Chota (also spelled Chote, Echota, Itsati, and other similar variations) is a historic
Overhill Cherokee
Overhill Cherokee was the term for the Cherokee people located in their historic settlements in what is now the U.S. state of Tennessee in the Southeastern United States, on the western side of the Appalachian Mountains. This name was used by 1 ...
town site in
Monroe County, Tennessee
Monroe County is a county on the eastern border of the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 46,250. Its county seat is Madisonville.
History
During the early part of the 18th century, the area around what is now ...
, in the southeastern United States. Developing after nearby
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. ...
, Chota ( chr, ᎢᏣᏘ, translit=Itsati) was the most important of the
Overhill towns from the late 1740s until 1788. It replaced Tanasi as the ''
de facto
''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
'' capital, or 'mother town' of the
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 ...
people.
A number of prominent Cherokee leaders were born or resided at Chota, among them
Attakullakulla
Attakullakulla (Cherokee language, Cherokee”Tsalagi”, (ᎠᏔᎫᎧᎷ) ''Atagukalu''; also spelled Attacullaculla and often called Little Carpenter by the English) (c. 1715 – c. 1777) was an influential Cherokee leader and the tr ...
,
Oconostota
Oconostota (c. 1710–1783) was a Cherokee ''skiagusta'' (war chief) of Chota, which was for nearly four decades the primary town in the Overhill territory, and within what is now Monroe County, Tennessee. He served as the First Beloved Man of Ch ...
,
Old Hop
Conocotocko of Chota ( chr, ᎬᎾᎦᏙᎦ, Gvnagadoga, "Standing Turkey"), known in English as Old Hop, was a Cherokee elder, serving as the First Beloved Man of the Cherokee from 1753 until his death in 1760. Settlers of European ancestry r ...
,
Old Tassel
Old Tassel Reyetaeh (sometimes Corntassel) (Cherokee language: ''Utsi'dsata''), (died 1788), was "First Beloved Man" (the equivalent of a regional Cherokee chief) of the Overhill Cherokee after 1783, when the United States gained independence from ...
,
Hanging Maw
Hanging Maw, or ''Uskwa'li-gu'ta'' in Cherokee, was the leading chief of the Overhill Cherokee from 1788 to 1794. They were located in present-day southeastern Tennessee. He became chief following the death of Old Tassel, and the abandonment of ...
, and
Nancy Ward
''Nanyehi'' (Cherokee: ᎾᏅᏰᎯ: "One who goes about"), known in English as Nancy Ward (c. 1738 – 1822 or 1824), was a Beloved Woman and political leader of the Cherokee. She advocated for peaceful coexistence with European Americans and, ...
.
The former Chota and Tanasi sites are listed together on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
; Tanasi also has an archaeological site designation (40MR62) assigned in 1972. Since 1979, both sites have been mostly submerged by the
Tellico Lake 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 ...
. Archeological excavations were conducted before the dam was completed.
During the excavations, the site of the Chota townhouse was found. Major Cherokee towns were centered around a large townhouse or councilhouse, the site of community meetings of hundreds of people. These were usually built on top of an existing
platform mound
Platform may refer to:
Technology
* Computing platform, a framework on which applications may be run
* Platform game, a genre of video games
* Car platform, a set of components shared by several vehicle models
* Weapons platform, a system or ...
in the center of the town. These earthworks had typically been built by ancestral peoples of the
South Appalachian Mississippian or earlier cultures.
Prior to the flooding of Tellico Reservoir, the Chota townhouse site was raised above the reservoir's operating levels and connected via a causeway to the mainland. The Chota monument, situated directly above the ancient townhouse site, consists of eight pillars —one for each of the seven Cherokee
clans
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship
and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clans may claim descent from founding member or apical ancestor. Clans, in indigenous societies, tend to be endogamous, meaning ...
, and one for the nation. The grave of Chief
Oconostota
Oconostota (c. 1710–1783) was a Cherokee ''skiagusta'' (war chief) of Chota, which was for nearly four decades the primary town in the Overhill territory, and within what is now Monroe County, Tennessee. He served as the First Beloved Man of Ch ...
, found in the 1969 excavations, was re-interred next to the monument. This site is now managed by the federally recognized
Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), (Cherokee language, Cherokee: ᏣᎳᎩᏱ ᏕᏣᏓᏂᎸᎩ, ''Tsalagiyi Detsadanilvgi'') is a Federally recognized tribe, federally recognized Indian Tribe based in Western North Carolina in the U ...
, based in
Cherokee, North Carolina
Cherokee ( chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, translit=Tsalagi) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Swain County, North Carolina, Swain and Jackson County, North Carolina, Jackson counties in Western North Carolina, United States, within the Qualla Boundar ...
.
Geography
The Little Tennessee River enters Tennessee from its source in 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 ...
and flows for just over through parts of
Blount, Monroe, and
Loudon counties before joining 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. Tellico Lake, created by the completion of
Tellico Dam
Tellico Dam is a dam built by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in Loudon County, Tennessee, on the Little Tennessee River as part of the Tellico Project. Planning for a dam structure on the Little Tennessee was reported as early as 1936 but ...
in 1979, spans the lower of the river. The Chota site is located approximately above the mouth of the river, opposite a sharp bend in the river known as Bacon's Bend.
Both Chota and Tanasi were developed by the Cherokee on a relatively flat terrace along the river, flanked by steep hills rising to the south. These hills are part of the
Appalachian Ridge-and-Valley Physiographic Province, which is characterized by narrow, elongate ridges and steep hills. 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 ...
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 ...
, both part of the main Appalachian crest, rise a few miles to the southeast and southwest, respectively.
The Tanasi and Chota monuments are located just off Highway 360 (Citico Road) on Bacon Ferry Road, which ends in a cul-de-sac parking lot. A short, maintained trail connects the parking lot to the Chota monument.
History
Rise of Chota
Tanasi is first mentioned in early 18th-century documents as the base or destination of various English colonial traders and diplomats. Tanasi appears on multiple maps of the Overhill territory produced in the 1720s and 1730s, but Chota does not. This suggests that Chota may have been part of Tanasi, or may not have been considered a town before the 1740s. In the 1720s, the head man of Tanasi— known simply as the "Tanasi Warrior"— was the chief of the Overhill towns in what is now Tennessee, and the Middle and Valley towns in Western North Carolina. Chota does not appear in historical records until around 1745.
[Gerald Schroedl (ed.), ''Overhill Cherokee Archaeology at Chota-Tanasee'' (University of Tennessee Department of Anthropology, Report of Investigations 38, 1986), 9.]
In 1730, however,
Moytoy of Tellico
Moytoy of Tellico, (died 1741) was a prominent leader of the Cherokee in the American Southeast.
Titles
Moytoy was given the title of "Emperor of the Cherokee" by Sir Alexander Cumming, a Scots-Anglo trade envoy in what was then the Province of ...
, with the help of English emissary
Alexander Cuming, was crowned "Emperor of the Cherokee." This effectively shifted the overall capital to his town of
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 ...
, where Moytoy was chief. When Moytoy died in 1741, his son,
Amouskositte
Amouskositte, or Amo-sgiasite, Prince of Chota ("Dreadful Water"), of Great Tellico was the son of Moytoy of Tellico and attempted to succeed him as "Emperor of the Cherokee", a title given his father by Alexander Cuming. Few Cherokee recogniz ...
, attempted to succeed him as emperor. But
Conocotocko, called Old Hop by the English, was the head man at Chota and began to consolidate power. By 1753 Chota had usurped Great Tellico as the "mother town" of the Overhill Cherokee.
Around this time, on the eve of the
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...
, the Cherokee were reportedly leaning toward the French side, prompting the English colonies of
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
and
South Carolina
)''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no)
, anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind"
, Former = Province of South Carolina
, seat = Columbia
, LargestCity = Charleston
, LargestMetro = ...
to increase contact with leaders of the Overhill towns in order to strengthen an alliance. Virginia sent Major Andrew Lewis with 60 men to build a fort at Chota, which was completed in August 1756. It was never garrisoned because the Cherokee allied with the English against the French. Later that year, South Carolina sent engineer William de Brahm with 300 men to build
Fort Loudoun, which was completed on the Little Tennessee River in March 1757.
By 1760, relations between the British and Cherokee had soured,
erupting into open conflict by February. After Cherokee warriors laid
siege to Fort Loudoun, a confrontation between 14 Cherokee hostages at
Fort Prince George
Fort Prince George was an uncompleted fort on what is now the site of Pittsburgh, at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The site was originally a trading post established by Ohio Company t ...
and the fort's garrison on February 16 resulted in the death of the hostages. After several months, the Fort Loudoun garrison surrendered. The Cherokee killed many of them as they struggled to return to Virginia, and took plunder from the fort to Chota.
Timberlake's visit, 1761-62
After the fall of Fort Loudoun, British forces launched another offensive against the Cherokee, and the Overhill towns sued for peace. This was granted in the
Treaty of Long Island
A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations, individuals, business entities, and other legal perso ...
in 1761. Virginia authorities dispatched
a friendship delegation led by colonist and military officer
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 Briti ...
to solidify peace with the Overhill towns. He reached Chota in late December 1761, accompanied by
Ostenaco
Otacity Ostenaco (; chr, ᎤᏥᏗᎯ ᎤᏍᏔᎾᏆ, Utsidihi Ustanaqua, or "Bighead"; c. 1710Kate Fullagar, ''The Warrior, the Voyager, and the Artist: Three Lives in an Age of Empire,''Yale University Press 2020 p.13. – 1780) was a Cher ...
(the head Cherokee man at
Tomotley
Tomotley (also known as Tamahli) is a prehistoric and historic Native American site along the lower Little Tennessee River in Monroe County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. Occupied as early as the Archaic period (8000 to 1000 BCE), ...
). At a ceremony inside the Chota townhouse, Ostenaco ceremoniously buried a hatchet, symbolizing peace between the British and Cherokee, and the parties smoked ritual tobacco in peace pipes. Timberlake spent the night in Old Hop's "hot-house" (a circular dwelling used by the Overhill Cherokee in cooler months) before proceeding to
Citico the next day.
Timberlake kept a journal, which was published posthumously as his memoirs. He also made a detailed map of the Cherokee towns along the river, entitled "Draught of the Cherokee Country". It recorded 52 dwellings and a townhouse at Chota. He listed chiefs, the number of warriors, and general population for each of the major towns. ''
Conocotocko'' (Old Hop) was listed as governor of both Chota and Tanasi. The 175 warriors available at Chota made up the second-largest contingent among the Overhill towns, behind only
Citico.
Decline
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 ...
, the Cherokee aligned with the British, hoping to expel American colonists from their territory. In 1776,
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 ...
) and Old Abraham of
Chilhowee led an unsuccessful two-pronged attack against
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. In response, Virginia sent
Colonel William Christian with a small force to subdue the Overhill towns. Christian entered the Little Tennessee Valley unopposed and negotiated a truce with chiefs
Attakullakulla
Attakullakulla (Cherokee language, Cherokee”Tsalagi”, (ᎠᏔᎫᎧᎷ) ''Atagukalu''; also spelled Attacullaculla and often called Little Carpenter by the English) (c. 1715 – c. 1777) was an influential Cherokee leader and the tr ...
and
Oconastota. When Dragging Canoe refused to negotiate, however, Christian destroyed the towns of Great Tellico, Citico, Mialoquo, Chilhowee, and
Toqua.
In 1780,
John Sevier
John Sevier (September 23, 1745 September 24, 1815) was an American soldier, frontiersman, and politician, and one of the founding fathers of the State of Tennessee. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, he played a leading role in Tennes ...
, who had just returned from the
Battle of Kings Mountain
The Battle of Kings Mountain was a military engagement between Patriot and Loyalist militias in South Carolina during the Southern Campaign of the American Revolutionary War, resulting in a decisive victory for the Patriots. The battle took pla ...
, led an invasion of the Overhill country in response to several attacks by Cherokee on American settlements. His party destroyed most of the remaining Overhill towns, including their capital, Chota.
The Cherokee rebuilt Chota by 1784, but it never recovered its former status. In 1788,
Old Tassel
Old Tassel Reyetaeh (sometimes Corntassel) (Cherokee language: ''Utsi'dsata''), (died 1788), was "First Beloved Man" (the equivalent of a regional Cherokee chief) of the Overhill Cherokee after 1783, when the United States gained independence from ...
— who had become the leader of the Overhill towns, was murdered with another chief by Americans under a flag of truce at Chilhowee. Largely in response to this atrocity, the Cherokee moved their capital south to Ustanali, near what developed as modern
Calhoun, Georgia
Calhoun is a city in Gordon County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 16,949. Calhoun is the county seat of Gordon County.
History
In December 1827, Georgia had already claimed the Cherokee lands that be ...
.
In the late 1790s, the
Duke of Orleans
Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ran ...
paid a visit to the American fort known as
Tellico Blockhouse
The Tellico Blockhouse was an early American outpost located along the Little Tennessee River in what developed as Vonore, Monroe County, Tennessee. Completed in 1794, the blockhouse was a US military outpost that operated until 1807; the garrison ...
while on a tour of East Tennessee. There the duke watched more than 600 Cherokees engage in a ritual "ballplay" at Chota; he bet six gallons of brandy on the outcome. By this time, only five dwellings remained standing in the town.
Archaeology
In the 1880s, Cyrus Thomas, working for the
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
, conducted a survey of ancient earthwork
mound
A mound is a heaped pile of earth, gravel, sand, rocks, or debris. Most commonly, mounds are earthen formations such as hills and mountains, particularly if they appear artificial. A mound may be any rounded area of topographically higher el ...
s in the Little Tennessee Valley. Thomas excavated a mound at the Chota site and uncovered several artifacts. The site was undisturbed for decades.
In 1939, a
University of Tennessee
The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state, ...
team, mainly under the auspices of Thomas Lewis and Madeline Kneburg, conducted excavations at the Chota site. Laborers were paid by the
Works Projects Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
during the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
. Their findings, which Lewis and Kneburg hoped would provide comparison data for their
Hiwassee Island
Hiwassee Island, also known as Jollys Island and Benham Island, is located in Meigs County, Tennessee, at the confluence of the Tennessee and Hiwassee Rivers. It is about northeast of Chattanooga. The island was the second largest land mass on th ...
findings, included 85 pit features, 12 burials, and one structure.
After the
Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina ...
announced plans in 1967 to build Tellico Dam, which would flood several historic Cherokee sites, the University of Tennessee initiated a plan to conduct salvage archeological excavations throughout the Little Tennessee Valley. Excavations were conducted at Chota between 1969 and 1974, as litigation stalled the dam project. The excavations uncovered 783 features (mostly refuse pits), the postmold layouts of 31 structures, and 91 burials. Burial 10, uncovered in 1969, was identified by its grave goods (namely a pair of wire spectacles) as that of Chief Oconostota. Thousands of stone and ceramic artifacts were uncovered, including projectile points dating to the
Archaic period (8000–1000 B.C.).
The structures uncovered at Chota included two townhouses, one of which had a diameter of and another a diameter of just over . The smaller townhouse, which was slightly older, may have been the Tanasi townhouse. Other structures included a x summer pavilion flanked by a x village plaza, and 11 rectangular summer dwelling/circular winter dwelling pairings. Dwellings were spaced between and apart and were located up to from the townhouse. One of the dwellings was classified as Early
Mississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a Native Americans in the United States, Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the Midwestern United States, Midwestern, Eastern United States, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from appr ...
(c. 1000–1300 A.D.), while the others were historic Cherokee.
In 1986, the burials revealed at the Chota site were reinterred in a burial mound at the Sequoyah Museum, near
Vonore.
[Schroedl, ''Overhill Cherokee Archaeology at Chota-Tanasee'', 204.] The exception was the remains of Oconostota, which were buried next to the Chota monument over the townhouse site, as desired by the Cherokee.
Chota monument
The eight pillars stand for the seven
clans
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship
and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clans may claim descent from founding member or apical ancestor. Clans, in indigenous societies, tend to be endogamous, meaning ...
and one for the Cherokee nation as a whole.
File:Bird-clan-pillar-chota1.jpg,
File:Blue-clan-pillar-chota1.jpg,
File:Deer-clan-pillar-chota1.jpg,
File:Long-hair-clan-pillar-chota1.jpg,
File:Paint-clan-pillar-chota1.jpg,
File:Wild-potato-clan-pillar-chota1.jpg,
File:Wolf-clan-pillar-chota1.jpg,
See also
*
New Echota
New Echota was the capital of the Cherokee Nation (1794–1907), Cherokee Nation in the Southeast United States from 1825 until their Cherokee removal, forced removal in the late 1830s. New Echota is located in present-day Gordon County, Georgi ...
References
External links
Frank H. McClung MuseumEastern Band of the Cherokee Nation
{{Cherokee
Cherokee towns in Tennessee
18th century Cherokee history
Protected areas of Monroe County, Tennessee
Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee
Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians
National Register of Historic Places in Monroe County, Tennessee
American Revolution on the National Register of Historic Places