THOMAS.) STONE GRAVES. 693 



I'emoval of a portion of the Shawnees from the south to the valley of 

 the Delaware, is too well known to require the proof to be given here. 



Returning now to the Cumberland valley and regions of middle Ten- 

 nessee, already referred to, we find here, beyond any reasonable doubt, 

 if the number of graves be any indication, the chief home of the jieople 

 who buried in stone graves of the peculiar form mentioned. That we 

 can not attribute any of these graves south of the Ohio to the Dela- 

 wares will be conceded. The natural inference, therefore, is, if they 

 are to be considered as an ethnic characteristic, that they are due to the 

 Shawnees. There is undoubted historical evidence that this people 

 resided in the region of the Cumberland from the earliest notice we 

 have of them until their linal departure therefrom at a comparatively 

 recent date. Col. Force conectly remarks, ''We first find the Shawano 

 in actual history about the year IGOO and living along the Cmnberland 

 river, or the Cumberland and Tennessee."' 



There existed formerly a tradition that this nation extended settle- 

 ments as far to the southeast as the banks of the Savannah river, and 

 the name of this river is yet supposed by some to have been derived 

 from the presence of this tribe. Although the latter supposition is 

 founded on a, slender and very doubtful basis, and much error has crept 

 into tlie explanations of the tradition which has led to its rejection by 

 some of our best investigators of the present day, there are good rea- 

 sons for accepting it as true when restricted to its more exact and lim- 

 ited form. This is found in Milfort,^ who places them in upper Geor- 

 gia, in the Tugelo region, and on the headwaters of the large Georgia 

 livers. If this be correct we have some foundation for the tradition 

 which places them on the Savannah, as the Tugelo river is one of its 

 upper branches. With this limitation, and the caution as to accepting 

 Milfort's date, which is evidently very far wrong, the tradition given 

 by Gen. Robertson found in Haywood's Natural and Aboriginal 

 History of Tennessee, ' may be considered as corroborative : 



In 1772 the Little Corn Planter, an intelligent Cherokee chief, ■who was then 

 supposed to be 90 years of age, stated, in giving a history of his own nation, that 

 the Savannechers, which was the name universally given by the Indians to those 

 whom the English call Shawanese, removed from Savannah river, between Oconjia 

 and Siiiitli Carolina, htj penmnaion of the Cherokves, io Cumberland, they having been 

 fallen U))OU and almost ruined by a combination of several of the neighboring tribes 

 of Indians. That many years afterwards a ditfereuee took place between the two 

 nations, and the Cherokees, unexpectedly to the Shawnees. marched in a large liody 

 to the frontiers of the latter. There, dividing into several small parties, they 

 treacherously, as he expressed himself, i'ell upon them and put to death a gre.'it num- 

 ber. The Shawanese then forted tliemselves and maintained :i long war in defense 

 of their possession of the country, even after the Chickasaws had joined tlie Chero- 

 kees. He observed that when he was a small boy, which must have been about 

 1699, he remembered to have heard his father, who was a great chief say he once 

 took a large party against the Shawanese, etc. 



' Early Notices of the Indian.^ of Ohio. p. 40. See also Marquette's statements in Jes. Rel., 1670, p. 

 !tl. and in hi-s Journal, p. 32. Paris lieprint. 184.'i. etc. 

 ■•'Memoire(1802),p.i). ' I'. 222. 



