wbbb] ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF NORRIS BASIN 203 



but who were being gradually pressed 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 due west from the mouth of Broad 

 river on the Savannah. Toward the west the Chickasaw on the lower Tennessee 

 and the Shawano on the Cumberland repeatedly turned back the tide of Cherokee 

 invasion 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 southward at least to the Kentucky river. 



On the other hand, by their defeat of the Creeks and expulsion of the 

 Shawano the Cherokee made good the claim which they asserted to all the 

 lands from upper Georgia to the Ohio river, including the rich hunting grounds 

 of Kentucky. Holding as they did the great mountain barrier between the 

 English settlements on the coast and the French or Spanish garrisons along the 

 Mississippi and the Ohio, their geographic position, no less than their superior 

 number, would have given them the balance of power in the South but for a 

 looseness of tribal organization in striking contrast to the compactness of the 

 Iroquois league, by which for more than a century the French power was held 

 in check in the north. * * * ° 



Thus, by the time of their early contact with the American colonies, 

 the Cherokee were claiming ownership of a tract of land much ex- 

 tended over the domain actually held and occupied by them. The 

 area thus claimed extended from the west bank of the Kanawha 

 River westward along the Ohio to the Tennessee River and included 

 much of north Alabama and all of Kentucky and Tennessee east of 

 the Tennessee River, and thus encompassed the valleys of the Clinch 

 and Powell Rivers. During most of the eighteenth century the 

 Cherokee were constantly at war with one or the other of their In- 

 dian neighbors, and often came into conflict with local armed forces 

 of the white settlers. Whether victorious or defeated, each treaty 

 of peace usually involved a cession of Cherokee territory, so that, 

 as pointed out by Royce, 7 between the period 1721 and 1835, the 

 Cherokee made 36 treaties and cessions of land. The last treaty, of 

 December 29, 1835, included all lands held by the Cherokee east of 

 the Mississippi River. This cession was in lieu of lands granted 

 them west of the Mississippi River in what is now the State of 

 Oklahoma. 



It is to be expected, therefore, that this large and important In- 

 dian nation, having a traditional occupancy of the area under in- 

 vestigation, and for nearly two centuries asserting and defending a 

 claim to territory encompassing the area in question, should have 

 left some impress upon the archaeology of the region. For the pur- 

 pose of this study interest attaches to the very earliest information 

 concerning the habitat of the Cherokee. 



The earliest tradition of the Cherokee as translated by Hecke- 

 welder 8 from the Walam Olum, the chronicle of the Lenape, identi- 



«Ibid., p. 14. 



'Royce, 1887, p. 129. 



8 Heckewelder, 1819, pp. 47-49. 



