CHAPTER I

COMING OF THE WHITE MAN TO TENNESSEE

THE INDIANS

Before the white man came to Tennessee this section was occupied by the Indians. It was used by them partly as a place of residence and partly as a hunting ground. The Indians would come into this section and kill game and then return to their homes in other parts of the country.

While various tribes of Indians at one time or another came into Tennessee, the chief tribes that occupied this territory were the Cherokees, the Chickasaws, the Creeks, the Choctaws, and the Seminoles. The Cherokees were the Indians who gave serious trouble to the Watauga settlers, and against whom John Sevier waged war. The settlers on the Cumberland River were attacked chiefly by the Creeks. The Chickasaws claimed all of West Tennessee. They lived on peaceful terms with the white man and rendered valuable service to the people on the Cumberland in their wars with the hostile Indians.

FIRST WHITE MAN TO VISIT TENNESSEE DESOTO

On May the 12th, 1539, Hernando DeSoto, at the head of more than one thousand Spanish soldiers,

sailed from Havana, Cuba, and in fifteen days landed on the coast of Florida. The purpose of this Spanish expedition was to conquer the Indians in all of the territory now within the bounds of the State of Florida, and as much farther north as possible, and to open up this section to Spanish colonization. DeSoto began his march north soon after landing, but he met with great opposition at the hands of the Indians. After fighting many battles and losing a large number of his men he reached the Mississippi River at a point which is believed to be near the present location of Memphis, crossed the river, and then turned back south. To DeSoto and his soldiers is generally given the honor of having been the first white men to tread on what is now Tennessee soil. This was less than fifty years after the discovery of America by Columbus.

LASALLE

In 1673, Marquette and Joliet, two French missionaries, discovered the western boundaries of Tennessee, and ten years later LaSalle, another Frenchman, built a cabin and a fort on the first Chickasaw Bluff. This was, perhaps, the first real work done by a white man within the bounds of Tennessee. The purpose of LaSalle in building this cabin and fort was not to establish a permanent settlement, but to establish a trading post with the Indians at this point. The Indians never objected to the white man coming among them as a trader. It was only when he began to make a permanent settlement that

he met serious opposition from the Indians. LaSalle's visit was nearly one hundred and fifty years after that of DeSoto.

CHARLEVILLE

In 1714, M. Charleville, a French trader, came up from New Orleans to trade with the Indians along the Cumberland River. He built a store near the present site of Nashville. But, like LaSalle at Memphis, his purpose was to establish not a permanent home, but a temporary trading post.

THE FIRST PERMANENT SETTLERS

The first permanent settlement in America was made by the English at Jamestown in 1607. This was the beginning of the Virginia Colony. Sixty years later the first settlement of civilized man in North Carolina was made by the English. North Carolina at this time included all of the territory within the present bounds of Tennessee. At this time North Carolina was called Albemarl. In 1671, the population of Virginia was forty thousand and the population of North Carolina was about fourteen hundred. The first settlements in both Virginia and North Carolina were made near the Atlantic coast on the east. But as the population increased the settlements in both colonies were pushed farther and farther westward toward the territory now comprising Tennessee and Kentucky.

In 1714, Lieutenant and Captain-General Spotswood of Virginia, with a number of attendants,

made a tour of exploration in the western section, and crossed the Appalachian Mountains.

FORT LOUDON

In 1756, Governor Loudon, of Virginia, sent out a body of men under the command of Andrew Lewis, to build a fort on the Tennessee River about thirty miles from the present site of Knoxville. The purpose of this movement was to protect the western settlers against the murderous assaults of the Indians. The fort was called Fort Loudon. This was the first structure of any sort erected by the EnglishAmericans in Tennessee. Fort Loudon was captured and destroyed by the Indians four years after its erection, and a large proportion of its two hundred or more inhabitants slain.

HUNTERS

From the beginning of the eighteenth century, and even before, it was not unusual for hunters from Virginia and North Carolina to cross the mountains to hunt and trade with the Indians in the territory now within the borders of Tennessee. In 1748, Dr. Thomas Walker, of Virginia, with a number of other gentlemen came into the Tennessee territory, crossing the mountains at a depression which he called "Cumberland Gap." At this time he also gave the name "Cumberland" to the mountain and the river, which have since borne that name, in honor of the Duke of Cumberland, who was at that period prime minister of England. "Cumberland" is, perhaps, the

only Tennessee name that was given in honor of an Englishman. The Cumberland River was called by the Indians the Warioto, by the French the Chauva

non.

In 1761, a number of hunters chiefly from Virginia, formed themselves into a company and came into the section now within the bounds of Hawkins County, Tennessee, and hunted for eighteen months. At this time Daniel Boone came into Tennessee on a hunting trip. He came from North Carolina. He had doubtless been here before, since on a beech tree near Jonesboro, Tennessee, the following inscription was found: "D. BOONE CILLED A BAR ON TREE IN THE YEAR 1760.”

From this time on for a number of years many groups of men, numbering from three to forty, came into the Tennessee territory for the purpose of hunting and trading with the Indians. The rapid increase in the number of explorers in this section at this time aroused the suspicions of the Indians, and led them to the conclusion that they would be compelled to resist these encroachments of the white men on their territory. As long as the white men came in small numbers to hunt and trade and then return to their homes across the mountains, they were well treated. But when they came in large numbers, and some of them gave evidence of making this territory their permanent home, the Indians realized that they would later claim this territory as their own and would attempt to drive the red man out. It was this realization that aroused the