Chilhowee ( chr, ᏧᎷᎾᎢ, translit=Tsulunawe) was a prehistoric and historic
Native American site in present-day
Blount and
Monroe counties in Tennessee, in what were the
Southeastern Woodlands
Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands, Southeastern cultures, or Southeast Indians are an ethnographic classification for Native Americans who have traditionally inhabited the area now part of the Southeastern United States and the nor ...
. Although now submerged by the
Chilhowee Lake
Chilhowee Dam is a hydroelectric dam located in Blount and Monroe counties, Tennessee, United States, between river mile 33 and 34 on the Little Tennessee River. Construction began in 1955 and was completed in 1957. The dam's reservoir covers ...
impoundment of the
Little Tennessee River
The Little Tennessee River is a tributary of the Tennessee River that flows through the Blue Ridge Mountains from Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, into North Carolina, and then into Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. It drains portio ...
, the Chilhowee site was home to a substantial 18th-century
Overhill Cherokee town. It may have been the site of the older
Creek village "Chalahume" visited by Spanish explorer
Juan Pardo in 1567. The Cherokee later pushed the
Muscogee Creek
The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language), are a group of related indigenous (Native American) peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands[Cherokee
The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...]
in the late 18th century, the village's name is still used for various entities throughout
East Tennessee
East Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee defined in state law. Geographically and socioculturally distinct, it comprises approximately the eastern third of the U.S. state of Tennessee. East Tennessee consists of 33 count ...
. Along with
Chilhowee Dam
Chilhowee Dam is a hydroelectric dam located in Blount and Monroe counties, Tennessee, United States, between river mile 33 and 34 on the Little Tennessee River. Construction began in 1955 and was completed in 1957. The dam's reservoir covers ...
and its reservoir, places and entities named after Chilhowee include a
mountain
A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited Summit (topography), summit area, and ...
, a geologic formation, several churches and schools, and a
park
A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...
and
neighborhood
A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural area, ...
in
Knoxville
Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state's ...
.
Geography
The Little Tennessee River enters Tennessee from the south and flows northwestward for roughly through parts of Blount, Monroe, and
Loudon counties before emptying into the
Tennessee River
The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other names, ...
near present-day
Lenoir City. Chilhowee Dam, completed in 1957 by the
Aluminum Company of America
Alcoa Corporation (an acronym for Aluminum Company of America) is a Pittsburgh-based industrial corporation. It is the world's eighth-largest producer of aluminum. Alcoa conducts operations in 10 countries. Alcoa is a major producer of primary ...
's Tapoco Division, is situated approximately above the mouth of the Little Tennessee. The dam created Chilhowee Lake, a reservoir stretching for roughly between Chilhowee Dam and
Calderwood Dam
Calderwood Dam is a hydroelectric dam located along the Little Tennessee River in Blount and Monroe counties, in the U. S. state of Tennessee. Completed in 1930, the dam is owned and maintained by Tapoco, a subsidiary of the Aluminum Company of ...
, near the Tennessee-North Carolina border. Before inundation, the Chilhowee site was located along a bend in the Little Tennessee opposite the river's
Abrams Creek confluence, approximately above river's mouth. The site is visible immediately southeast of the junction of
U.S. Route 129
U.S. Route 129 (US 129) is an auxiliary route of US 29, which it intersects in Athens, Georgia. US 129 currently runs for from an intersection with US 19/ US 27 ALT/ US 98 in Chiefland, Florida, to an interchang ...
and
Foothills Parkway
The Foothills Parkway is a national parkway which traverses the foothills of the northern Great Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee, located in the southeastern United States. The 72.1-mile (114 km) parkway will connect U.S. Route 129 (U.S. ...
.
The Chilhowee site is situated in an area where the
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...
— namely, the
Great Smoky Mountains
The Great Smoky Mountains (, ''Equa Dutsusdu Dodalv'') are a mountain range rising along the Tennessee–North Carolina border in the southeastern United States. They are a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains, and form part of the Blue Ridge ...
to the northeast and the
Unicoi Mountains
The Unicoi Mountains are a mountain range rising along the border between Tennessee and North Carolina in the southeastern United States. They are part of the Blue Ridge Mountain Province of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. The Unicois are ...
to the south— give way to the rolling hills of the
Appalachian Ridge-and-Valley Province. Chilhowee Lake provides part of the boundary between the
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an American national park in the southeastern United States, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The park straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, whi ...
and the
Cherokee National Forest
The Cherokee National Forest is a United States National Forest located in the U.S. states of Tennessee and North Carolina that was created on June 14, 1920. The forest is maintained and managed by the United States Forest Service. It encompasses ...
.
History
Chalahume
According to anthropologist
Charles Hudson Charles Hudson may refer to:
* Sir Charles Hudson, 1st Baronet (1730–1813), English baronet
* Charles Hudson (American politician) (1795–1881), American historian and politician, Congressman in U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts
* ...
, the
Juan Pardo expedition entered the upper Tennessee Valley (then occupied by part of the
Chiaha
Chiaha was a Native American chiefdom located in the lower French Broad River valley in modern East Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. They lived in raised structures within boundaries of several stable villages. These overlooked the ...
chiefdom) in late 1567 via the
Pigeon River. Pardo followed this to its confluence with the
French Broad River
The French Broad River is a river in the U.S. states of North Carolina and Tennessee. It flows from near the town of Rosman in Transylvania County, North Carolina, into Tennessee, where its confluence with the Holston River at Knoxville forms ...
near modern
Newport. The expedition rested for several days at the Chiaha capital of ''Olamico.''
Based on the chronicles of the Pardo expedition, which were not translated into English until the late 20th century, Hudson believes Olamico was located on Zimmerman's Island (now submerged by
Douglas Lake
Douglas Lake, also called Douglas Reservoir, is a reservoir created by an impoundment of the French Broad River in Eastern Tennessee. This lake is located only a few miles from the Pigeon Forge/ Gatlinburg area, and also the Great Smoky Mountains ...
). On October 13, Pardo left Olamico, traveling southwest across the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains en route to the
Coosa chiefdom
The Coosa chiefdom was a powerful Native American paramount chiefdom in what are now Gordon and Murray counties in Georgia, in the United States.[Little River
Little River may refer to several places:
Australia Streams New South Wales
*Little River (Dubbo), source in the Dubbo region, a tributary of the Macquarie River
* Little River (Oberon), source in the Oberon Shire, a tributary of Coxs River (Haw ...]
near modern
Walland and traversed
Happy Valley to reach ''Chalahume'' in the Little Tennessee Valley on October 15. Expedition notary Juan de la Bandera described Chalahume's topographic situation as similar to the Spanish city of
Córdoba— a grapevine-filled valley at the base of high mountains— a description that fits Chilhowee.
[Hudson, 105.]
Hudson points out that the
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
"/m/" is infrequent in the
Cherokee language
200px, Number of speakers
Cherokee or Tsalagi ( chr, ᏣᎳᎩ ᎦᏬᏂᎯᏍᏗ, ) is an endangered-to-moribund Iroquoian language and the native language of the Cherokee people. ''Ethnologue'' states that there were 1,520 Cherokee speaker ...
. When the Cherokee replaced Chalahume's Mississippian-era occupants, they retained the site's name but substituted a "w" for the "m". A similar situation occurred downstream from Chilhowee in the renaming of
Citico. Hudson argues that this was the ''Satapo'' settlement visited by the Pardo expedition on October 16.
Cherokee period
Late 19th-century anthropologist
James Mooney
James Mooney (February 10, 1861 – December 22, 1921) was an American ethnographer who lived for several years among the Cherokee. Known as "The Indian Man", he conducted major studies of Southeastern Indians, as well as of tribes on the Gr ...
recorded two Cherokee legends regarding Chilhowee. The first was the story of the ''Utlunta,'' an ogress who roamed the Chilhowee area and devoured children, before the Cherokee cornered and killed her on the slopes of Chilhowee Mountain. Another legend concerned the "False Warriors of Chilhowee," a band of warriors who attacked a force from an allied city. They returned to Chilhowee claiming they had heroically killed several of the town's enemies. Mooney believed the word ''Chilhowee'' was rooted in the Cherokee word for "
kingfisher
Kingfishers are a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly colored birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species found in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, ...
." Hudson rejected this, saying that ''Chilhowee'' is the Cherokee pronunciation (transliteration) of the
Muskogean
Muskogean (also Muskhogean, Muskogee) is a Native American language family spoken in different areas of the Southeastern United States. Though the debate concerning their interrelationships is ongoing, the Muskogean languages are generally div ...
name ''Chalahume'', as Cherokee has no "m" sound.
Chilhowee was not recorded among the Overhill Towns until the mid-18th century, but its neighbors Citico and
Tallassee were documented in the earliest English records of the region. Colonel
George Chicken visited the Overhill towns in 1725 in an effort to create an alliance against the Creek (Muscogee). He recorded meeting with the head men of Tanasi, Citico, Tallassee,
Great Tellico
Great Tellico was a Cherokee town at the site of present-day Tellico Plains, Tennessee, where the Tellico River emerges from the Appalachian Mountains. Great Tellico was one of the largest Cherokee towns in the region, and had a sister town nea ...
, and "Coosaw" at the
Tanasi
Tanasi ( chr, ᏔᎾᏏ, translit=Tanasi) (also spelled Tanase, Tenasi, Tenassee, Tunissee, Tennessee, and other such variations) was a historic Overhill settlement site in present-day Monroe County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. ...
townhouse
A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type of city residence ...
.
George Hunter's map of the Overhill country shows Tallassee, Citico, Tanasi, and Great Tellico, but does not note Chilhowee. But
Henry Timberlake
Henry Timberlake (1730 or 1735 – September 30, 1765) was a colonial Anglo-American officer, journalist, and cartographer. He was born in the Colony of Virginia and died in England. He is best known for his work as an emissary from the British ...
recorded visiting Chilhowee on a
peace mission in 1761, and he engaged in a
pipe-smoking ceremony with the town's head men. Timberlake's map, ''Draught of the Cherokee Country'' (1762), published with his memoir, shows 18 dwellings and a townhouse at Chilhowee; he listed Yachtino as the town's headman and noted 110 warriors residing there. Based on the data he recorded for the several Overhill towns on the map, these warriors were the third-largest fighting contingent, behind only Citico and
Chota.
The encroachment of Euro-American settlers into the Tennessee Valley in the 1770s led to increased conflict with the valley's Cherokee inhabitants. Around this time, Old Abraham (or "Abram"), the headman of Chilhowee, had risen to prominence among the Overhill Cherokee. When the Cherokee aligned themselves with the British at the outbreak of the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...
in 1776, Old Abraham and
Dragging Canoe
Dragging Canoe (ᏥᏳ ᎦᏅᏏᏂ, pronounced ''Tsiyu Gansini'', "he is dragging his canoe") (c. 1738 – February 29, 1792) was a Cherokee war chief who led a band of Cherokee warriors who resisted colonists and United States settlers in the ...
(the head man at
Mialoquo
Mialoquo (also "Malaquo", "Big Island", or "Great Island") is a prehistoric and historic Native Americans in the United States, Native American site in Monroe County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The site saw significant periods o ...
) led a two-pronged attack against the rebel encampments at
Fort Watauga
Fort Watauga, more properly Fort Caswell, was an American Revolutionary War fort that once stood at the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River in what is now Elizabethton, Tennessee. The fort was originally built in 1775–1776 by the area's front ...
and Heaton's Station, respectively. The expedition was a disaster.
Virginia dispatched
Colonel William Christian with a small force to subdue the Overhill towns. Christian entered the Little Tennessee Valley unopposed and made a truce with several older chiefs, but when Dragging Canoe refused to accept a peace offering, Christian burned several Overhill towns, including Chilhowee.
In 1788, Old Abraham and several other chiefs were tomahawked to death under a flag of truce by a son of John Kirk, a settler whose family had been massacred by members of the
Cherokee militant factions on Nine Mile Creek.
19th and 20th centuries
Around 1850, brothers William and Robert James established a cotton and woolen mill at the mouth of Abrams Creek. The mill used power generated by the creek to spin and weave fabric. The mill closed at the outset of the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
.
The
Cherokee National Forest
The Cherokee National Forest is a United States National Forest located in the U.S. states of Tennessee and North Carolina that was created on June 14, 1920. The forest is maintained and managed by the United States Forest Service. It encompasses ...
, established in 1911, now protects the western shoreline above Chilhowee Lake. The
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an American national park in the southeastern United States, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The park straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, whi ...
, established in 1932, protects the eastern shoreline. Abrams Creek, the longest stream located entirely within the park, is named for Old Abraham of Chilhowee. A campground and ranger station is located along the creek a few miles upstream from Chilhowee.
When
Alcoa
Alcoa Corporation (an acronym for Aluminum Company of America) is a Pittsburgh-based industrial corporation. It is the world's eighth-largest producer of aluminum. Alcoa conducts operations in 10 countries. Alcoa is a major producer of primary ...
announced plans to build Chilhowee Dam in 1955, the Knoxville Chapter of the Tennessee Archaeological Society arranged to conduct salvage excavations at the Chilhowee site and the Tallassee site (near modern
Calderwood), both of which would be flooded by the dam's reservoir. Because of the greater amount of surface material at Tallassee and the Tallassee site's accessibility, the Knoxville Chapter decided to focus on Tallassee and conducted only limited surface collections at Chilhowee.
[Kenneth Cornett, "Excavations at Tallassee (40Bt8): An Historic Cherokee Village Site in East Tennessee." ''Tennessee Archaeologist'' 32, no. 1 (Spring of 1976), 11-19.]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chilhowee
Mississippian culture
Geography of Monroe County, Tennessee
Geography of Blount County, Tennessee
Cherokee towns in Tennessee
Archaeological sites in Tennessee
Communities of the Great Smoky Mountains