c 



olonial beginnings 



Indians similar to the Mound Builders are thought 

 to have been the first inhabitants of the Tennessee 

 region. The Chickasaw, Cherokee and Shawnee were 

 among the tribes living there when the first Europeans, 

 led by the Spanish explorer De Soto, arrived in 1540. 

 De Soto was followed bv countryman Juan Pardo, but 

 the Spaniards were seeking gold and did not settle. 



A long period of British-French contention over the 

 Tennessee region was foreshadowed by the arrival of 

 the French explorers Marquette and Joliet and English- 

 men James Deedham and Gabriel Arthur in the same 

 year, 1673. In 1682, Robert Cavalier de La Salle, while 

 exploring the Mississippi River, stopped at the mouth 

 of the Hatchie River and built the first European forti- 

 fication on Tennessee soil— Fort Proudhomme. 



Spurred by reports from scouts such as Daniel Boone, 

 a steady stream of settlers from Virginia and the Caro- 

 linas soon began to enter the region. French influence 

 waned and by 1763, following the termination of the 

 Anglo-French wars with the Treaty of Paris, the British 

 were in complete control. 



Settlers continued to flow westward despite a Royal 

 proclamation in 1763 that forbade any colonial move- 

 ment west of the Appalachian Mountains. The fertile 

 lands of East Tennessee, the eastern river valleys of 

 West Virginia and the lands of the Kentucky "Blue 

 Grass" and middle Tennessee attracted many settlers 

 and new establishments continually appeared through- 

 out this region. 



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