University of Virginia Library

CHEROKEES.

The Cherokee tribe of Indians, at the time of the settlement of
Southwest Virginia, inhabited one of the most attractive sections
of the American Continent, occupying the banks of the Catawba,
Savannah, Yadkin and Tennessee rivers on the east and south and
several of the feeders of the Tennessee on the west.

There were no fortresses to be found among them. Their settlements
were rude huts scattered irregularly along some water way
convenient to good pasture land and hunting and fishing grounds.

They usually had small clearings which were cultivated by the
women and children in Indian corn and beans.

But little of the history of the Cherokees can be gathered from
their traditions. The existence of this tribe of Indians was noted by
the historian of the expedition of De Soto when traveling in the
South, and it is said that they came originally from east of the
Alleghany mountains. Their principal town or capital city was
Choto, located about five miles from the ruins of Fort Loudon, in
Tennessee.

They were the mountain people of America and loved their homes
and their liberties.

They frequently aided the early settlers of this portion of America
in their wars with the French and English, a company of Indians
from this tribe having participated in the siege of Fort Du Quesne

under Captain Pearis, but much oftener did they carry death into
the homes of the early settlers of the Carolinas and Virginia.

This tribe, previous to 1769, were numerous and exceedingly
quarrelsome and arrogant.

At this time they quarreled with the Chickasaw Indians and
undertook an invasion of their country, but were overwhelmed by
the Chickasaws after a great battle at the Chickasaw old fields.

This overwhelming defeat occurred at the same time that Arthur
Campbell, William Edmiston, and many other hardy pioneers
first pitched their tents on the waters of the Holston and Clinch,
and there can be no doubt that this occurrence contributed much to
the rapid settlement of this section of Virginia.

For thirty years following the advent of the first settlers into this
country the Cherokees killed and scalped the inhabitants at every
opportunity.

The population of this tribe in 1735 was considerable. Adair
says that they had sixty-four populous towns, and their fighting
men numbered above six thousand.

In the year 1776 the number of warriors pertaining to this tribe
was two thousand four hundred and ninety-one.

This tribe of Indians now occupy a part of the Indian Territory.
It will be remembered that the Cherokees used principally the valleys
of the Holston in their hunting expeditions and seldom visited
the valleys of the Clinch.