage, they were able to see the Great Comet of 1811 as well as a solar eclipse. Although this voyage of the New Orleans later became legendary and did make history, it was not because of the success of its arrival in New Orleans. On December 16, just as the New Orleans crossed from the Ohio River to the Mississippi, the first of four of the New Madrid earthquakes shook the areas of Kentucky, Missouri, and Ohio. Later considered to be the strongest earthquake to hit the eastern United States since the arrival of European settlers, over a period of two months these earthquakes caused much damage. For a brief period of time, the Mississippi River actually flowed north rather than south and in many places along the river, there were massive landslides. Reelfoot Lake in West Tennessee, the largest natural lake in the state, was created by these earthquakes. In some areas, the land itself rose or fell as much as twenty feet from their former elevations. The trees in one area near the Piney River sank completely below the level of the ground. Water almost immediately began to fill these places and created swamps. Over time, these swamps drained away and became upland forests or prairies ideal for the growing of soybeans and in a few cases cotton.
Thus began the era of the steamboat on the Mississippi River and its tributaries. The coming of the steamboat meant that goods and passengers could travel from Pittsburgh to New Orleans in less than two weeks. Within ten years, the city of Memphis, named for the capital of ancient Egypt, was founded as a stopping point between St. Louis and New Orleans. Memphis became a major shipping point for Tennessee cotton that was sold in New Orleans. By the time of the Civil War, Memphis’s slave market, the largest in the mid-South, had become an important part of the city's thriving economy.
Cotton became "king" across West Tennessee and large landowners who owned large numbers of slaves began talking about secession when California was ready to become a state. These wealthy landowners held a disproportionate amount of power in the General Assembly and began the push for secession as soon as South Carolina left the Union in December 1861. When the Civil War came to Tennessee, West Tennessee was the site of the major battle of Shiloh as well as numerous small battles and skirmishes led by the controversial Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, a former Memphis slave trader, whose cavalry unit regularly raided railroad depots and burned bridges across West Tennessee until the end of the war. Despite losing the Civil War and then losing their voting rights, by 1870, the wealthy West Tennessee landowners had returned to political power and remained staunch Democrats until the coming of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
Tennessee’s River Systems
The rivers and streams that appear in every physiographic region of Tennessee were the area’s first transportation system and the determining factor in where Native Americans and European settlers alike decided to live. Tennessee has three major river systems and almost the entire state is part of the Mississippi River system. There is only one small portion of the state in Polk County, east of Chattanooga where the water does not flow to the Mississippi River.
The rivers and streams were the lifelines for Native Americans and settlers. Not only did it provide transportation, but it also provided water for crops and drinking. The places in the state where towns and cities developed were located on the rivers: Knoxville at the junction of the Holston and French Broad which then become the Tennessee River, Chattanooga, in a major bend in the Tennessee River, Memphis, on the Fourth Chickasaw Bluff above the Mississippi River, and Nashville on the Cumberland River between the mouths of the Salt Creek and Brown’s Creek. Rivers are difficult to measure and the lengths of rivers across the United States vary based on an array of measurements taken at different times. One source may list the Tennessee River as being 652 miles in length and the country’s twenty-third longest river, while another source states that the river is 935 miles long and the twelfth longest. The same is true for the Cumberland, one source claims that it is 688 miles long but another claims that it is 696 miles in length. Most sources say that the Cumberland River is the twenty-first longest river. Both the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers flow to the Ohio River which takes the water to the Mississippi River and out to the Gulf of Mexico, BUT the two rivers never cross or intersect. The closest that they get to each other is in the area now known as “the Land Between the Lakes.”
The Tennessee River
When a constitution was written in anticipation of statehood for Tennessee, the delegates at the 1796 constitutional convention decided to name the new state for a major geographic feature, the Tennessee River. The 886 mile-long Tennessee River begins just above Knoxville at a point where the Holston and French Broad Rivers converge to form a wider river. The three forks of the Holston River began in the mountains of Virginia and came together to form the Holston near the present-day town of Kingsport. The Watauga River, a tributary of the South Fork of the Holston, began at Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina. Further south, the Little Tennessee and Hiwassee Rivers flowed into the Tennessee River. The Powell and Clinch Rivers came together at the boundary of Anderson, Campbell, and Union Counties and then flowed into the Tennessee River in Roane County.
Geologists believe that millions of years ago the Tennessee River was actually three separate streams that became connected with the shifts of the earth. The first maps on which this river appeared were done by French trappers and traders coming down from the French settlements in Canada. It then appeared on a 1755 British map and was called the “River of the Cherakees”. Its tributary that is now the Little Tennessee River was shown as the “Tenassee or Satico,” and the present-day Clinch River was labeled as the “Pelisipi.” Within a few years, it began to be called “the Tennessee,” presumably named for one of the Cherokees’ major villages, Tanasi.
When the Tennessee Valley Authority was created to improve living conditions along the Tennessee River and its tributaries as part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal program, the entire area of the Tennessee Valley received a major economic boost. As one of the poorest parts of the United States, the Tennessee Rivers’ frequent floods washed away topsoil and devastated the small subsistence farms on either side of the river. In addition to improving farming conditions, the coming of the TVA to the region provided jobs and raised the region’s standard of living. A dam that had been built during World War I for a gunpowder plant in the Muscle Shoals area of the Tennessee River served as the inspiration for the TVA, an unprecedented development in regional planning. Low dams were built along the Tennessee River itself to improve flood control and navigation, while high dams were built on its tributaries to provide hydroelectricity. Norris Dam, located between Anderson and Campbell Counties, northwest of Knoxville, was the first dam in the system to be finished in 1936. It was named for Nebraska Senator George Norris who pushed for such a system throughout the 1920s.
THE TENNESSEE RIVER SYSTEM
In recent years, the water of the Tennessee River, now often seen as a commodity, has created a political battle between Tennessee and Georgia. In 2008, the Georgia legislature angered many Tennesseans, including the mayor of Chattanooga, when it passed a resolution claiming a right to water from the Tennessee River to solve Atlanta's growing water problem. At issue was the precise location of the border between Tennessee and Georgia located at the 35th parallel. Georgia claimed that at the time the border was established in 1818, the line was marked slightly above below the 35th parallel, leaving Georgia with no rights. Until the Atlanta water crisis of 2008, no one contested the location of the line. Georgia State Senator David J. Shafer then claimed that the 35th parallel runs through the middle of a bend in the Tennessee River rather than slightly below the river as it is currently marked. In June 2011, Georgia House Speaker David Ralston suggested that Georgia give Tennessee an improved railroad in exchange for a port on the Tennessee River. When the Georgia legislature convened in early 2013, lawmakers introduced yet another resolution to gain access to the Tennessee River at Nickajack Lake by agreeing to acknowledge the current boundary between the two states as the official borders.
the border would give Georgia access to Nickajack Lake.
indicating the state lines of Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee
THE CUMBERLAND RIVER SYSTEM
At the height of the American Revolution on December 22, 1779, John Donelson and some 30 families left the Fort Patrick Henry on the Holston River above the location of the present city of Knoxville, on a flotilla of flatboats that was to take them down the full length of the Tennessee River to the point where it flowed in the Ohio River. From there the flatboats would be moved against the current of the Ohio River some 12 miles east to the mouth of the Cumberland River and then up the Cumberland River to the site of what was to become a new settlement. The spot for this settlement had been identified by James Robertson, a long-hunter and surveyor for speculator Richard Henderson who had purchased much of Central Kentucky and Middle Tennessee from the Cherokees with the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals signed in 1775. Robertson's plan called for the Donelson party to rendezvous with a land party led by James Robertson that had left the fort two months earlier to walk through the Cumberland Gap and through the wilderness area called by some "Kentuck" at the point where water from a salt lick flowed into a creek that fed into the Cumberland River. In the four-month journey that followed, the Donelson party survived repeated attacks by Indians the treacherous currents of an area of the Tennessee River known as "The Suck," and "perilous white-water stretch known as Muscle Shoals," and then north.
When the Donelson party finally arrived at the mouth of the Tennessee River where it flows into the Ohio River, they then faced maneuvering these boats up the Ohio River to the mouth of Cumberland and then up the Cumberland to the French Lick. Miraculously, after a journey of a thousand miles, they arrived at the French Lick, soon to be renamed Fort Nashboro, on April 24, 1780, four months after the arrival of the Robertson party. The route of the Donelson party's journey highlighted what geologist Edward Luther called the Tennessee River's many "peculiarities." Here in the western part of the state, the Tennessee River flows from south to north, unlike most normal rivers that flow downward to the nearest ocean. The Tennessee River defied such logic and flowed north to the Ohio River.
Like the Tennessee River, the 668-mile Cumberland River follows an equally defiant course. It begins in eastern Kentucky near the small coal-mining town of Harlan and flows into the northern part of middle Tennessee before returning to Kentucky and flowing into the Ohio River east of the mouth of the Tennessee River in Kentucky. At one time, the Cumberland River may have been a tributary of the ancient Tennessee River that somehow was cut off during the shifting of the earth that created the Appalachian Mountains. Like the Tennessee River, the Cumberland River served as the primary transportation artery for early settlers.
After the Civil War, the timber and coal interests of the upper Cumberland area used the river to get logs and coal to market in Nashville. Coal was loaded onto barges for the journey upriver as far as Byrdstown and Celina while logs were dropped in mass into the river, leading to gridlock on the river itself and disputes between the coal and timber interests of the state.
Until the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for the maintenance of all the rivers in the United States. In an effort to improve navigation on the Cumberland River, the Corps of Engineers built a series of 15 locks and dams up the Cumberland River from the Harpeth Shoals near Ashland City to the Big South Fork Recreation Area after World War I. Lock and Dam Number 1 was located at Nashville near Shelby Park. Six locks and dams were built down the river from Nashville and nine were built up the Cumberland. The dams raised the level of the Cumberland River from Burnside, Kentucky to Smithland, Kentucky, but they did not extend the river beyond its banks.
After citizens of Sumner County saw what the TVA was able to do for the Tennessee River Basin, they began to ask for the Cumberland River to be placed under the TVA. In 1941 before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Tennessee Governor Prentice Cooper appeared before Congress and made a plea for the Cumberland Rivers’ inclusion into the TVA system. He told a congressional committee that "a mere glance at the map shows that geography alone is a compelling reason for the development of the Tennessee and Cumberland Valleys as a unit." Still, it did not happen.
When World War II ended in 1945, it became clear that the locks and dams on the Cumberland were outdated due to the increase in traffic on the river. Towboats pushed great barges with petroleum products up and down the river, but it took forty-two hours to make the 400-mile round-trip from Nashville to the mouth of the Cumberland at Paducah, Kentucky. Half of the forty-two hours were spent going through the locks. Some of them were less than twenty miles apart. Raising the level of the river would shorten the time to make the trip. The Corps of Engineers agreed that the construction of two high dams between Nashville and Paducah would solve this problem, but by raising the level of the water so high that it poured over the original banks of its channel to create large lakes, farmers would lose their land. The Corps did not really think that these high dams were needed above Nashville in the upper Cumberland region, but it decided to build three high dams at Old Hickory, Carthage, and Celina to produce electricity. There clearly was going to be a need for additional electricity as these counties began to grow. Today, these dams provide recreational opportunities as well as flood control and electricity.
Can you identify the location of your county on the maps above? In which river system is your county located?
Note that not all of Sumner and Macon Counties are in the Cumberland River System. That part of those 2 counties is in the Green River system in Kentucky, the Ohio River system, and the Mississippi River system, but NOT the Cumberland.
The rivers of Tennessee no longer resemble those rivers that beckoned early settlers, both indigenous tribes and Europeans alike, into this region. Dams along the Tennessee River, the Cumberland River, and their tributaries have greatly altered the landscape. The rivers and their tributaries of Tennessee except for a small area east of Chattanooga are part of the Mississippi River system. After emptying into the Ohio River on either side of Paducah, Kentucky, the water from the Tennessee River system and the Cumberland River system flows into the Mississippi River at Cairo, Illinois, and then out into the Gulf of Mexico through the Port at New Orleans.
The Tennessee Divide
Dividing the Tennessee River system and the Cumberland River system is a faint ridgeline known as the Tennessee Divide. The water on the northern side of this line flows to the Cumberland River while the water south of the line flows to the Tennessee River. There are a few spots in the Land Between the Lakes and on the Natchez Trace Parkway where the ridgeline can be seen. The changes in elevation were more noticeable to Native Americans and early Anglo-American travelers than they are today. In 1796, the year that Tennessee became a state, the divide was identified in a treaty between the United States and the Chickasaw Nation. Although the 1796 Tennessee Constitution of the state’s boundaries were listed as the crest of the Appalachians to the middle of the Mississippi Rivers, the lands west and south of the Tennessee Divide were “reserved” for Native Americans. Tennessee’s population grew rapidly after statehood and within fifteen years, American settlers had crossed the line and claimed the land for themselves.
The 2 maps below show the divide as the southeastern boundary of the Cumberland River system, and the northeastern boundary of the Tennessee River system.
Tennessee’s Forgotten Conasauga River
There is a small part of southeastern Tennessee that is in neither the Tennessee River nor the Cumberland River system.
Conasauga River Begins in North Georgia and flows northward into Polk County, east of Chattanooga before bending again and heading across Georgia into Alabama.
RIVER BASINS OF TENNESSEE
Basins as defined in the Inter-Basin Water Transfer Act:
- The Mississippi River and all of its tributaries west of the Tennessee River Valley;
- The Duck River, the Elk River, and the western Tennessee River Valley;
- The lower Cumberland River to the downstream point of the mouth of the Caney Fork River, the Harpeth and the Stones Rivers;
- The tributaries of the Barren River;
- The upper Cumberland River, the Caney Fork, the Obey, and the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River;
- The lower Tennessee River in East Tennessee up to and including the Hiawassee River;
- The Conasauga River;
- The Upper Tennessee River in East Tennessee upstream of the Hiwassee, the Little Tennessee, Clinch, & Emory Rivers;
- The French Broad River and the Nolichucky River; and
- The Holston River and the Watauga River.
Tennessee's Borders
Tennessee was originally claimed by the colony of North Carolina which claimed that its western border extended all the way to the Mississippi River. When North Carolina ceded its western lands beyond the Appalachians to the national government when George Washington became President, the Appalachian Mountains in the east and the Mississippi River in the west serve as natural boundaries of the territory that became the state of Tennessee. The state's northern and southern boundaries, however, are more subjective lines drawn by humans rather than nature. Consequently, both have been the subject of some debate between Tennessee and its neighboring states. The state's northern and southern boundaries at 36° 30 and 35 degrees were determined by the latitude lines of the colonies and later states of Virginia and North Carolina. The first survey of the Virginia-North Carolina border was conducted by a commission of surveyors from the two colonies in 1749. Peter Jefferson, the father of future President Thomas Jefferson was in one of the teams of surveyors. When the thirteen colonies declared their independence, the two states commissioned new surveys.
In 1790 it was ceded by North Carolina and admitted as Tennessee in 1796.
Surveyors who had begun at the Mississippi River located the northern border slightly further south than surveyors coming from the Appalachians, Kentucky, the fifteenth state of the Union, argued that the line drawn from the Mississippi River eastward was the correct border between the two states. Tennesseans, however, disagreed, saying that the border was further north. 36° 30 had been in the original English charters for the colonies of Virginia and North Carolina. After the American Revolution began and settlers were coming across the Appalachians in larger and larger numbers, each state appointed two commissioners to survey the line to the Mississippi River. Dr. Thomas Walker and Daniel Smith represented Virginia; Colonel Richard Henderson, the land speculator who had attempted to create the 14th colony of Transylvania, and William Bailey Smith were appointed by North Carolina. Disagreements plagued the effort, and they separated. When Walker completed his surveying the line to the Tennessee River in the West, he had misread his surveying instrument. The Walker Line, as it was to be called, was slightly further north than 36°30. After Tennessee became a state, Kentucky decided to try to reclaim the strip of land, but Tennessee refused. Thus, began years of litigation that were not settled until the two states reached a compromise in 1820 that placed the border from the Mississippi River to the Tennessee river at the true 36°30. From the Tennessee River to the Appalachians remained at the Walker Line, just slightly north. Imagine this: if Kentucky had succeeded in its claim, Clarksville, Tennessee today would be Clarksville, Kentucky!
A similar difference of opinion about a line drawn by General James Winchester of Sumner County for the southern border. When Mississippi became a state in 1817, its leaders refused to accept the Winchester Line. The Winchester Line was actually too far North so its location as Winchester had drawn it actually benefitted Mississippi rather than Tennessee. After several years of disagreeing about the line, a special commission was appointed to settle the matter. Using astronomical observations, the commissioners determined that the true line was south of the Winchester Line, thus adding 215,927 acres to Tennessee. This report was not approved by the legislature of Mississippi until 1890. Recent surveys have indicated that the line was about a half-mile south of the true 35°.
Bordered by eight other states, Tennessee is equaled only by Missouri in the number of neighboring states touching its borders, making it landlocked. Early trade routes had to use the rivers to carry goods down the rivers to the Gulf of Mexico and then to the markets of the east coast. The Appalachian Mountains made east-west travel difficult.
Some 12,000 to 15,000 years after the first humans began coming into this area known as Tennessee, it has been the land that lured them here and the land that then determined where they settled, what they did, and how they interacted with people from other parts of the state as well as the nation. All of the many changes that had taken place in Tennessee history since the first people entered this land, occurred because of what had been here long before - the land. It was the land, our unusual geography, that created such a diverse population. That diversity had been here from the beginning of human settlement, yet the thing that caused the diversity has not changed since the first Paleolithic hunters first followed the wooly mammals into the place now known as Tennessee. More than anything else Tennessee's history has been shaped by its unique geography.
History is about people. It is the story of their actions, their interaction with each other, their ideas, and their legacies. History has recorded a variety of groups coming into the area at different times over thousands of years. Some stayed; others moved on. Attracted by the land and its resources, people began to settle—first along the rivers and streams. In time, with minimal modifications and adaptations, they adjusted to the land. Some people are remembered because their names were attached to places—Jackson County, Blount County, Carter County Shelby County, Trousdale County, Johnson County, or Robertson County; the towns of Sevierville, Murfreesboro, McMinnville, or Winchester. The naming of a place for a person has long been an accepted way of honoring a person's accomplishments so that their achievements could live on long after that person had died. Many of the people for whom places in this state are named never came to this place called Tennessee. Neither George Washington, Albert Gallatin, nor Benjamin Franklin ever set foot in this place, yet at some time or another, people living here wanted to memorialize them with a name. There are "Washington" and "Franklin" cities, counties, streets, in every state in the United States, named for men known as "Founding Fathers" of this country. There are fewer places bearing the name of Albert Gallatin, yet at the time his name was given to the county seat of Sumner County in Tennessee he was among the most prominent and well-known men in the United States. The author of a 2010 biography of Gallatin titled his book, Gallatin: America's Swiss Founding Father, as a way of demonstrating to readers how important Albert Gallatin was. Few people living in Gallatin, Tennessee today know why he was given this honor. There is no place in Tennessee bearing the names of the songwriters Felice Bryant or Boudleaux Bryant, but a little song that they claimed to have written in less than an hour while taking a break from more serious writing is sung at every University of Tennessee athletic event. While the Bryants' names have been largely forgotten, "Rocky Top," their legacy can be heard from the highest peaks in East Tennessee to the Mississippi River. The story of Tennessee history is the story of people but the land, known as "the Ridge," "the Delta," "Rock City," or "Rocky Top" determined its history.
This land that became Tennessee was formed over millions of years. Its land varies from the snow-capped peaks of the Appalachian Mountains to the "pancake flatness" of parts of West Tennessee. In between these two extremes, we have rolling hills. Shells of these animals are often found embedded in rocks found deep below the level of the topsoil. Long before the first humans came into this place geologic changes sculpted the land. At one time it was under a shallow sea filled with small crustaceans that died out as the water became more and more shallow. Trilobites, the most common of the sea animals, were generally three to four inches in length although a large fossil bed discovered in 1972 between Davidson and Cheatham Counties in 1972 included both larger and smaller shells. Each of these shifts laid down large deposits of coal, iron, limestone, marble, and other minerals. In Middle Tennessee limestone, sandstone, and shale were deposited while great beds of coal were deposited in East Tennessee. The age of these rocks varies from more than a billion years to just a few hours for those recently deposited on a sand bar here or there in a river. As the earth shifted, the Appalachian Mountains and the rivers were formed. The earth cooled and glaciers covered North America. As these large sheets of ice began to melt, plants began to grow. As plant life developed, animals such as mastodons, camels, saber-toothed tigers, sloths, and even horses roamed Tennessee and all North America. In 1971, excavation workers preparing the foundation for the First American National Bank Center in downtown Nashville found a cave containing both saber-toothed tiger remains as well as a few human remains while blasting through the solid limestone. During similar excavations for the Crockett Springs Golf Course near Williamson County's Cool Springs Galleria in 1977, archaeologists retrieved the partial skeleton of a mastodon.
The archaeological history and the written history of our state tell the story of how humans explored and used this land. It has recorded a variety of groups coming into the area. Attracted by the land and its resources, people began to settle— first along the rivers and streams. In time, they adjusted to the land and began to use the land. How they were able to use the land more than anything else determined how the narrative of Tennessee's history came into being. The regional rivalries remain strong today. More than any other thing, the varied landscapes from East to West have shaped the state's history.
“When civilization first peeped over the [mountains] and looked down on the gorgeous landscape below, I think she shouted, ‘Lo, this is paradise.’”
---Governor Robert Love Taylor, 1897
Test Your Knowledge:
Why does Tennessee’s state flag have three states?
Describe Tennessee’s physiographic regions and how the geography of each area shaped each area’s history.
Draw the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers on a blank map of Tennessee.
Identify the state’s borders and how they have changed.
References
1 James Cavanaugh and Harry Barris, "Mississippi Mud," as first recorded by Bing Crosby in 1928.
2 Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, "Rocky Top," University of Tennessee-Knoxville website: http://www.utk.edu/athletics/tn_songs.shtml.
Image Sources
Image 1: https://sos.tn.gov/products/state-flag
Image 2: http://reevesmaps.com/maps/map039.jpg by Charles A. Reeves, Jr.
Image 3: https://publications.tnsosfiles.com/pub/blue_book/19-20/19-20tnhistory.pdf
Image 4: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chucksutherland/49548913882/
Image 5: Dr. Carole Bucy's personal collection
Image 6 & 7: https://foresthistory.org/research-explore/us-forest-service-history/policy-and-law/the-weeks-act/
Image 8: https://www.nps.gov/grsm/learn/historyculture/stories.htm
Image 9 & 10: https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/11/photos-of-the-wildfires-near-gatlinburg-tennessee/509195/
Image 11: https://utsports.com/facilities/neyland-stadium/54
Image 12: https://www.seerockcity.com/
Image 13 - 17: Dr. Carole Bucy's personal collection
Image 18: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chucksutherland/23081224816/in/album-72157712605454427/
Image 19: https://www.tnvacation.com/civil-war/place/4473/epperson-springs/
Image 20 & 21: https://tripintheusa.com/2017/12/22/hike-42-of-52-ore-pit-loop-trail-montgomery-bell-state-park/
Image 22 - 29: Dr. Carole Bucy's personal collection
Image 31: Poster in the Sumner County Museum
Image 32: https://publications.tnsosfiles.com/pub/blue_book/19-20/19-20tnhistory.pdf
Image 33:Dr. Carole Bucy's personal collection
Image 34:Dr. Carole Bucy's personal collection
Image 35: https://extension.tennessee.edu/publications/Documents/W442.pdf
Image 38: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_stem#/media/File:Mississippiriver-new-01.png
Image 39: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_River#/media/File:Ohiorivermap.png
Image 40: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holston_River#/media/File:Holstonrivermap.png
Image 41: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Broad_River#/media/File:Frenchbroadrivermap.png
Image 42: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/13356
Image 43: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/02/22/us/22WaterMap.Pop.jpg
Image 44: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/22/us/22water.html
Image 46: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumberland_River#/media/File:Cumberland_River_Watershed.png
Image 47: https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/landscapes/files/2016/04/Tennesseermfinal.jpg
Image 48: https://www.lrn.usace.army.mil/Portals/49/siteimages/Missions/Water-Management/cumberland_basin.jpg
Image 49: https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwssoutheast/32744213824/
Image 50: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MobileAlabamaCoosa3.png
Image 52: https://totallyhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/13-Colonies.png
Image 53: https://www.tngenweb.org/tnland/walker.htm
Image 54: https://www.tngenweb.org/tnland/walker.htm
Image 55: https://www.nationsonline.org/maps/USA/Tennessee_map.jpg
Chapter 1 Video Lessons
Video Lessons
Tennessee History Introduction
Tennessee's Grand Divisions
Digging Deeper: Chapter 1 Resources
Secondary Resources for Chapter 1
- Davidson, Donald, The Tennessee: The Old River: From Frontier to Secession (New York: Rinehart & Co., Inc. 1946)
- --- --- The Tennessee, volume II: The New River Civil War to TVA (New York: Rinehart & Co., Inc., 1948)
- Davis, Marcy B. Roadside Geology of Tennessee (Missoula, Montana: Mountains Press Publishing Company, 2019)
- Fullerton, Ralph OI. And John B. Ray, eds., Tennessee: Geographical Patterns and Regions (Dubuque: Kendall Hunt, 1977)
- Luther, Edward T. Our Restless Earth: the Geologic Regions of Tennessee (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1977)
- McCague, James, The Cumberland (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1973)
- Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation website: https://www.tn.gov/environment.html
- The TNGENWEB Project: accessed at: https://www.tngenweb.org/index.html
- Toplovich, Ann, “Cumberland River,” Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, updated in 2018 accessed at: https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/cumberland-river/
- --- ---“Tennessee River System,” Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, updated 2010, accessed at: https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/cumberland-river/
Chapter 2 Overview
Chapter 2 Overview - The First People
Introduction to the Subject of Tennessee Indians
This lesson is about travel. Who came? What were those people like? Why did they stay? Why did they leave? What did they leave behind? How do we learn about those earliest people? As more groups came together in this place that you and I call "Tennessee", how did they interact with each other? Were those interactions positive or negative? We begin with the nomadic hunters of the Ice Bridge crossing a land bridge at the Bering Strait and following animals down into North America, Central America, and South America. Where in Tennessee can we find evidence about these people, what they did while they were here, and what their lives were like?
Archaeologists and historians divide the history of Native Americans into 3 periods:
- Prehistoric
- Protohistoric
- Historic.
As you study this material, some of it will be familiar to most of you, but some of it may be quite new. Think about how each successive group built on the knowledge and technology of the previous generations. How much creativity these early Tennesseans had.
The Protohistoric period in Tennessee history is the period of time between the explorations of the Spaniards, Hernando de Soto, and Juan Pardo, who came and departed quickly in the 1530s and ends with the coming of French and English traders about 100 years later. I encourage you to also locate and read Dr. John Finger's article "Tennessee Indian History: Creativity and Power" This article gives you a good overview beyond that which our textbook provides about this period of time and how the Tennessee tribes interacted with the Europeans. Dr. Finger makes an interesting argument in this article. Think about what his big point in writing this article was.
Recommended Additional Reading: Finger, John R. “Tennessee Indian History: Creativity and Power.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, vol. 54, no. 4, Tennessee Historical Society, 1995, pp. 286–305, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42627228.
Lesson 2 Objectives
Upon completion of this lesson with a 70% or above, students will be able to:
- Describe the indigenous cultures of Tennessee’s native population from earliest times until 1763.
- Explain how Native American cultures built upon the progress & accomplishments of earlier cultures.
- Describe & compare the ways that European nations (Spanish, French, English) interacted with the Native people of Tennessee.
- Explain how the Native American tribes interacted with the Europeans.
- Describe how the Cherokees responded to the outbreak of war between France and England in 1754.
- Explain how the outcome of the French and Indian War affected the “balance of power” that the tribes had maintained.
Chapter 2 Reading
The First Tennesseans
“Still majestic in decay stand the great temple mounds. The temples that once crowned their heights, like the hands that built them, have long since crumbled to dust.”
Thomas M.N. Lewis & Madeline Kneberg
“I sing of the mountains that sing in me the cadences of plaintive earth and only give your back the land that framed the valley of my birth…. I sing of the mountains that sing in me Soft harmonies I’ve known from birth. I only give you back the land again And the plain magnificence of earth.”
Phyllis Natalie Tickle & Margaret Bartlum Ingram
Writing as Natalie Bartlum, 1982
Introduction
No one can tell us for sure how long people have lived in Tennessee. Archaeologists estimate that humans have been in Tennessee for over 12,000 years. Historians have divided the years that humans have been in Tennessee into three time periods: The Prehistoric Era—the time before events of the past were recorded in writing; the Protohistoric Eras— the years between the arrival of the first Europeans and European settlement; and the Historic Era—the years since Europeans and Africans have lived here.
Until the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, textbooks had little history of North America before the arrival of Christopher Columbus. Textbooks directly presented the indigenous people in Tennessee and the United States as mere victims who became obstacles in the march of progress led by European settlers. Instead of beginning thousands of years earlier when the first Paleo-Indian hunters came into the Americas, history books began with 1492. They were filled with stories of the triumph of the strong over the weak. Instead of seeing the heterogeneity of each of the indigenous tribes, the Europeans simply saw them as one homogeneous group of people and made no effort to understand the differences and complexities of each tribe. When indigenous people were included in the historical narrative, they were depicted as violent resisters of progress.
It is only in recent years that history books have acknowledged the sophisticated political abilities of the indigenous people. Instead of saying that the native people stood in the way of Anglo-Saxon progress in the telling of the story of Tennessee and United States history. These indigenous people were actively engaged in addressing the changes brought by contact with the Europeans and displayed great creativity in addressing these changes. The tribes quickly developed an understanding of European nations’ seemingly incessant quest for domination of the American continents. This enabled them to maintain a balance of power among Spain, France, and Great Britain until the end of the French and Indian War due to the tribes' understanding of geopolitics. Even until well into the eighteenth and early years of the nineteenth century, indigenous people provided invaluable assistance to the settlers that enabled the settlers to adapt to their new physical environments.
As the populations of the United States grew and expanded westward, the policies of the United States government confined indigenous people to reservations which were in some cases far removed from their ancestral homelands. Native American children were forcibly removed from their parents and sent thousands of miles away in an effort to stamp out all vestiges of their native cultures and languages. Many of the tribes that were thriving civilizations at the time of the settlement of North America have been irradicated. Many tribal languages are now extinct with no one able to speak to them. The tribes had limited choices in how they could respond to the encroachment on their lands. They could resist, but when the thirteen English colonies were expanded the tribes recognized that they were greatly outnumbered by people with superior weaponry. They understood that entire tribes could be exterminated by resistance.
Now historians recognize that it was quite a remarkable story that these tribal people were able to withstand the onslaught of the Europeans by using their creativity to wield power in dealing with the Europeans and Anglo- Americans. A major part of Tennessee history is the story of how one tribe—the Cherokees— was able to recognize the necessity of compromise as a way to hold on to a portion of their ancestral lands until the 1830s. Their sophisticated understanding of European politics enabled them to see that the only way to hold on to a part of their culture and way of life was to be negotiated and compromise.
A list of treaties that were signed between the Tennessee tribes and Anglo-American settlers appears at the end of this chapter. Each time the settlers demanded more land for their rapidly expanding population. Each time they signed a treaty, they believed in the good faith of the agreement. Each time the agreement was broken with settlers “taking the law into their own hands” and moving onto tribal lands without permission. It was an extraordinary achievement that the Cherokees were able to hold on to a portion of their ancestral lands for as long as they did when many other tribes had long since been forced out. There are many sides to this story. There are many ways it has been told.
Andrew Jackson, the President of the United States that signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, believed that forcing the Native Americans to relocate across the Mississippi River was the only way to protect them. He felt that the government could not protect them from land-hungry settlers. More than any other tribe, the Cherokees, adapted and changed to survive. They allowed missionaries to come into their lands in East Tennessee and North Georgia to teach their children. They had their children baptized as Christians. They gave up almost all of their tribal customs and dressed like the Anglo-Americans, built houses like the Americans, and even wrote a constitution for their colony of New Echota, which became the capital of what they hoped would one day become a state. They accepted the European concept of private ownership of property and settled on farms. Sequoyah developed a Cherokee syllabary so that they would record their stories. The Cherokees published a newspaper. And yet, in the end, they were forced out. Despite the story of the Trail of Tears, none of this was discussed in Tennessee textbooks until the 1970s.
In recent years, archaeologists have made great progress in providing information about the people who came here and settled here before the Europeans. From their extensive research, we now know that people came into this area that we call “Tennessee” at many different times over several thousand years that make up the Prehistoric Era. Within the Prehistoric Era, there were four distinct time periods in which people migrated or came into the region of Tennessee from another place. During these time periods, each generation of people built on the knowledge and technology of previous generations. By the time of the arrival of Europeans, complex civilizations could be found in North, Central and South America. The terms, “Paleo,” “Archaic,” “Woodland,” and “Mississippian,” are used to describe the culture that existed at a certain time. In addition to climate changes, adaptation, modification, mobility, and advancement over time.
It has long been said that “history is written by winners.” It has only been since World War II that history has expanded to be more inclusive of all people’s stories, not just those who won wars and elections. Because the Europeans conquered North and South America, a great deal of evidence about these cultures was destroyed and forgotten. For example, archaeologists now know that the Mayans living on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico had a writing system that was almost totally destroyed. Like the Europeans, many American cultures studied the skies and were sophisticated astronomers. Much of what we know about the Native peoples who lived here in Tennessee before the coming of the Europeans was information that was handed down from generation to generation in Native American tribes, an oral tradition. It has only been recently that the creativity of the Native American tribes has been considered. Archeologists continue to work to learn more about the human cultures that were in Tennessee before the arrival of the Europeans.
Indigenous People in Tennessee BEFORE the Coming of the Europeans
PALEO-INDIAN PERIOD
How and exactly when the first humans arrived in North America is a subject of great debate, due in large part to the development of new equipment and methods of research. The accepted theory for many years that that as the ice began to melt there a land bridge that was perhaps several hundred miles wide developed between Siberia in Northern Asia and Alaska in North America. Tall grasses replaced the ice as it melted. Small groups of hunters used the bridge to cross into North America from Asia, following herds of animals into North America as the ice melted. These people were known as “the Clovis people” because of the archaeological evidence found near Clovis, New Mexico. Similar artifacts have been found along the Cumberland River that are somewhat bigger with more cuts along the sides. These are known as Cumberland points. Archeologists working in Oregon, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Chile have now discovered evidence that humans could have come from different parts of Asia or southwestern Europe by boat before the Clovis people arrived.
The story of humans in Tennessee begins with the last retreat of the Ice Age glaciers when a colder climate and forests of spruce and fir prevailed in the region. Late Ice Age hunters probably followed animal herds into this area some 12,000-15,000 years ago. These nomadic Paleo-Indians camped in caves and rock shelters and left behind their distinctive arrowheads and spear points. They may have used such stone-age tools to hunt the mastodon and caribou that ranged across eastern Tennessee. About 12,000 years ago, the region’s climate began to warm, and the predominant vegetation changed from conifer to our modern deciduous forest. Abundant acorns, hickory, chestnut, and beech mast attracted large numbers of deer and elk. Warmer climate, the extinction of the large Ice Age mammals, and the spread of deciduous forests worked together to transform the society of the state’s indigenous people.
The Paleo-Indians were the first people to enter the area that became Tennessee as they tracked wooly mammoths, the giant furry mammals that provided much of their food supply. With great tusks, they were the ancestors of the modern elephant. Archaeologists examining the skeletal remains of these animals estimate that some were as tall as eleven feet high and weighed several tons. When a wooly mammoth was full-grown, its ivory tusks could be as long as sixteen feet in length. The wooly mammoths spent most of the day and night eating because they needed to eat about six hundred pounds of food each day to survive. The meat that one wooly mammoth provided could feed a small band of hunters for as long as two months. The skins or hides provided clothing as well as shelter. The bones were used for tools and weapons. To supplement their diets, the Paleo-hunters gathered fruits, nuts, and roots as they traveled in pursuit of the herds. Paleo-Indians lived in caves whenever they were available. Numerous examples of Paleo-Indian cave art have been found in Tennessee. (Dr. Joseph Douglas, professor of history at Volunteer State Community College, is considered to be the foremost expert in Tennessee cave art and has delivered papers at conferences across the United States on this subject.)
Columbus, as well as Europeans from other countries, referred to the Americas as the New World even though North and South America were just as old as Europe. The rest of the world was the Old World. We know that one part of the world was not newer than another part. No one knows what the earliest people called themselves. When Christopher Columbus arrived on islands in the Caribbean and claimed the area for Spain, he called the people that he met “Indians” because he thought that he was in the Indies, near China. We have continued to call the first people here “Indians” because of the mistake of Columbus and the Europeans who came after him. Today, the language has changed and the term “Indian” is no longer widely used. Instead, scholars are using the phrase “Indigenous people” which more accurately describes the people. The nations of Europe as well as many of the civilizations of Central and South America developed written languages. They could record events that happened in the past so that people who lived at a later time could read about these events. No evidence has been discovered to date showing that the people living in the area that became Tennessee had written languages. The people here passed their history down by telling stories to their children.
The first people who came into North America and Tennessee have been called “Paleo-Indians” because the word “Paleo” means ancient or very old. Their facial features, hair, and skin color may have looked like that of modern-day Asians. They came into North America in small groups of 25 to 50 people, often consisting of members of two or three families. Their primary source of food was the meat from the large mammals that they hunted. They came into our region because they hunted animals such as the mammoth, the wooly elephant, mastodons, and the giant bison. These animals roamed the area and often covered a large geographic area. The hunters followed them. These nomadic hunters ate wild plant foods such as fruits and nuts when they were available. Although these hunter-gatherers left no written descriptions of what they saw when they came here, thousands of pieces of evidence have survived. Archaeologists have recorded over 100 Paleo-Indian campsites across Tennessee. New evidence is discovered every year.
The Paleo-Indians were creative and resourceful. When they killed a giant animal, they used every part of the animal. They ate the meat, used the skins for clothing and housing, and used the bones to make tools. They learned to make needles from the bones of animals so that they could sew animal skins into warm clothing. At first, they only had sharp sticks to use as they hunted. Gradually, they learned to sharpen stones that could be attached to a spear. They developed a unique spearhead to make it easier to kill large animals. These spearheads are called “Clovis points” because the first place that they were found was near Clovis, New Mexico. Archaeologists working at sites in that area have now dated some of their findings back as far as 13,000 years ago. Clovis points have been found all the way from Alaska to the Andes Mountains in South America. Many Clovis points have been found in all parts of Tennessee. Recent research since the 1990s has challenged the theory that the “Clovis people” were the first people on the American continents. In 1997, archaeologists working at Monte Verde, Chile in South America found evidence that humans had been there over 14,000 years ago,
After developing spearheads, the Paleo-Indians devised a way to throw the spearheads from great distances by attaching them to long poles. These weapons were known as atlatls or throwing sticks. This made hunting much easier because they could attack the animal that they were hunting without getting so close to the animal. The hunters worked to improve their weapons and to make sharper spears. The early hunters also developed new ways to trap animals. The Clovis points that have been found in Tennessee are called “Cumberland points” because they were slightly different from those found in New Mexico. The Highland Rim was probably a popular hunting area during this time because many Paleo artifacts have been found in this area of Middle Tennessee. Can you tell the difference?
ARCHAIC HUNTERS AND GATHERERS – THE ARCHAIC PERIOD
As time passed, the earth became warmer, and the tall, lush grasses that provided the food for the wooly mammoths began to die. When the animals no longer had food, they too began to die out. These animals are all now extinct. Smaller animals that did not require so much food to live replaced the large mammals. During what is known as the Archaic Period, descendants of the Paleo-Indians began to settle on river terraces, where they gathered wild plant food and shellfish in addition to hunting game. Sometime between 3,000 and 900 B.C., natives took the crucial step of cultivating edible plants such as squash and gourds—the first glimmerings of agriculture. Archaic Indians thereby ensured a dependable food supply and freed themselves from seasonal shortages of wild plant foods and game. With a more secure food supply, populations expanded rapidly, and scattered bands combined to form larger villages.
The climate of Tennessee, as well as the plants and animals, gradually became like the climate today. With this change, the Paleo period ended, and the Archaic Period began. (“Archaic” means no longer used.) The Archaic period ended around 1000 B.C. The Archaic people continued to hunt smaller animals in this region and gathered fruits, nuts, and seeds whenever available to supplement their diets. They continued to hunt with atlatls and spears, but they also created hooks, nets, and traps to help them catch or capture smaller animals. They also created small tools that they could use to use to prepare foods from wild plants. A common way that they began to use seed was to grind the seeds on a larger stone with a smaller stone to make cornmeal or a type of flour. A grinding stone became a basic food processing tool and continued to be used long after the arrival of the Europeans. Archaic Indians also realized that they could produce containers to hold the flour by weaving grasses together to form baskets. They developed the art of basket weaving and later cultures then improved on the basic ideas of weaving to create artistic baskets that were beautiful as well as useful.
Like their Paleo-Indian ancestors, the Archaic peoples continued to follow animals and move from place to place. They began to camp in one location for longer periods of time. They also returned to the same place from year to year as the seasons changed. They often camped along the rivers of North America including the rivers of Tennessee.
One of the main settlements was near the Tennessee River near the town of Camden in West Tennessee known as the Eva site. Archaeologists have given us a great deal of information about this site and have named the people who came to this site, the Eva people. From the evidence that has been found, we know that the Eva People ate clams that were found along the edge of the river. They also strung together odd items to make necklaces. Archaeologists have found necklaces made from bear and bobcat teeth, turtle bones, and clamshells. The Eva people had domesticated animals such as dogs that they kept with them. We also know that the Eva people did trade with Archaic people from other areas of North America because pieces of copper from the Great Lakes region were found at the site. They formally buried their dead in graves, which have been found at the site.
Sometime between 3,000 and 900 B.C., natives took the crucial step of cultivating edible plants such as squash and gourds—the first glimmerings of agriculture. Archaic Indians thereby ensured a dependable food supply and freed themselves from seasonal shortages of wild plant foods and game. With a more secure food supply, populations expanded rapidly, and scattered bands combined to form larger villages.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE – THE WOODLAND PERIOD
The development of agriculture marked the ending of the Archaic Period and the beginning of the Woodland Period. Native Americans in Tennessee made the transition from societies of hunters and gatherers to well-organized tribal, agricultural societies dwelling in large, permanent towns. The cultivation of crops like corn encouraged the hunter-gatherers to stay in one place that was suitable for farming. Corn was first planted and grown in Central America, but the idea of cultivation of corn traveled from Central America to North America and even to Tennessee. Corn, beans, and squash became important sources of food; these three crops became known as the “three sisters.” Historians often refer to this way of life as “Three Sisters Agriculture.” The Woodland period also is marked by the appearance of pottery, which archaeologists have found across the state. The Woodland Indians used wet clay to shape bowls and containers that could hold food items. When the clay dried, it was often baked in an oven. They were then able to store food that they had grown during the summer throughout the winter
This change from the hunter-gatherer life to a life of agriculture did not take place quickly. The Woodland people continued to hunt. The abundant supply of deer, bear, and small animals such as turkeys, ducks, and geese in Tennessee provided an important source of food for the Woodland Indians. During the Woodland period, hunters developed the bow and arrow, a more sophisticated weapon than the spear. This tool had first been developed in the Arctic region far north of Tennessee and the United States. This was a great technological advance from using spears. This allowed hunters to bring in additional game. Bows were usually about three feet in length and made of locust wood. The arrow shafts were made from the cane that grew along the river that had been cut into lengths of about 30 inches. The points on the arrows that we know as arrowheads were made from chert, a common rock.
As the Woodland people began to settle in small villages, village life became more important. Loosely organized bands of hunters came together as tribes. They were able to live in larger communities because they had enough food to feed larger numbers of people. As they began to live in larger communities, they needed more order and rules to allow larger groups of people to live so closely together. They needed a leader or a council to make decisions for the good of the entire group. Certain leaders were given more power and authority. When these leaders died, they were buried in elaborate structures made of earth that are known as mounds.
Some of the most impressive of these mounds, the Pinson Mounds, are near Jackson, Tennessee. Archaeologists believe that there were at least 17 earthen mounds in the Pinson Mounds complex. It covered more than 400 acres when it was used. Saul’s Mound found there is the second highest Indian mound north of Mexico. The Pinson Mounds site was used for elaborate ceremonies as well as burials. It is interesting to consider that these builders had little way of moving the soil to construct the mounds; they probably moved all the soil in the mounds in baskets. The Woodland Indians did not have a wheel to use to create a cart that would carry larger loads. Everything was carried in baskets.
The Old Stone Fort, near Manchester, in East Tennessee at the forks of the Duck River is another ceremonial Woodland Indians-Era site in Tennessee. It too was used for ceremonies and took many centuries to build. Its name is misleading because it is not really a fort at all. It is a large, fifty-acre open area with intermittent embankments (stone walls) that were as much as six feet in height. For many years, early historians believed that these walls were built by early European explorers such as Hernando de Soto. In 1966, however, University of Tennessee archaeologists proved that Native Americans built these “walls” 2000 years earlier. Historians and archaeologists continue to investigate the purpose of this “fort.” Some now believe that it was used as an observatory to study the movement of planets and stars. This hypothesis was the result of archaeologists’ noting that at the time of the summer solstice, the entrance walls point toward the position of the sun. Today, the Old Stone Fort is part of the Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park.
FORMATION OF POLITICAL STRUCTURES & TRADE – THE MISSISSIPPIAN PERIOD
The peak of prehistoric cultural development in Tennessee occurred during the Mississippian period (900 A.D.-1,600 A.D.). Cultivation of new and improved strains of corn and beans fueled another large jump in population. An increase in territorial warfare, as well as the erection of ceremonial temples and public structures, attest to the growing role of chieftains and tribalism in Indian life. Elaborate pottery styles and an array of personal artifacts such as combs, pipes, and jewelry marked the complex society of these last prehistoric inhabitants of Tennessee.
The population of the Woodland Indian cultures in Tennessee and across North America grew with the development of agriculture. The Woodland Period was followed by the Mississippian Period which lasted from 900 A.D. to about 1600 A.D. Larger towns along rivers with more permanent buildings began to be built.
As villages became larger, the need for organization greatly increased. Leadership was vested in a chieftain, and the chieftain positions were generally handed down in families. As the population grew, warfare among chiefdoms increased. Chiefdoms emerged across North and South America as well as in many other parts of the world. Large cities such as Cahokia, located across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri developed. Cahokia was ruled by a chief who inherited his position from his family. The mounds found here were very large with flattened tops where the chief could live. Cahokia was a large city with a population of as many as 30,000 people.
During the Mississippian period, the areas in Tennessee along its rivers were highly populated. None of the towns in Tennessee during the Mississippian period were as large as Cahokia in Illinois, Moundville in Alabama, or Etowah in Georgia. Chucalissa, a large town, was located on the Mississippi River near Memphis. (To learn more about Chucalissa: https://www.memphis.edu/chucalissa/.)
The Sellars Farm mound in Wilson County south of Lebanon is another good example of a Mississippian mound. Sandy, the statue below (image is from an exhibit at the Tennessee State Museum), was found on that site. The Mississippian period was the final chapter in the long human prehistory of Tennessee. The site of another Mississippian mound in Tennessee is in Sumner County, east of Gallatin. Archaeologist William E. Myer, from Carthage, first excavated the Castalian Springs mounds in the 1890s and found numerous stone box graves underneath inside a burial mound.
For more information on these sites see:
Museum on the campus of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville
In East Tennessee, Mississippian cultures developed another along the Tennessee River at Hiwassee Island where the Hiwassee River comes into the Tennessee River. Dallas Island was a mile-long island that divided the Tennessee River into two channels. Large mounds were built at both the Hiwassee Island site and the Dallas Island site. The Hiwassee people were excellent basket-makers. They developed a way to make stronger roofs for their homes by weaving materials to construct the roof framework. Mississippian culture also developed in middle Tennessee along the Harpeth River and the Duck River.
As the populations grew, warfare increased because people competed for fertile agricultural lands and a limited food supply. To protect their towns, they built walls or fences around the border of their town. Around 1300 A.D., something happened in these large population centers in North America. Many people died or moved away. For some reason, many of these sites were abandoned. What happened? No one knows for sure. When Christopher Columbus and the Spanish arrived at the islands of the Caribbean in 1492, many of the large chiefdoms such as Cahokia, Moundville, and Etowah in North America had broken up. No one knows precisely why this happened. By the time Europeans came to North America, the large chiefdoms that were in the United States had disappeared. Smaller tribes occupied the area that became the United States and Tennessee, but the large chiefdoms vanished.
The first European incursions into Tennessee proved highly disruptive to the people then living in the region. In their futile search for gold and silver, Hernando de Soto’s band in 1541 and two later expeditions led by Juan Pardo encountered Native Americans. By introducing firearms and, above all, deadly Old-World diseases, such contacts hastened the decline of these tribes and their replacement by other tribes, notably the Cherokee. The advent of the gun brought about major changes in Native American hunting techniques and warfare. Indigenous tribes grew increasingly dependent on the colonial fur trade by supplying European traders with deer and beaver hides in exchange for guns, rum, and manufactured articles. This dependence, in turn, eroded the indigenous people’s traditional self-sufficient way of life and tied them ever closer to the fortunes of rival European powers.
North America and Tennessee in 1492
The decline of the Mississippian culture left much of the middle of Tennessee void of villages and towns as shown on the map below. When the Europeans arrived in the area of Tennessee, they found only the remains of the Mississippian culture. There were no surviving Mississippians. There were, however, several tribes living in Tennessee. They were scattered across Tennessee and the Southeast. They lived in small villages and towns. Usually, the population of these towns was not larger than 400 people. The people who lived in each town were tied together through kinship. The towns that were members of a tribe were tied to other towns of their tribe. The large Mississippian chiefdoms had broken down and been replaced by the tribal associations that were better equipped to deal with the challenges that interaction with the Europeans brought. It was this creative ability to adapt and change that allowed the tribes to withstand the onslaught of the Europeans and hold on to a portion of their ancestral homelands east of the Mississippi River until the Indian Removal that took place in the 1830s. (Some historians refer to the disintegration of the Mississippian chiefdoms as “devolution,” meaning that the indigenous people shifted from the complexity of the hierarchical chiefdoms to new tribal associations that were smaller, but autonomous with a more simplistic form of organizational governance.
The Europeans saw themselves as superior to the tribal people living in the Americas when they arrived. Their Ethnocentrism prevented most of the Europeans from distinguishing one tribe from another. In the opinion of almost all of the Europeans, the Native peoples were simply one group of inferior people. The Europeans were unable to see many positive aspects of the Native tribes’ ways of living and working together. In the eyes of the Europeans, these people were primitive because they were different.
The Cherokees
The Cherokee tribe was the largest tribe in Tennessee and in the Southeast. Calling themselves “Ani-Yuniwiya,” the Cherokees were related to the Iroquois that lived in the Northeast. The Cherokee language is different from other tribal languages in Tennessee and is believed that the Cherokees and the Iroquois of the Northeast were once a single people. No one knows why the Cherokee moved to the South. There were many Cherokee settlements in North Carolina as well as Tennessee. European explorers called the settlements in Tennessee the Overhill settlements since they were across the Appalachian Mountains. English settlers in Virginia and the Carolinas referred to the Cherokees in Tennessee were known as the Overhill Cherokees. They lived in many small towns in the Smoky Mountains along the Little Tennessee River, the Hiwassee River, and the Tellico River as well as in western North Carolina and north Georgia. They were the largest tribe in the South and one of the largest tribes north of Mexico.
The Cherokees had a sophisticated system of government. Each Cherokee village had its own Chief. The villages belonged to a larger Cherokees Confederation. The Cherokees chiefs from each village came together to discuss matters important to all the Cherokees. The Cherokee nation had a principal chief, but each town or village controlled life within that community. Cherokee society was divided into seven clans. Members of each clan lived in practically every town in the Nation. Each clan believed that all its members had a common ancestor. The clans took their names from some aspect of nature. Some of the clans were named for animals such as the Panther clan, the Bear clan, the Bird clan, the Deer clan, or the Wolf clan.
Women were greatly respected by the Cherokees. They were both matrilineal, meaning that children were identified by their mother’s clan rather than father, and matrilocal. When a couple got married, they lived with the mother’s family, and children immediately became members of the mothers. The Cherokee tribe was the only group of Native Americans in the South that allowed women to participate in the making of decisions.
Like other tribes in the Southeast, the Cherokees often had two homes. One was for warm weather and the other house was for winter. Their houses were like those of other Southeastern Indian tribes. In the summer, they lived in rectangular houses made of young trees that were placed into the ground close together. Smaller branches were then woven in basket fashion around these trees. They then covered the house with a mixture of clay and grass. Each house had a scooped-out fireplace in the center of the floor. The door and a hole in the roof for smoke to escape were the only openings in these houses. Some of the summer homes were long and had two or even three rooms. One room was for cooking. One room was for sleeping. Some families had a third room for eating and visiting. In the winter, their houses were known as “pit houses” because they were built around a hole that had been dug into the ground for warmth. The winter houses were round with pointed roofs. They were covered with a thick layer of clay to keep the heat inside the house.
Each Cherokee village had a council house for meetings of the entire village. The council house was like the houses of the village, but they were much larger. In the center of the council house was a large pit where the “sacred fire” burned. When the Cherokees had important things to discuss, they met in their council house. Unlike other groups of people, the Cherokees allowed women to attend these meetings. They solved many conflicts at these meetings. They also made decisions about relations with other Cherokee towns and other Indian tribes. In these meetings, every decision had to be unanimous. The Cherokees believed in harmony and opposed open conflict. For this reason, these meetings often lasted for many days until all agreed. Chota, located on the Little Tennessee River was the largest of the Cherokee towns. It was located on the Little Tennessee River and was considered the capital of the Overhill towns. Chota had a large council house where 500 people could gather for important meetings. The chiefs from the Overhill towns often met at Chota.
The Cherokees and other tribes of the Southeast divided responsibilities into “white” tasks and “red” tasks. The “white” leaders of a town took care of everyday activities within his community. The “red” leaders were generally warriors who made decisions regarding war. Although the Cherokee culture emphasized harmony, they went to war with other tribes if they felt it was necessary.
The Cherokees frequently traveled between their villages. The river canoes that were built by the Cherokees were made of a variety of trees including pine, black walnut, or poplar. To build a dug-out canoe, a tree was selected and then cut. The log was then cut to the length needed. Before metal tools were available, the Cherokees often used fire to burn the center section of the tree. The fire was stopped from time to time so that the burned wood could be removed. Shells were often used as tools. After this was done several times, the center section of the canoe was hollow so that people could sit and ride in the canoe. The length of the original tree determined the number of people that could ride in one canoe. Longer canoes could hold more people. Dug-out canoes were ideal for use on the Tennessee River and its tributaries. Indigenous people could fish from the canoes with hooks made from deer and turkey bones. The Cherokees also made wooden paddles so that they could move the canoes upstream when necessary.
The Shawnees
The Shawnees had several villages along the Cumberland River in what is today Tennessee. The first French explorers to come into the region in the 1670s called the Cumberland River “le riviere des Chaouesnons,” meaning the “River of the Shawnees.” The Shawnees had established villages along the river with their principal village in the Cumberland region near the present site of Nashville. Because the Shawnee were located between the Chickasaws in the west and the Cherokee in the east, there were many conflicts over hunting rights. In 1714, the Cherokee and the Chickasaws came together to push the Shawnees out of Tennessee and north into the area that is now Ohio. Despite their relocation, the Shawnees continued to hunt in the Cumberland region until the 1740s. Although the Shawnees attempted to move back into the Cumberland area in 1756, but the Cherokees and Chickasaws prevented their return.
The Chickasaws
The Chickasaws were a small tribe that lived in northern Mississippi, Alabama, and West Tennessee. The Chickasaws did not build permanent villages in Tennessee and only had about six principal towns in northern Mississippi. Like other tribes in the area, the Chickasaws hunted, gardened, fished, and traded with neighboring tribes. The Chickasaws claimed a hunting area that included all the land that is West Tennessee today between the Tennessee River and the Mississippi River and much of Middle Tennessee.
The Chickasaws’ tribal organization was like the structure of the Cherokees. Each Chickasaw village had a chief. The Chickasaws were known as brave warriors. Chickasaw boys were trained in the martial arts at an early age. They were taught to accept pain to show their bravery. War leaders had much power within the Chickasaw tribe. Chickasaw women did not have as much respect as Cherokee women. When the Spanish conquistador, Hernando de Soto, came through this area in 1540, the Chickasaws resisted and refused to help him. The area of West Tennessee was one of the Chickasaws’ favorite hunting grounds because there were so many animals in the area. The road that they used to come into Tennessee was known as the Chickasaw Trace. It later was called the Natchez Trace because it extended South to Natchez, Mississippi. Today, the Natchez Trace is a beautiful parkway that extends from Natchez to Nashville.
Although the Chickasaws and the Cherokees claimed Middle Tennessee after working together to push the Shawnees out of Tennessee, neither tribe-built villages in the Cumberland area. There was a great deal of fighting over hunting privileges in the area of the Cumberland River. The indigenous people sometimes referred to this area as “the dark and bloody ground” because the competition among the tribes to control the area was so high.
To learn more about the Chickasaws, read the Tennessee Encyclopedia entry for Chickasaws.
The Creeks
The Creeks only had a few settlements in the area of Chattanooga. They lived primarily in Georgia rather than Tennessee. The Creeks may have come into the Southeast from the West. The name "Creek” was given to the tribe by the English because these Indians lived along the Ocheese Creek. “Ocheese Creek Indians” was then shortened to become the “Creeks.” The Creeks and the Cherokees were enemies and fought against each other in such battles as the Battle of Taliwa, which took place in 1755. Nancy War, a Cherokee, became the heroine of that battle.
Eventually, the Creeks banded together to form an organization called the Creek Confederacy that was like the Cherokee Confederation.
To learn more about the Chickasaws, read the New Georgia Encyclopedia entry for Creek Indians.
The Yuchis
When European explorers began to enter the area that we now call “Tennessee,” the Yuchis (also known as the “Uchi, Chiscas, or Chestowees) lived on the southeastern part of the eastern section of Tennessee River near the mouth of the Hiwassee River in the area of what is now Bradley County. When the Spanish conquistadores and explorer Hernando de Soto came into North America in search of gold in 1541, he encountered Yuchis and described them as a powerful tribe. More than a century later, after the English colony of South Carolina was established, fur traders from the Carolinas, came across the Appalachians to trade with the indigenous tribes. This trade caused competition between the Cherokees and the Yuchis. As a way to eliminate the competition for trade, the Cherokees attacked the Yuchis and pushed them out of the area into South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. The Yuchis settled along the Chattahoochee River in North Georgia, and eventually joined the Creek Confederacy. The Yuchi were a small group that lived along the Tennessee River as well as in western Florida. Legend tells us that the name Yuchi means “faraway people.” They often referred to themselves as “children of the Sun. They were ultimately driven south, out of Tennessee and became part of the Creek Confederacy. Others of the Yuchi may have moved north into the area of southern Indiana. When Indian Removal forces the indigenous people to leave the area and relocate to Indian territory across the Mississippi River, the Yuchi separated themselves from the Creek Nation and established themselves as an independent tribe in what became Oklahoma. Some anthropologists and ethnographers believe that a few Yuchis, like the Cherokees, managed to escape the United States Army’s removal, and continued to live in the mountains of East Tennessee well into the twentieth
The Proto-Historic Era—A Collision of Cultures: The Arrival of the Europeans
Why did the first Europeans come to the Americas? The first came looking for a water route to Asia. Did they find it? No, but… Instead, they found two large continents with large native populations and ultimately a great deal of wealth. The Spanish were the first to arrive. Instead of a water route to Asia, they found in Central and South America great mineral wealth in the form of gold and silver mined by the exploitation of the native people. Spain quickly became the wealthiest nation of Europe and the target of other European nations: the French, Dutch, and English.
When Christopher Columbus planted the Spanish flag in the Americas, the conquest “For God! Gold! And Glory! became the mantra of the Spanish conquistadores as they destroyed the empires of the Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas.
The greatest weapon that helped the Spanish and other Europeans conquer the Americas was an invisible one: infectious diseases to which the Europeans had built up immunities that none of the people of the Americas had been exposed. A highly religious nation loyal to the Catholic Church, the Spanish believed that the Indians were heathen and had to be converted to Christianity and that the fact that so many of the native people died from disease proved that God was on their side. This high mortality rate de-stabilized the people of indigenous people making it easier for the Spaniard conquistadores to conquer much of Central and South America. Within thirty years of the arrival of Columbus on the island of what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the Spanish had conquered and destroyed the Aztec civilization in what is Mexico and Incas in Peru on the west of South America.
HERNANDO DE SOTO AND THE SPANISH COME TO TENNESSEE
Believing that Florida was yet another island, the Spanish continued searching for wealthy civilizations in North America. They had heard rumors of seven cities of gold that were somewhere north of New Spain. After the fall of Peru, Emperor Charles V appointed Hernando de Soto, who had been second in command in the army of Francisco Pizarro when the Spanish conquered the Incan empire in Peru, to be governor of Cuba. De Soto was instructed to explore what he believed to be the islands north of in a search for a waterway that would take them to Asia and hopefully, sources of more wealth.
In May 1539, Hernando de Soto and his army of more than 600 conquistadores left Havana, Cuba, and landed at what we know as Tampa Bay on the west coast of Florida. They then made camp on the Manatee River in Central Florida. While exploring the area around their camp, De Soto’s men found Juan Ortiz, a Spaniard who had been captured by a tribe of indigenous people while on an earlier Spanish expedition a year earlier. Ortiz became the translator for the expedition.
Although de Soto had been ordered to convert the indigenous people to Catholicism and treat them well, he ignored his instructions and mercilessly made demands of the native peoples he encountered and mercilessly killed those who refused to obey his orders. After exploring North Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, the De Soto party crossed the Appalachians where they encountered the Cherokees living in villages on the upper Tennessee River and its tributaries. Along the way, the Spaniards took women, horses, hogs, and food, but the tribal people living in North America resisted and the Spanish were unable to conquer what became the southeastern part of the United States. At this time, the Cherokees had a highly developed civilization, but De Soto’s arrival with diseases for which the Cherokees had no immunities, along with horses, vicious dogs, and weapons unlike any the Cherokees had seen, marked a major turning point for all the indigenous people that the Spaniards encountered.
With their guns, horses, and vicious dogs, the Spaniards forced any native people that they encountered to give them food and other supplies. With a “scorched-earth” policy, the Spaniards often burned Indian villages as they explored the area of Florida, Georgia, and the Smoky Mountains. The infectious diseases that they carried, however, were the deadliest of all attacks on Native American tribes that they encountered. As word of their coming spread from Indian village to Indian village, the Indians tried to fight back. De Soto and his men crossed the Appalachian Mountains from what is now North Carolina into Tennessee through the Swannanoa Gap in late Spring 1540, and followed the French Broad River to Chiaha, an Indian village in what is now Jefferson County, Tennessee. The Chiaha initially welcomed the Spaniards, but when the Spaniards prepared to leave, they demanded to be given thirty women. Knowing that their warriors could not fight off the Spaniards with their superior weapons and vicious dogs, the tribal leaders abandoned their town and escaped to an island in the French Broad. When the Spanish awakened, the next morning, they quickly tracked down the Chiahans. DeSoto and the Chiahan leaders then negotiated a truce in which the Spaniards were given a group of males to serve as porters but no women. The Chiahans later merged with the Cherokees. The Spaniards continued their trek down the western side of the Unakas and then crossed into northwestern Georgia.
De Soto’s army then crossed Alabama and Mississippi where they encountered the Chickasaws who lived along the Tennessee-Mississippi border. According to Chickasaw history, in December 1540, de Soto’s Spanish Conquistadores and the Chickasaws squared off on the opposite side of the Tombigbee River. Although the Chickasaw warriors were greatly outnumbered, they attempted to prevent the Spaniards from crossing the river, but the Spanish were determined to take refuge in the Chickasaw village across the river. When the Chickasaws assessed their situation, they decided to change courses and invite the Spaniards due to the freezing conditions of the weather. Secretly, however, the tribal leaders of the tribe made plans to attack these conquistadores whose arrogance and sense of entitlement demonstrated that they were not peaceful people. As spring approached, when de Soto announced that his army was leaving and demanded that many Chickasaws, both warriors and women, were going to be forced to accompany them as servants and concubines, the Chickasaw warriors launched their attack. To create chaos and confusion for the Spaniards, the warrior set fire to the village and began killing the Spaniards who were taken by surprise. Chickasaw historians believe that the Chickasaws, killed more than fifty of de Soto’s army, while the tribe suffered only one casualty. De Soto, himself survived the battle, but his army hastily retreated, leaving most of the possessions behind. De Soto and the conquistadores that remained in his army then crossed the Mississippi River and continued their search for gold. After spending another year wandering around what became the states of Arkansas and Louisiana, they turned back and headed to the Mississippi River. By this time, he had lost approximately half of his men. De Soto died of a fever somewhere along the banks of the Mississippi River. Ferriday, Louisiana; McArthur, Arkansas; and Lake Village, Arkansas all claim that he died in their area.
One last thing de Soto's party brought and left behind: a herd of livestock, including wild hogs (what university has wild hogs as its mascot?
Image Source: Http://arff.org/wildpigs
De Soto’s men had found no gold or precious metals that could be extracted for profits. After De Soto died, his men became fearful that the Indians would find out that he was not a god and would kill the rest of them. For this reason, they buried him in the Mississippi River. The men who survived de Soto’s expedition finally made their way back to Mexico, empty-handed and disheartened. Tristán de Luna y Arellano came into what is now Tennessee twenty years after De Soto’s expedition. The purpose of the Luna expedition, however, was not to find mineral wealth but to extend the Spanish claims to La Florida. In his party was a Coosa woman who had been taken by De Soto’s party in 1540. She served as his translator. When this expedition ran out of food, they raided some of the villages of local indigenous people in the vicinity of Polk and Bradley counties in Southeastern Tennessee. The De Luna party then disintegrated and left.
Juan Pardo led the last expedition of Spanish conquistadores into Tennessee. Pardo’s party came from South Carolina into the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina in 1566. A small party of Pardo’s men led by Sergeant Hernando Moyano crossed into Tennessee into the area of the Upper Nolichucky River. Pardo joined Moyano at the fortified town of Chiaha. Like de Soto, Pardo found no evidence of mineral wealth, and a short while later, returned to South Carolina. While their journals gave detailed descriptions of the land of Tennessee and the people who lived here, the Spanish decided that the Southeastern part of what became the United States did not have any sources of wealth for them. When the Spaniards found no mineral wealth, they departed and did not return to Tennessee. They did remain in the part of North America that is now known as the Southwestern United States.
OTHER NORTH AMERICAN EXPLORERS
Due to the incredible findings of wealth in the Americas, Spain became the wealthiest nation in Europe with an empire larger than the Roman Empire at his height. Spanish ships carried gold, silver, and sugar to the mother country. Envious of the wealth (and increasing power) of Spain, France, England, and Holland (the Netherlands) quickly began working to obtain similar empires and wealth. Around the time of the Pardo expedition, the French attempted to build Fort Caroline at the mouth of the St. Johns River on the coast of what is now Florida as a haven for French Protestants. Sensing that this fort was also built to provide the French with a base from which they could raid Spanish ships, Spain a fort, St. Augustine, and quickly destroyed any ambitions that France might have had to stake a claim to Florida. Had Spain found mineral wealth in the area that became the United States, the Spanish might have established large cities here.
Ironically, the economy of the nation of Spain suffered because of their efforts in the Americas. Many young men left Spain because they believed that they could become rich in the Americas. The production of agricultural commodities and goods in Spain itself actually decreased because the colonies were making Spain such a wealthy country. Later, this hurt Spain, and after the English defeat of the Spanish Armada less than a hundred years after the arrival of Columbus, the Spanish empire was on the decline.
NEW FRANCE
In less than 50 years after the arrival of the Spanish in the Americas, the French planted their flag in North America with the arrival of Jacques Cartier, who entered the St. Lawrence Seaway, claimed the territory for France, and then named it New France. Initially, they were looking for a water route across North America to the Pacific Ocean. They soon began to look at opportunities that the northern parts of North American offered. Cartier found no mineral wealth, but those who followed him founded Quebec and eventually laid claim to the entire Mississippi River Valley. French traders accompanied by Catholic priests established good trading relations with the Native people they encountered and soon developed the trading of beaver furs, along with the furs of other animals, into a lucrative trading business. France also laid claim to two islands in the Caribbean, Martinique, and Guadeloupe, and soon had sugar plantations on those islands.
Beaver hats quickly became quite popular in Europe, and the demands for furs increased. The Native tribes of Canada and the Great Lakes region were eager to trade furs for European goods, but with the coming of trade, the tribes of North America began to lose their independence. Until the French arrived, the Native people used every part of the body of the beaver. In addition to clothing, beaver parts were used to make knives, needles, medicines, and even dice.
When beaver fur became a tradeable commodity, the remainder of the beaver were no longer used and were left to rot. In time, the over-killing of the beaver meant fewer furs to trade. As trade for beaver fur declined, the French traders began looking for other places where beavers lived in North America. They gradually began moving down the Mississippi River in search of trading partners. Although furs from animals living further south were inferior to the lush furs of the Canadian beaver, due to the long winters of Canada, French traders headed south. The depletion of the beaver population also caused the tribes to compete for trade. As the traders wanted more and more furs, the tribes killed more and more beavers.
After the Spanish came into Tennessee and then departed, however, the indigenous people had little contact with Europeans for over one hundred years. Despite this isolation, the tribes did acquire European goods from time-to-time on trips to Spanish Florida.
THE FRENCH TRAVEL DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER
The French and the English came into Tennessee around the same time from different directions. The French came from the Great Lakes region, down the Mississippi River, while the English came from the colony of Virginia from across the Appalachian Mountains. The first French expedition led by Father Jacques Marquette, a Catholic priest, and Louis Joliet, a French fur trader, came down the Mississippi River from New France in search of trading partners. Still hoping that a passage across North America to the Pacific Ocean existed, in 1673, the Governor of New France ordered Father Marquette and Louis Joliet, a map maker and fur trader, to find the Northwest Passage. They organized a canoe expedition with five other Frenchmen and two Indian guides to travel down the Mississippi River. Along the way, they saw new lands that other Europeans had not seen, including the mouths of the Missouri River, the Ohio River, and the Arkansas River. They probably stopped at the bluffs where the city of Memphis, Tennessee stands today before they turned back and returned to Canada. Father Marquette wanted to return to the area to establish Catholic missions along the rivers that he saw, but he died before he was able to go back to the Mississippi River.
Route of Marquette & Joliet; Source : www.kids.britannica.com
FORT PRUD’HOMME
Nine years later, another Frenchman came down the river to what is now Tennessee. Rene-Robert Cavelier, Lord La Salle, was sent by the king of France, Louis XIV, to go down the Mississippi River to its mouth. Having given up finding the Northwest Passage, La Salle wanted to establish the fur trade in this area. He led an expedition of 40 men in canoes down the Mississippi River. When they arrived at the Chickasaw Bluffs, the present location of Memphis, Tennessee, one of his men wandered away from the group and became lost near the mouth of the Hatchie River. La Salle built a temporary fort on the Chickasaw Bluffs that he named Fort Prud’homme. Prud’homme was the name of the man who was lost. When Prudhomme was found, the expedition continued its way to the Gulf of Mexico. La Salle claimed all the land that was drained by the Mississippi River for France. He named it Louisiana in honor of Louis XIV.
After these French expeditions down the Mississippi River, French traders began to come into the area of Tennessee to trade with the Indians. One of these traders, Martin Chartier, married a Shawnee woman and lived with her on the Cumberland River near present-day Nashville. Traders referred to this place as the French Lick because there was a spot near the river where salt came out of the ground.
French Claims in North America in Blue
Fort Pud’Homme, near present-day Memphis; source: www.britannica.com
AND FINALLY THE ENGLISH . . . .
With the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, England was able to gain a foothold in North America. Founded in 1607 by a group of English businessmen who hoped to make a profit by planting a colony on the shore of North America, Jamestown, Virginia brought the first English settlers to North America. These “cavaliers” were soon followed by a group of English Separatists who wanted to break away completely from the Church of England, and then the largest group, the Puritans who arrived in what is now Massachusetts in 1630. Unlike the Spanish and French, the English who came to Massachusetts arrived with entire families – wives, children, and other relatives. Clearly, they were going to be a far greater threat to the Indian tribes of North America than the Spanish and French had been. England brought Scotland and Wales, along with Ireland, which was a colony of England, under one government in 1707 when Parliament passed the Act of Union. These began to call these four countries Great Britain at this time.
By 1700, the English colonies were well established and thriving. As the population of Virginia and the other colonies grew, the people pushed further and further west. Soon there were people living near the eastern side of the Appalachian Mountains. The English began exploring the area of the mountains as they went into the mountains to trade with the Indians.
Unlike the populations of New Spain and New France, when the English colonies planted along the Atlantic seaboard stabilized, their populations began to grow rapidly. Unlike the Spanish and French, the English often came as entire families, which caused the population to grow rapidly. Although the English colonies began on the coast, waves of colonists risked the treacherous crossing of the Atlantic Ocean for the opportunity that the colonies offered. Unlike in England where the lands were owned by a relatively small group, the colonies offered the opportunity to own land, something that was abundant in North America. For many who came, landownership symbolized true independence. As the population of the colonies grew, they pushed westward. Although the tribes attempted to resist this constant demand for more and more land, they were forced to compromise with the settlers by moving further west. By the mid-eighteenth century, tribes were being pushed into the Appalachian Mountains.
Both the ambitious French and English wanted to have exclusive trading rights with the Cherokees as well as other tribes in the South. English merchants in South Carolina had begun acquiring furs from the Cherokees and carrying them back across the mountains on pack trains of mules to Charles Town where they were shipped to England. In 1748 the English shipped more than 160,000 furs to England. The tribes that traded with the English were paid in goods such as cloth, weapons, and iron goods. As the fur trade became increasingly profitable, the demand for furs increased to the point that Tennessee’s native wildlife was killed. As a way to keep their profitability of their fur trade, England and France hoped to create a military alliance with the southern tribes that often-fought limited tribal wars with each other.
The same year that Joliet and Marquette came down the Mississippi River, General Abraham Wood, who operated a successful trading business in Virginia, secured the financial backing of an English investor in London to explore the area west of the Appalachians with an eye for potential trading partners. He hired James Needham and nineteen-year-old Gabriel Arthur to explore the lands across the Appalachians and investigate the possibility of potential trading partners with the Cherokees. Both Needham and Arthur wanted to become fur traders. When they reached a Cherokee village on the Little Tennessee River, they were surprised to find that the Cherokees owned over fifty guns and told them about “white people” living “down the river” living in brick houses. On their own initiative, the Cherokees had already instigated trade with the English in South Carolina and to a limited degree in Virginia. Needham wrote a detailed description of Chota, the primary town of the Cherokees, in his letter book.
"The town of Chote is seated on ye river side, having ye clifts on ye river side on ye one side being very high for its defence, the other three sides trees of two foot or over, pitched on end, twelve foot high, and on ye topps scaffolds placed with parrapets to defend the walls and offend theire enemies which men stand on to fight, many nations of Indians inhabit downe this river . . . which they the Cherokees are at warre with and to that end keepe one hundred and fifty canoes under ye command of theire forts. ye leaste of them will carry twenty men, and made sharpe at both ends like a wherry for swiftness, this forte is four square; 300: paces over and ye houses sett in streets."
(Note: The inconsistency in the spelling is a common characteristic of these early documents.)
Needham then returned to Virginia to get goods to trade with the Cherokees, but was killed after arguing with his guide, “Indian John.” Despite this setback, Arthur, disguised as an indigenous man, remained in Chota and traveled with the Chota chief when the Cherokees raided Spanish settlements in Florida, as well as Shawnee villages on the Ohio River. The Shawnees later captured Arthur when they discovered that he was a white man. When the Shawnees released Arthur, they allowed him to return to Chota and the Chota chieftain there escorted him back to safety in Virginia. Their reports became invaluable in opening the way for trade among the settlers in the English colonies with the Cherokees. (Go to the Source: Abraham Wood’s description of the Needham & Arthur Expedition, 1673-1674 in his letter to John Richards, 22 August 1674)
After visiting several of the Overhill Cherokee towns in 1730, Sir Alexander Cuming, who had arrived in Charles-town with the goal of gaining some type of alliance with the Cherokees and other tribes. Cuming managed to attend an assembly of Cherokees chief, and asked them to declare their allegiance to King George II. With no real authority from the king, Cuming demanded that Cherokee chiefs kneel with him as a way to show their allegiance to King George II, telling them that the now were required to obey the English king “in every thin, and that if they violated his promise, they would become no people.” Surprisingly, the chieftains obeyed Cuming and knelt with him. When Cuming’s translator later asked Cuming what his response would have been had the Cherokees refused to kneel, the translator later wrote that Cuming said, “If any of the Indians had refused…he intended to take a brand out of the fire that burns in the middle of the room and have set fire to the house. That he would have guarded the door himself and put to death everyone that endeavored to make their escape.” Cuming then named Moytoy, a Cherokee chieftain to be the Emperor of the Cherokee nation and answer to Cuming who represented King George. The Cherokees also agreed to relinquish “their crown, eagles tails, scalps of their enemies, as an emblem of their allowing his Majesty King George’s sovereignty over them, at the desire of Sir Alexander Cuming, in whom an absolute unlimited power was placed, without which he could not be able to answer to his majesty for their conduct. Cuming then convinced seven Cherokee warriors to travel to England to meet King George II and sign a treaty. The youngest of the chiefs who went to England was Attakullahkullah, or the Little Carpenter. After visiting London, the Cherokees signed an agreement with England that said that their tribe would trade only with the English.
Attakullakulla pictured center of the group of warriors; source: https://ncpedia.org/cuming-sir-alexander
Throughout the 1730s and 1740s, more and more hunters, known as long-hunters due to the length of time they were away from Virginia and the Carolinas, then began to cross the mountains regularly to trade with the Indians. Dr. Thomas Walker was like many ambitious Virginians who saw land speculation as a way to make money. Like George Washington’s brothers, who established the Ohio Land Company to acquire large amounts of land occupied the indigenous people across the Appalachians, and then sell it for a profit to land-hungry setters, Walker established a similar venture known as the Loyal Land Company in 1749. Chartered by the English parliament, the Loyal Land Company received an 8,000,000-land grant west of the Appalachians and came into Tennessee from Virginia by way of Kentucky and the Cumberland Gap. Walker and two other surveyors then set out to explore the area that they had acquired. They signed the Treaty of Fort Chiswell with the Cherokees at New River before leaving Virginia. The Walker party crossed the mountains, named the Cumberland Mountains and the Cumberland Gap, and then canoed down the Cumberland River, and naming it and the mountains it in honor of the Duke of Cumberland the brother of King George II. He later returned and established the border between what is now Kentucky and Tennessee which was known as the Walker Line at 36 degrees 30 latitude.
The German immigrant Christian Gottlieb Priber arrived in the Georgia colony where he planned to establish a utopian community. Priber is one of the most mysterious of the Europeans who came into what became Tennessee. He appeared in Great Tellico, a Cherokee village in the mountains preaching to the Cherokees. He had chosen the Cherokees in part because of their beliefs about communal landownership and the fact that already in the 1730s the Cherokees harbored runaway slaves. Some historians have identified him as a Jesuit priest of the Catholic Church, while others maintained that he was a Presbyterian. Although he was accepted by the Cherokees for several years due to their receptiveness to his message, the English began to see him as a threat when he began urging the Cherokees to end their alliance with the British and establish trade relations with the French. In 1743, British agents arrested and imprisoned him in a prison on the Carolina coast where he died. Priber’s influence, however, remained with the Cherokees. He had planted the seeds of doubts about the motives of the British along with tribal nationalism that ultimately led to tribal discord when settlers from the colonies began to arrive after the French and Indian War.
The Scots Irish Come to North America
After many of the colonies were established, another group of people wanted to leave England. The English called them the Scots Irish. Originally the Scots Irish lived in Scotland, a country on the same island as England. For hundreds of years, the Scots and the English fought over the border between the two countries. When England acquired Ireland as its first colony and wanted to subdue the Catholics living there, Parliament issued land grants of property formerly belonging to the Catholic Church to Scotsmen who moved to Northern Ireland After Henry VIII’s break with the Catholic Church and establishment of the Church of England, most Scots accepted the Church of England (Anglican) for a while, but then like the Pilgrims and Puritans concluded that the Anglican Church had not gone far enough in purifying and reforming the Catholic Church. They felt that the only thing that had really changed was the fact that the King now replaced the Pope as head of the church.
When Scotsman John Knox, an Anglican priest, began to study the reformation writings of John Calvin, a French lawyer and theologian exiled to Switzerland, Knox embraced Calvin’s ideas about church reform and established a Scottish version of Calvinism that became the structure for the Presbyterian Church. Calvinists believed in the idea that the church and the government should not be together. Like Roger Williams, they believed in the separation of church and state. England tried to make these people leave Scotland and move to the island of Ireland. They did not like living in Ireland because the Irish were Catholic. Many of them decided to move to America to live.
Since most of them were without financial means to pay for the journey to North America, the only way that they could pay their way to North America was to agree to work for someone when they arrived. They came as indentured servants. They did not want to go to the Southern colonies because most of the people living there were members of the Church of England. They did not want to go to New England because there were so many Puritans in New England. Many moved to Pennsylvania because they would have freedom of religion there.
After the Scots Irish worked in America for several years, they were given land so that they could become farmers. Most of the land that they were given was west of the English settlements. Soon there were Scots Irish living between the older English settlements and the Indians, which served as a buffer.
The Scots Irish were known as fiercely independent people. They could survive in the woods. The men knew how to cut down trees and quickly build a cabin out of the logs. The Scots Irish women could milk cows and then churn the milk into butter. They knew how to make cloth from plants and wool. They did not need to live close to a town to survive. Many of the Scots Irish liked living away from any kind of authority. They believed that they could take care of themselves. They were willing to move into Indian territory to have land.
As the population of the colonies grew, the Scots Irish spread further and further west. Soon they were to the Appalachian Mountains. They moved down the Appalachian Mountains into the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina. Many of the first settlers in Tennessee were Scots Irish whose families came to the colonies as indentured servants. When the American Revolution began, many Englishmen blamed the trouble on the Scots Irish.
Note the path of the Scots Irish into Philadelphia, then westward to the crest of the Appalachian Mountains and down into the area that became the state of TN. Image Source: Tennessee State Library and Archives
The French & Indian War
The wealth from the New World made the nations of Europe very competitive with each other. This led to several wars over control of the Atlantic Ocean and control of the American continents between 1689 and 1776. Even though the continent of North America was large with vast amounts of unexplored territory, the Spanish, French, and the English vied to control North America. After the English defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588, Spain’s power declined. Great Britain and France continued to fight to control North America. The population of England’s thirteen colonies grew far faster than the populations of New Spain and New France. As a result of this, the settlers in the English colonies were constantly demanding more and more land as they pushed westward, dislocating Native tribes as they expanded. By the 1750s, enterprising Virginians saw an opportunity across the Appalachians to speculate in lands in the region of the Ohio River and formed the Ohio Land Company for the purpose of land speculation. When the company sent the younger brother of one of the members of this company to survey the land where the Ohio River begins when the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers come together, which is the location of the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When the young surveyor, George Washington, arrived at this juncture, he found that the French had already claimed the land and built Fort Duquesne. The French were on better terms with the Native tribes of the area because the French did not demand land and wanted to trade furs for European goods. Young George Washington was run out of the area and barely escaped back to Virginia.
This sparked the beginning of the French and Indian War. This war is sometimes called the “Great War for Empire.” In this war, many of the Indian tribes of North America joined the French. The indigenous people wanted to help the French push the British colonies out of North America so that the tribes could reclaim the land that they had held before the thirteen colonies were formed. Because of LaSalle’s journey from New France down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico, France claimed the entire Mississippi River Valley, the land below New France, south of the Great Lakes and west of the Appalachian Mountains.
The Cherokees saw the outbreak of the war as an opportunity to attack the tribe’s long-time tribal enemy, the Creeks that lived just south of the Cherokees in the area that is now Georgia supported the French. Native American's views of war differed greatly from the ideas of war that the Europeans held. Europeans believed the outcome of a war was a clear military defeat with a clear winner and loser, whereas tribal warfare was limited to a few days and the winner taking only a few captives. They had no understanding of European warfare.
NANYE-HI AND THE BATTLE OF TALIWA
After the French and Indian War began, the Cherokees decided to go into Creek territory to raid their towns although the Creeks outnumbered the Cherokees. When the Cherokees went to north Georgia to fight their tribal enemies, the Creeks, Nanye-hi, the seventeen-year-old wife of Kingfisher, a Cherokee warrior, accompanies her husband into battle and even fought at his side. Legend has it that as she fought, she sang a Cherokee war song. When her husband was mortally wounded, Nanye-hi picked up his weapon and continued to fight. Her actions inspired the other Cherokees to continue the fight and the tide turned. The Cherokees won. After the battle, the Cherokees named Nanye-hi, the “Beloved Woman” of the tribe, the tribe’s highest honor for a woman. This battle became known in American history as the Battle of Taliwa (the place where the battle took place) even though the Cherokees did not name their battles.
FORT LOUDOUN
Since the Cherokees had signed a military alliance as well as a trade agreement with the British when Attakullakulla and six other Cherokee warriors went to London, the British wanted the Cherokees to help them defeat the French in Ohio River area. The Cherokees understood that they needed to comply because they had signed this military alliance with the British and asked only that Great Britain build a fort west of the Appalachians to protect the Cherokee towns from the French and the Creeks.
The English agreed to build Fort Loudoun on the territory of the Overhill Cherokees on the banks of the Little Tennessee River. Troops from the South Carolina militia were sent to Fort Loudoun when it was completed. In the beginning, the Cherokees liked having the fort nearby and frequently visited it to trade with the British in exchange for building this fort, the Cherokee men agreed to go north into Ohio territory to fight with the British against the French. After fighting in the Ohio for a few months, the Cherokees tired of fighting and decided to return home. Relations between the Cherokees and the British at Fort Loudoun soon deteriorated, probably due in part to the arrogance and ethnocentrism of the British. Oconostota, who was regarded as the military leader of the Cherokees, was captured along with several Cherokee warriors, and imprisoned in South Carolina. When Oconostota was released, he killed a British officer, and the British retaliated by killing several of the warriors that they still held in captivity.
When Oconostota returned home, the Cherokees decided that having a British fort on their land was a mistake and demanded that they leave. In March 1760, the Cherokees surrounded the fort so that the people inside could not get food. By August, the English were starving. Many were dying from the heat. The Englishrsurrendered the fort and asked the Cherokees to let them return to South Carolina. When the British, a group that included women and children as well as soldiers, had been walking for a day, the Cherokees suddenly attacked them near Tellico Plains. Several of the English were killed and the rest were taken as prisoners. When the war ended, the Cherokees who at one time had been loyal to the British found themselves as enemies of Great Britain. Over the next years, Attakullahkulla worked tirelessly to restore good relations between the British and the Cherokee people.
In retaliation for the siege of Fort Loudoun and the attack on the British troops as well as their wives and children as they departed, royal authorities sent troops across the mountains. The politically-savvy Cherokees initiated peace negotiations and a truce as the British forces crossed the mountains. During these proceedings, the Cherokees asked that an officer visit each of the Cherokee villages on the Little Tennessee River to explain the terms of the treaty. The Cherokees wanted to be assured that if they signed this treaty, the British would honor it and enforce it. Lieutenant Henty Timberlake, a Virginia cartographer and journalist, volunteered for this duty. It took Timberlake more than twenty days to make his way down the Holston River to the villages of the Overhill Cherokees. He arrived in the village of Chief Ostenaco, who then gathered the tribal leaders for a meeting where Timberlake explained the provisions of the treaty. He returned to Virginia after spending more than a year in Cherokee country.
Timberlake’s time among the Cherokees provided him with the opportunity to observe the tribe’s domestic lives. Included in the journal of his time with the Cherokees was a map, “A Draught of the Cherokee Country.” This map served as an important source of information for later travelers into Cherokee country. Timberlake provided descriptions of all the Cherokee villages on the lower Little Tennessee River along with specific information about each village.
Lt. Timberlake’s 1762 Map of Cherokee Country;
Image source: TN State Library & Archives: https://ncpedia.org/cuming-sir-alexander
Treaty of Paris of 1763 and the Proclamation Line
After a decisive battle in Canada between the English and the French, the French gave up. Representatives of Great Britain and France met in Paris, France and signed the Treaty of Paris of 1763 that officially marked the end of the war. By this treaty, France agreed to cede Great Britain all the land that France held in North America, including Canada and the land east of the Mississippi River. France gave Spain all the land that it claimed in North America west of the Mississippi River but retained posession of a small group of islands in the Caribbean that France owned. Can you think of a reason that the French were more willing to give up the vast expanse of territory in what is now Canada so that France could retain possession of a few islands? By 1763, what had happened to the beaver, the most lucrative business of the French? Their numbers were so diminished that the French were no longer able to make handsome profits from sales. Why were these islands so valuable? Think about sugar, a valuable agricultural commodity.
The outcome of the French & Indian War caused a shift in the balance of power in North America that the tribes had been able to maintain. With the signing of the peace treaty, Great Britain now controlled all the land of North America east of the Mississippi River as well as Canada. The British empire was twice as big as it had been before the French and Indian War. This included the land that we now call Tennessee. Many Indian tribes lived in much of this land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River, but they were not invited to Paris to attend the meetings between Great Britain and France. This exclusion was a telling sign of the ethnocentrism through which the Europeans regarded all Native indigenous people. The European nations treated these native tribes as if they did not even exist. With the French pushed out of North America, the British no longer needed the Indians as allies. As the population of the British colonies began to grow, royal authorities did not enforce the treaties with the various tribes.
When the French and Indian War ended, Great Britain had a large public debt that had been incurred to pay for the war as well as an empire that was now twice as big as it had been before the war. Parliament and King George III realized that it was going to be difficult, if not impossible to protect settlers interested in land from crossing the Appalachians and claiming Indian territory. Parliament understood that to protect these colonists from fighting with the Indians over the land, a large number of troops would have to be stationed in the Appalachian Mountains. Maintaining an army cost money. With such large war debts, Great Britain simply could not afford to do this but needed to find a way to keep the Indians and the settlers from fighting. King George III and Parliament came up with a plan that became known as the Proclamation Line of 1763. By this proclamation, settlers could not cross the mountains and claim land. Settlers had to remain on the eastern side of the line. All the tribes were told that they had to completely move across the mountains, but that once they relocated, they would be left alone.
(Can you see why the tribes agreed to this? Knowing what you know about the people who had already settled Britain's 13 colonies, do you understand why this was not going to work? Who would be the first to step across the line in defiance of the Proclamation and settle on the lands reserved for the Indians in Tennessee?)
Proclamation Line of 1763; source https://socratic.org
Source of Timeline: Tennessee Blue Book 2019-2020. Nashville: Secretary of State Tre Hargett, page 577.
Making Connections with United States History
South of the United States, in Mexico, the Olmec people lived at the same time as the Woodland Indians of North America. Archaeologists believe were among the groups that crossed from Asia through the Bering Straits and then done into North America, as one of the oldest civilizations in the Americas. The Olmecs influenced many civilizations that followed them. They were clever mathematicians and astronomers who made accurate calendars including one calendar that had 365 days for a year. They also had a written language that was destroyed by the Spanish conquistadores.
The Impact of Words and Tips for Using Appropriate Terminology: Am I Using the Right Word?
NATIVE
The term Native is often used officially or unofficially to describe indigenous peoples from the United States (Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, Alaska Natives), but it can also serve as a specific descriptor (Native people, Native lands, Native traditions, etc.).
DIVERSITY
It's important to acknowledge the diversity of Indigenous Peoples' cultures, traditions, and languages throughout the Western Hemisphere. When teaching about a particular tribe or nation, learning and using accurate terms specific to the community can prevent stereotypes and encourage cultural understanding and sensitivity among your students.
AMERICAN INDIAN OR NATIVE AMERICAN?
American Indian, Indian, Native American, or Native are acceptable and often used interchangeably in the United States; however, Native Peoples often have individual preferences on how they would like to be addressed. To find out which term is best, ask the person or group which term they prefer. When talking about Native groups or people, use the terminology the members of the community use to describe themselves collectively. There are also several terms used to refer to Native Peoples in other regions of the Western Hemisphere. The Inuit, Yup'ik, and Aleut Peoples in the Arctic see themselves as culturally separate from Indians. In Canada, people refer to themselves as First Nations, First Peoples, or Aboriginal. In Mexico, Central America, and South America, the direct translation for Indian can have negative connotations. As a result, they prefer the Spanish word indígena (Indigenous), communidad (community), and pueblo (people).
TRIBE OR NATION, AND WHY SO MANY NAMES?
American Indian people describe their own cultures and the places they come from in many ways. The word tribe and nation are used interchangeably but hold very different meanings for many Native people. Tribes often have more than one name because when Europeans arrived in the Americas, they used inaccurate pronunciations of the tribal names or renamed the tribes with European names. Many tribal groups are known officially by names that include nation. Every community has a distinct perspective on how they describe themselves. Not all individuals from one community many agree on terminology. There is no single American Indian culture or language.
The best term is always what an individual person or tribal community uses to describe themselves. Replicate the terminology they use or ask what terms they prefer. *
TENNESSEE STATE ARCHEOLOGICAL PARKS AND AREAS
The State of Tennessee has two State Archaeological Parks and five State Archaeological Areas. These Parks and Areas are generally accessible to the public, however, Sellars Farm, Johnston, Castalian Springs, and Mound Bottom require a State Parks or TDOA escort to visit. Below you will find links to information about each of these parks.
Image Source: https://www.tn.gov/environment/program-areas/arch-archaeology/state-archaeological-parks-areas.html
Tennessee Museums:
- C.H. Nash Museum, Chucalissa
- Old Stoe Fort Interpretive Museum, Manchester
- Tennessee State Museum, Nashville
- McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture, University of Tennessee - Knoxville
Native Americans in Tennessee Today
Today there are more than 10,000 Native Americans living in Tennessee They make up less than one percent of the Tennessee population. The Cherokees live in the Smokies along the North Carolina border. Today the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians hold 76 acres in two counties in East Tennessee as well as land in five counties of western North Carolina. The town of Cherokee, North Carolina is the headquarters for the Eastern Band of the Cherokees.
The Choctaw Indians did not live in Tennessee until recently. They now live in West Tennessee in Shelby County Lauderdale County and Tipton County. The Choctaws did not come to Tennessee until the 1950s. They lived in Mississippi until 1830 when they were forced to move to Indian territory west of the Mississippi River. The Choctaws moved to Tennessee in 1952 to take jobs in Lauderdale County as sharecroppers. The Choctaws of West Tennessee are the only native-speaking American Indian community in Tennessee today. Every August, the Choctaws have a Choctaw Indian Heritage Festival at the Chucalissa village in the T. O. Fuller State Park near Memphis. They have worked to preserve their traditional culture and to educate other Americans about the contributions of Native Americans to the United States.
As you travel across Tennessee, the influence of our Native Americans can be seen everywhere. You see many names that came from Native American languages. We have adopted so many words from the Native American languages that we often do not realize that these words came from Native Americans. For example, the name of the professional baseball team in Memphis is the Memphis Chicks. Memphis is located on the Chickasaw Bluffs of the Mississippi River. If you look at a map of Tennessee, you will see many names of places that came from Native American languages. The name of the city of Chattanooga comes from a Creek word for “rock coming to a big point.” The rock is Lookout Mountain, which provides a view of a wide area of Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama.
Tennessee Portrait
NANYE-HI (NANCY WARD)
East Tennessee near Ft. Loudon/ Benton, TN (1738-1824)
The only Native American woman in Tennessee about whom much has been written is Nanye-hi who is also known as “Nancy Ward.” Many legends about Nanye-hi known as the "Wild Rose of Cherokee", that have been handed down still exist. She lived in East Tennessee at the time the European settlers came across the Appalachian Mountains into the region and became the Beloved Woman of her tribe, the Cherokees.
Nanye-hi was born sometime around 1738 and was the niece of Attakullakullah, the chief of the Overhill Cherokees. She was a member of the wolf clan. According to legend, she had beautiful, smooth skin and was married as a teenager to Kingfisher, a Cherokee. While her tribe was fighting the Creeks in Georgia, Nanye-hi accompanied her husband to the battle. After he was killed in battle, she took up his weapon and continued fighting the Creeks. Her action inspired her people and ultimately, they defeated the Creeks. When the story of her bravery spread among the Cherokees, she was chosen Aqiqaue, Beloved Woman of the Cherokees.
Nanye-hi, a member of the Wolf Clan, was from the Cherokee town of Chota. In the Cherokee division of clans and towns into red/war and white/peace categories, Chota was the mother (oldest) white/peace town. Although Nanye-hi became the Beloved Woman because of her actions in the war with the Creeks, she was known as a person of peace. Nancy Ward wanted peace with the Anglo-Americans.
The Cherokees believed that the Great Being spoke to the people through the Beloved Woman, the highest honor within the tribe. As Beloved Woman, Nanye-hi was given a voice in the Council of Chiefs, the body of males who determined whether the tribe would go to war. She also settled quarrels among the various members of the tribe.
As settlers began to move westward into Cherokee territory, the Indians began to attack the settlers. The Beloved Woman was responsible for the preparation of the Sacred "Black Drink,” a holy tea drunk by Indian warriors prior to battle. For this reason, she was also called the "War Woman" and knew in advance the details of any approaching attack. Because she was a member of the council that called for war, she was able to warn John Sevier and the settlers at Fort Watauga of the attack that was planned for the summer of 1776. This warning enabled the settlers to reach the safety of the fort before the attack occurred.
During one attack on the settlers, Lydia Bean, who had been one of the first European settlers, was captured and tied to a stake in a huge ceremonial mound. According to legend, Nanye-hi said, "No woman shall be burned at the stake while I am Beloved Woman" and Lydia Bean was freed. Lydia Bean then went with Nanye-hi to her lodge and taught her many customs of the Europeans. Nanye-hi learned to make butter and cheese from milk of "White Man's buffalo" from Lydia Bean. Nanye-hi later purchased cows and taught dairying to the Cherokees. Using native Tennessee roots as well as herbs and flowers found in abundance throughout the Tennessee countryside, the Cherokee women prepared and then shared with the settlers many of their remedies and secrets for curing a variety of diseases and injuries.
When the conflicts between the Native Americans and the settlers finally ended, Nanye-hi lived for the remainder of her life in east Tennessee. Her grave can be found in Polk County south of Benton, Tennessee.
Grave of Nanye-hi (Nancy Ward)
Source of Photograph: https://www.allthingscherokee.com/nancy-ward-gravesite/
Treaties Between Indigenous Groups and Europeans
Indian Treaties - Tennessee
Here is a list of treaties between tribes and settlers that I began keeping a few years ago and continue to work on:
- 1730 – Attakullahkullah to England – trade agreement
- 1763 – Proclamation Line
- 1768 – Treaty of Hard Labour
- 1770 – Treaty of Lochaber
- 1775 – Treaty of Sycamore Shoals
- 1785 – Treaty of Hopewell – ceded area South of the Cumberland
- 1785-86 – Treaty of Dumplin Creek (state of Franklin with Cherokees; not recognized by NC) – permitted settlement South of French Broad River
- 1791 – Treaty of Holston – confirmed Transylvania Purchase
- October 2, 1798 – First Treaty of Tellico
- October 24, 1804? – Second Treaty of Tellico
- 1804 – Third Treaty of Tellico
- 1806 – Treaty of Washington
- 1817 – Jackson and McMinn Treaty
- 1817— Treaty of Turkey Town (Is the same as Jackson & McMinn Treaty?)
- 1784 – Treaty of Fort Stanwix (Did it involve any land in TN?)
- 1786 – Treaty of Coyatee – settlement as far South as Little TN River
- 1818 – Treaty of Tuscaloosa (Jackson Purchase) with Chickasaws
- 1819 – Calhoun Treaty
- 1835 – Treaty of New Echota
What conclusions can you draw from this list of treaties?
* Source – The National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D. C.: Accessed at: https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/informational/impact-words-tips
Image Sources
Image 1 & 2: http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/20/us/tennessee-cave-art/index.html
Image 3: https://www.projectilepoints.net/Points/Pointphotos/ClovisTA4.jpg and http://www.lithiccastinglab.com/gallery-pages/2007novembercumberlandpointspage1.htm
Image 4: www.wikipedia.org
Image 5: Dr. Carole Bucy's Personal Collection
Image 6: Source Google Earth, 2017 http://historic-memphis.com/memphis-historic/parks2/historicparks.html
Image 7:
Image 8: Dr. Carole Bucy's Personal Collection
Image 9:
Image 10:
Image 11: www.nationalgeogrpahic.com
Image 12: Charles Hudson, U of Georgia, https://tennesseehistory.org/de-soto-east-tennessee-may-june-1540/
Chapter 2 Video Lessons
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Digging Deeper: Chapter 2 Resources
Secondary Resources for Chapter 2
- Finger, John R. “Tennessee Indian History: Creativity and Power.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, vol. 54, no. 4, Tennessee Historical Society, 1995, pp. 286–305, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42627228.
- Gates P. Thruston, The Antiquities of Tennessee (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke and Co., 1890), 1-11, 15-18, 54-55,60-63.
- Samuel Cole Williams (ed.), Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 1540‑1800. (Johnson City, Tennessee: Watauga Press, 1928), 122‑129, 138‑141.
- Samuel Cole Williams (ed.), Lieut. Henry Timberlake’s Memoirs, 1756—1765 (Marietta, Georgia: Continental Book Co., 1927), 75-81, 83-95.