Indians in Tennessee
Tennessee Genealogy Records
The entire domain of Tennessee was once a part of the State of North Carolina. Between 1750 and 1775, the first settlements were made in that portion of the State now known as East Tennessee, and two years later, the western part of her lands became Washington County. In other words, the whole of the State of Tennessee became Washington County, North Carolina.
In 1780, after Colonel James Robertson with seven of his friends—William Overall (an uncle of Colonel Abraham Overall), George Freeland, William Neely, Edward Swanson, James Hanley, Mark Robertson, and Zachariah White, crossed the mountains from East Tennessee and selected the site of Nashville for another settlement, a party of from two hundred to three hundred of his relatives and acquaintances arrived on the Cumberland River and built homes and forts.
In 1783, when North Carolina laid off a new county, part of it was taken from Washington County, including a large portion of the country west of the Cumberland Mountains (known as “the Wilderness”), and became Davidson County.
In 1786, Sumner County was laid off, its eastern boundary being the Wilderness, but in 1799, it was reduced by establishing Smith and Wilson Counties out of its eastern territory. Smith County initially included what later became Jackson, White, Warren, and Cannon Counties—or at least a great part of Cannon.
Meanwhile, North Carolina ceded all the Tennessee country to the United States, and it became known as the, Southwest Territory, with William Blount appointed Governor by President Washington. In 1796, the Southwest Territory was admitted into the Union as a State and named Tennessee.
When the first settlements were made, the Cherokee and Chickasaw Indians lived in the mountains of the eastern Tennessee border, while the Chickamauga Indian villages were near present-day Chattanooga.
The Chickasaws, who became friends with the whites after attacking the settlers along the Cumberland River in 1781, claimed all of Western Tennessee. The new settlers' worst enemies were the Cherokees, assisted by the Creeks, who lived south of Tennessee.
In 1789, General Winchester took a scouting party to Smith's Fork, a large tributary of the Caney Fork, and came upon a fresh trail of Indians. He pursued them down the creek on the buffalo path that led through an open forest to the creek's crossing and, immediately, a heavy canebrake. The General's spies were a little in front. They were Maj. Joseph Muckelrath and Capt. John Hickerson, a couple of brave men.
Just after they entered the green cane a short distance, the Indians, lying in ambush, fired upon them. They killed Hickerson but missed Muckelrath. Winchester was close behind, rushing up. Frank Heany was wounded, and the Indians had the advantage. General Winchester thought it proper to retreat, thinking of drawing them out of the green cane. But, his attempt did not succeed.
Capt. James McKain killed a celebrated warrior, the harelipped chief called “Moon,” who had shot down and scalped Capt. Charles Morgan a year or two before at Bledsoe's Lick.
Until 1805, an Indian reserve in the Cumberland Mountains was known as “the Wilderness.” As late as 1791, Nettle Carrier, an Indian chief, lived there with his tribesmen.
Then, after the Nickajack expedition, the Indians continued to commit depredations. At noon on November 11, 1794, an attack was made by forty Indians on Valentine Sevier's fort near the present site of Clarksville. Several whites were killed and scalped.
When Adam Dale, James Alexander, Jesse Allen, and other pioneers came to what is now DeKalb County, the spirit of the Indians had been broken by the Nickajack expedition of September 1794.
Three years after the Nickajack expedition, Adam Dale arrived after hearing that Adam Dale had cut a wagon road through the forest and canebrakes a few miles from Nashville to Liberty; forty people from Maryland arrived.
Before 1840 the Chickasaws, Cherokees, and Creeks relinquished all claims and were removed across the Mississippi River. History records one Indian battle on the buffalo trail down Smith's Fork and up Clear Fork. (DeKalb County)
Source: History of DeKalb County, Tennessee by Will T. Hale (1915).
Images of Tennessee Wills, etc.
