CHEROKEE HISTORY (with a focus on the "Corridor")

Cherokee - OLD vs. NEW

Although not of immediate concern to these first contacts, later historians and scholars became curious about the history the Cherokee tribe and their occupation of the Southern Appalachians. The Cherokees told William Bartram when he questioned them about the Nacoochee mound (in NE GA), that they had found it in an abandoned state when they first arrived in the area and that they had no knowledge of the original builders. This and other legend references, led historians to believe that the Cherokees had migrated from the Midwest during the early historic period. Based on his studies in the 1950’s, Joseph R. Caldwell, concluded that “the Cherokee appear to have been late-comers into Georgia and the greater part of eastern Tennessee, displacing Muskogeans from both areas”.

In 1958, Joffre L. Coe ("Cherokee Archaeology," in "Symposium on Cherokee and Iroquois Culture," ed. John Bullick, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 180 (Washington DC: 1961), 53-60) offered the suggestion that the Cherokee culture in the Southern Appalachians had been in that region for more than 2000 years.

By 1960, archaeological data was accumulating to show a long "pre-history" existence of the Cherokee in the Southern Appalachians. Three distinct sub-regional developments have been identified, beginning with about 1000 A.D., indicating that, although there was some outside influence, the historical Cherokee culture was the end product of a long, continuous growth in the area. This makes the truth of the Delaware tradition ("drove Talegewi to the south with Iroquois") unlikely, if it applies to the Cherokees. (See Roy S. Dickens Jr., "The Origins and Development of Cherokee Culture," ed. Duane H. King, "The Cherokee Indian Nation--a Troubled History," Univ. of Tenn. Press, 1979, pp. 3-32.)

Emmet Starr believed the designs on artifacts found at Etowah Mound in Georgia, and the "soft accents" of the Cherokee Underhill dialect, indicated an origin in the south, such as Central America or Yucatan. Grace Woodward stated that their language was kin to Iroquois, and that their basket weaving linked with Orinoco and the Amazon areas.

Archaeological findings of Kelly and Neitzel at the Chauga site in the Hartwell Basin also supported a longer Cherokee tradition in North Georgia. The first stages of the Chauga (S.C.) temple mound were constructed as early as about AD 1000. Succeeding stages were added until a documented historic Cherokee occupation, without a significant break in the entire sequence.

So, there is evidence for a long and relatively unbroken presence over much of the area occupied by historic Cherokees.

• Cherokees participated in the generalized Mississippian pattern – a pattern that included the construction of platform mounds and the manufacture of a variety of ceramics.
• Archaeologists question the validity of Indian legends that brought the Cherokees into their historic homeland by recent migration.
• At the time of European contact, the Cherokees exhibited many traits held in common by the terminal Mississippian culture: platform mound construction, complicated stamped ceramics, maize agriculture, and a settlement pattern in which groups of permanent villages were satellites of larger communities with clearly defined ceremonial precincts. [King, The Cherokee Indian Nation, Univ of Tenn. Press]

SUMMARY (opinion)

· SE Indians were probably the product of multiple migrations over a long period of time from Central America… possibly the Yucatan Peninsula. These migrations produced the Mississippian culture from the earlier Woodland period. [click here for examples of migration stories from oral histories]

· Cherokee culture arose from the Mississippian culture, probably influenced by further migrations into the area. The last native migration into the area may have been a military take-over that assimilated much of the resident culture and became "Cherokee". Evidence for this is indicated by the fact that Cherokee language is not Muskogean (Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Alabama, Koasati, Apalachee, Hitchiti-Mikasuki) which is the predominant language of SE Indians. Cherokee is classified as Iroquoian language. [the Cherokee - Iroquois connection]

· Cherokee culture was the end product of a long, unbroken, and multi-linear development in the South Appalachian region. This means that occupation was continuous, but cultures experienced major changes due to migrations and merging of cultural traits.

· Old vs. New Cherokee ? - maybe both!