Early Settlement

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Early Settlement

• Fusion and Displacement

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• By the middle of the 17th century, trade between
  the southeastern natives and the Spanish was
  extensive.
• From the Spanish natives received knives, axes,
  scissors, hoes, glass beads, brass bells,
  trinkets, blankets, and cloth.
• In exchange the Spanish received skins, wild
  turkey, maize, and beans.

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• The arrival of the English only intensified a
  trade that already existed.
• That trade had a long transformative effect on
  the native culture.
• Before English arrival, the Dutch were already
  buying furs from the Spanish.
• This must have significantly reduced the game
  population.

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• Under the impact of European disease, significant
  restructuring of native life occurred.
• The Qualla, ancestors of the Cherokee, formed out
  of the Mississippian Pisgah.
• Surviving Moose Creek and Dallas peoples, among
  others, formed the Creek Confederacy.
• The Shawnee evolve out of the Fort Ancient
  peoples.

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• In this process, not doubt some Spanish,
  Portuguese and Africans were absorbed into the
  native Americans of the southeast.
• Food crops introduced through Spanish contact
  included peaches, oranges, grapes, figs, wheat,
  watermelon, muskmelon, barley, chickpeas, garlic,
  pears, yams, sorghum and okra.

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• Peaches were one of the most popular of these
  crops. Jamestown settlers found natives already
  cultivating them in 1607.
• By the 18th century, English and French trade
  with the natives replaced trade with the Spanish.
• Possibly because of the lower population of
  natives, bison made their way into the mountains
  during the 18th century, creating trails later
  used by settlers.

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• By the beginning of the 18th century, the
  southern Appalachian area is dominated by the
  Cherokee, numbering about 30,000.
• The Lower Towns along the Chattooga, Tugaloo and
  Keowee Rivers.
• The Middle Towns along the upper tributaries of
  the Little Tennessee River.
• The Valley Towns along the Has and Knightly
  Rivers.
• The Overhill Towns west of the Great Smokey
  Mountains.

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• An increasing number of English traders began to
  live among the Cherokee, many marrying into the
  tribes.
• Guns and steel traps became the tools of the
  hunt.
• Ginseng also became a major export to European
  (and then Asian) markets, as did Seneca snakeroot.

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Ginseng
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Seneca Snakeroot
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• Domestic livestock began to graze the river cane.
• Supplies of wild game became increasingly
  difficult to find.
• While Creeks adopted Spanish patterns of cattle
  raising, many Cherokee preferred hogs.
• Hogs could be penned during the growing season,
  and free ranged during the fall and winter months.

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• As population increased in the colonies, the
  interests of the colonists and the crown
  increasingly diverged.
• The British crown was interested in maintaining
  trade with the colonies.
• Colonists were interested in land acquisition and
  relieving the population pressure building up in
  the coastal cities.

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• The crown would make treaties with the natives,
  hoping for the continuation of peaceful trade.
• Colonists would then push westward beyond the
  treaty boundaries.
• When the colonies revolted against the British,
  the Cherokee, along with several other tribes,
  sided with the British.

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• American independence was, consequently no
  victory for natives.
• Nor was it a victory for those who had already
  settled in the frontier.
• It was, however, a great victory for generations
  of lawyers!

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• The sons of colonial nobility, as officers during
  the many wars on the frontier, were on constant
  lookout for prime lands. Wherever and whenever
  possible, they secured grants or titles to vast
  tracts of lands.
• As Revolutionary War officers, they were often
  paid in land grants by their respective governors.

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• The grants, poorly surveyed or not at all, were
  ill defined and often overlapped.
• As the original colonies were carved into
  separate statesOhio, Kentucky, Tennessee,
  Alabama, and eventually West Virginianew
  capitols and courthouses became the centers of
  land records, and new courts mediated land
  disputes.
• Some of these disputes continue today.

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• The political boundaries of the separate states
  separated the Appalachian portion of the states
  from the respective state capitals.
• Appalachians of limited means could ill afford to
  argue their land claims in Richmond, Frankfort,
  or Nashville.
• Yet landholding companies had lawyers on
  permanent retainer in the state capitals, and
  powerful friends in the state legislatures.

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• The election of Andrew Jackson as president of
  the United States, the subsequent passage of the
  Indian Removal Act in 1830, and the discovery of
  gold on Cherokee land, led to the Trail of Tears,
  the forced march of Cherokee from Appalachia to
  the Oklahoma Territory.

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