Savanukahwn (
Cherokee) was known as the
Raven of Chota
The Raven of Chota was a title given to Cherokee war leaders from the town of Chota. In time of war, Ravens scouted ahead of war parties to search for the enemy. According to historian Colin Calloway, "Every Cherokee town had 'Ravens,' but the Rav ...
in the late 18th century. The nephew of
Oconostota, he became
First Beloved Man of the Cherokee in the fall of 1781. He was ousted by the elders of the Overhill towns in 1783 in favor of the more pacifist
Old Tassel.
During the Second Cherokee War, Savanukahwn led the attack against the frontier settlements of Carter's Valley in 1776, in what is now eastern Tennessee but was Cherokee territory.
Dragging Canoe of Great Island led the attack on the settlements along the
Holston River, and Abraham of Chilhowie led the attacks on the
Watauga and
Nolichucky rivers, also in what is now
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 ...
.
Sources
*Alderman, Pat. ''Dragging Canoe: Cherokee-Chickamauga War Chief''. (Johnson City: Overmountain Press, 1978)
*Brown, John P. ''Old Frontiers''. (Kingsport: Southern Publishers, 1938).
*Haywood, W.H. ''The Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee from its Earliest Settlement up to the Year 1796''. (Nashville: Methodist Episcopal Publishing House, 1891).
*Moore, John Trotwood and Austin P. Foster. ''Tennessee, The Volunteer State, 1769-1923, Vol. 1''. (Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1923).
*Ramsey, James Gettys McGregor. ''The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century''. (Chattanooga: Judge David Campbell, 1926).
18th-century Cherokee people
18th-century Native Americans
People of pre-statehood Tennessee
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