Tennessee's Native American History

From Removal to Present Day in Tennessee

Pre-Colonization

The scanty written information about the Indians of Tennessee comes from the chronicles of the sixteenth-century Spanish, seventeenth-century French, and eighteenth-century British expeditions. As Euro-American settlers moved westward across Tennessee in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the many mounds and earthworks they encountered became a focus of speculative interpretation, often based on scripture or comparison to cultures in other parts of the world.

One of the big issues in American archaeology is the peopling of the New World. The traditional explanation has been that during the last Ice Age a dry land bridge across the Bering Strait was exposed, which allowed bands of hunters with their families crossed into North America and radiated across the continent. Their presence is recorded by the Clovis points.

Evidence for Paleo-Indians in Tennessee comes primarily from finds of fluted spear points and other distinctive cutting and scraping stone tools. The greatest concentration of evidence for Paleo-Indian occupation is the western valley of the Tennessee River and the Central Basin, particularly along the Cumberland River.

Native Americans of the Archaic Period were hunters and gatherers, and their settlements reflect an adaptation to the abundant natural resources of the Tennessee region. Sites varied in function from base settlements to transient hunting or collecting camps.

A base camp is shown here. In the foreground, women are processing hickory nuts. Plant foods were supplemented by such animals as the whitetail deer, turkeys, bears, and smaller game like rabbits.  

Early in the Woodland period, bands began to group together to form sociopolitical units called tribes. The tribe was made up of several localized communities each of which was organized through a kinship group called a lineage. These lineages would come together from time to time for the purpose of warfare or ceremony. The social organization was essentially egalitarian and community leadership rested with individuals who exhibited prowess in hunting or warfare.

The Woodland Period is characterized by several important cultural advances – pottery, more permanent settlements, and increased reliance on gardening and domesticated plants. 

At its peak, the Mississippian tradition is characterized by the following: the construction of mounds for temples, elite residences, and council buildings; the arrangement of mounds and individual household structures around open plazas; increased population and more stable settlements; the emergence of organized chiefdoms; increased warfare; elaborate religious ceremonialism and symbolism; a dependence upon corn and beans; and changes in ceramics.

Decked out in their finery, the leaders of the Late Mississippian Period town of Toqua are assembled in front of the civic buildings on the summit of Mound A. 

The Mississippian period was the final chapter in the prehistory of Tennessee. Throughout the Southeast, it was the pinnacle of religio-socio-political complexity of the Native American societies. Beginning in the 16th century, European incursions brought massive change to the Indian cultures. Physical brutality and diseases decimated the populations and these disruptions broke down the traditional alliances and undermined the social and political order.

By the late 1600s we have left prehistory and entered recorded history. The story becomes one of the Cherokee, Yuchi, Shawnee, Creek, Chickasaw, and others and their relationships with Euro-Americans and a new nation.

Land Cessions

There are only a total of 65 years from the Natives complete ownership of the land to their forced removal via 12 major and a multitude of minor broken treaties. At first, the Proclamation of 1763 reserved all of Tennessee for the Natives. Tennessee’s first cession was with the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, 1768. The cession thus made by the Six Nations, of the country north and east of the Tennessee River, is the first deed from any aboriginal tribes for any territory within the boundaries of Tennessee. The Six Nations were composed of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, plus a sixth tribe, the Tuscaroras. These treaties and cessions would increase through the century. The Revolutionary War marked the end of colonial treaties. The federal government became the authority to treat with the Indians.

In the end, all the Native's land and reservations were ceded to Tennessee.

Original map of Indian land transfers in Tennessee and portions of the surrounding states.

Interactive land cessions organized by each individual cession.

Interactive land cessions organized by the 3 main Tennessee tribes

Trail of Tears

Though all their official land had been taken away, many Natives still lived in Tennessee (either as integrated citizens, outcasts, or hiding in the Smoky mountains). The Cherokee were the main group left. In 1830, Congress passed President Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act, authorizing the President to negotiate removal treaties with Indian tribes living in the eastern United States. These "voluntary" treaties would offer federal land west of the Mississippi River in exchange for Indian land in the east, and provide assistance with the tribe's relocation.

The Cherokee Nation under Principal Chief John Ross resisted attempts by Andrew Jackson's administration to induce the tribe to accept a removal treaty. As a result of Jackson's malfeasance, several Cherokee leaders, led by the respected statesman Major Ridge, became convinced that removal was inevitable and that the Cherokees should accept a removal treaty. Ridge and his followers became known as the Treaty Party.

In December of 1835, even though they weren't elected representatives of the Cherokee national government, the Treaty Party leaders signed the Treaty of New Echota, which stipulated the Cherokee would emigrate to the west within two years. A majority of Cherokees did not accept the Treaty of New Echota as a legitimate agreement and the treaty was never ratified by the elected government of the Cherokee Nation. 

After the deadline passed on May 23, 1838, the Cherokee roundup began. During the rest of the spring and early summer, U.S. forces hunted Cherokee people down, took them prisoner, and marched them to temporary stockades in North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. Later they were moved to concentration camps in and around present-day Charleston, Tennessee at Fort Cass.

Some Cherokees avoided the roundup, at least for a while. Hundreds hid in the mountains of Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina as the military dragnet swept towards their homes, and some escaped from the holding pens. In August, 1838, General Scott assigned units of mounted troops that continued to hunt the fugitives into the fall.

As the stockades filled up during the late spring of 1838, the forced removal began from Ross's Landing. They were removed under military escort, traveling on a series of steamboats, towing flatboats and keelboats, down the Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi, White, and Arkansas rivers to Fort Coffee in Indian Territory. 

Chief Ross and his advisers planned for the rest of the emigrating Cherokees to travel by land. General Scott and Chief Ross took 13 detachments. Each detachment contained about 1,000 people, except for the last group which would include around 200 of the sickest Cherokees. Another detachment of about 600, led by John Bell, was composed mainly of members of the Treaty Party and not managed by Ross.

Rain in September allowed the emigration to resume and the detachments began to get underway again on October 1, 1838. Hair Conrad, the leader of the first detachment, had become ill and was replaced by Daniel Colston, causing a delay for this detachment, during which the second detachment, led by Elijah Hicks, crossed the Tennessee River at Blythe Ferry and became the lead detachment on the Northern Route. By the first week in November, all of the detachments that traveled overland were on the road towards Indian Territory. The last group of around 220, which included those unable to travel by land, as well as John Ross and his family, left by steamboat on the Hiwassee River from the Cherokee Agency area on December 5, 1838.

The above text was sourced and based on The Native History Association's work.

A multitude of pathways was used to push the caravan of Natives westward. 6 main routes were used: Deas-Whiteley, Drane, Taylor, Bell, Northern, and Round-up Routes.

There were 3 main starting points in Tennessee: Ross's Landing, Blythe Ferry, and Fort Cass.

Groups of the natives were staged at various camps, including east of Ross's Landing, for their coming expulsion west. On June 6, 1838, over 1500 Cherokee departed from Ross's Landing in steamboats and barges. A final group of Cherokee left in the Fall of 1838, forced to walk due to the falling levels of water in the river caused by a drought.

In 1836, the Treaty of New Echota was ratified, transferring all Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi River to the United States. By the Fall of of 1838, some 9000 Cherokee and 300 Creek had been imprisoned in stockades in Bradley County, a few miles to the east. It took several weeks to move the entire contingent across the river, with the last detachment crossing on November 12, 1838.

Fort Cass housed a garrison of United States troops who watched over the largest concentration of internment camps where Cherokee were kept during the summer of 1838 before starting the main trek west to Indian Territory. The camps stretched for many miles through the valley south of Fort Cass toward present-day Cleveland, Tennessee.

Current Land

There were approximately 7 tribes in colonial Tennessee: the Muscogee (Creek), Yuchi, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Shawnee, and Seneca.

The tribal identities of the 16th and 17th century occupants of Tennessee are disputed. By the 18th century, the only native peoples living permanently in Tennessee were the Cherokee. The Chickasaw controlled western Tennessee, but there is only some archaeological or historical evidence that they used the area for more than hunting. The Shawnee and Creek briefly occupied small areas in the state, but again, little archaeological evidence has been found.

There are no official state-recognized tribes in Tennessee. Any group in Tennessee calling itself a 'tribe' has no historical tribal connection or no verifiable historical claim prior to 1983. Only two organizations in Tennessee are affiliated with federally-recognized tribes: the Choctaw community in Lauderdale County and the Muscogee "Creek" Nation Citizens. Two other inter-tribal organizations in the state have a majority of members from federally-recognized tribes on their boards: the Native American Indian Association of Tennessee and the United South and Eastern Tribes. 

Currently, many groups and tribes are seeking recognition in Tennessee.

  • Central Band of Cherokee
  • Cherokee Wolf Clam
  • Remnant Yuchi Nation
  • Chikamaka Cherokee
  • Far Away Cherokee
  • Upper Cumberland Cherokee
  • American Indian Association of Millington
  • Native Cultural Circle

As of 2012, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw is the only Native group who owns trust land in Tennessee. It is a land trust in Henning, Tennessee on the Mississippi River border consisting of approximately 88.15 acres of land.

There are bills currently in both the Tennessee House and Senate petitioning the government for recognition.

As more and more tribes petition the government, these land claims may grow and hopefully bring back the cultural groups that once resided in Tennessee.

A base camp is shown here. In the foreground, women are processing hickory nuts. Plant foods were supplemented by such animals as the whitetail deer, turkeys, bears, and smaller game like rabbits.  

The Woodland Period is characterized by several important cultural advances – pottery, more permanent settlements, and increased reliance on gardening and domesticated plants. 

Decked out in their finery, the leaders of the Late Mississippian Period town of Toqua are assembled in front of the civic buildings on the summit of Mound A.