n— HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CHEROKEE 

 The Traditionary Period 



The Cherokee were the mountaineers of the South, holding the 

 entire Alleghen\' region from the interlocking head-streams of the 

 Kanawha and the Tennessee southward almost to the site of Atlanta, 

 and from the Blue ridge on the east to the Cumberland range on the 

 west, a territory comprising an area of about 40,000 square miles, 

 now included in the states of Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South 

 Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. Their principal towns were upon 

 the headwaters of the Savannah, Hiwassee, and Tuckasegee, and along 

 the whole length of the Little Tennessee to its junction with the main 

 stream. Itsati, or Echota, on the south bank of tht , kittle Tennessee, a 

 few miles above the mouth of Tellico river, in Tennessee, was commonty 

 considered the capital of the Nation. As the advancing whites pressed 

 upon them from the east and northeast the more exposed towns were 

 destroyed or abandoned and new settlements were formed lower down 

 the Tennessee and on the upper branches of the Chattahoochee and 

 the Coosa. 



As is alwaj's the case with tribal geography, there were no fixed 

 boundaries, and on every side the Cherokee frontiers were contested 

 by rival claimants. In Virginia, there is reason to believe, the tribe 

 was held in check in early daj's by the Powhatan and the Monacan. 

 On the east and southeast the Tuscarora and Catawba were their invet- 

 erate enemies, with hardly even a momentary truce within the historic 

 period; and evidence goes to show that the Sara or Cheraw were fully 

 as hostile. On the south there was hereditary war with the Creeks, 

 who claimed nearly the whole of upper Georgia as theirs bj- original 

 possession, but who were being gradually pres.sed down toward the 

 Gulf until, through the mediation of the United States, a treaty was 

 finally made fixing the boundary between the two tribes along a line 

 running about due west from the mouth of Broad river on the Savan- 

 nah. Toward the west, the Chickasaw on the lower Tennessee and the 

 Shawano on the Cumberland repeatedly turned back the tide of Chero- 

 kee in\-asion from the rich central valleys, while the powerful Iroquois 

 in the far north set up an almost unchallenged claim of paramount 

 lordship from the Ottawa river of Canada southwai'd at least to the 

 Kentucky river. 

 14 



