Historic Am Indian First Nations of TN
A Resolution for the Acknowledgement of the Historic American Indian First Nations of Tennessee
<Formerly passed by the Tennessee Commission of Indian Affairs on 4 march 2006, Nashville >
WHEREAS, the area that now encompasses the Great State of Tennessee was once the homeland and tribal hunting grounds of a number of First Nations People who had great attachment to the land and who did staunchly defend their right to live, hunt, and draw nourishment from that land; and
WHEREAS, those same people were decimated by imported diseases, warfare, and continual encroachment upon their land, their livelihood, and their way of life; and
WHEREAS, as their numbers dwindled, their rights were usurped at the whim of foreign governments; and whether by choice, by force, or by treaty, these First Nations were made to give up their Natural Birthright and many were removed to other lands; and
WHEREAS, although members of the nations were removed westward, many individuals managed to remain behind in the lands of their nativity; or, after removal, to return to the lands of their ancestry; and
WHEREAS, the Eastern Ridge and Valley Region of the Tennessee River and its tributaries was known to be the home of the Yuchi, the Koasati, and the Tuskegee in times of earliest contact with the white man; and the evidence of early Muscogee (Creek) occupation in the same region is exhibited by the names of historic Indian towns such as Tallassee, Chattanooga and Etowah; and
WHEREAS, the Mosopelia established themselves on Cumberland River and at one or two points on the Tennessee shore of the Mississippi on their way from Ohio to Mississippi; and
WHEREAS, we are informed by one of the French explorers that the Kaskinampo lived upon Cumberland River where there is evidence that, when they first moved to the Tennessee, they may have settled for a short time near its mouth, and that both the Cumberland and the Tennessee were known by their name yet they stuck persistently to the latter stream until well along in the eighteenth century wherein, after the early years of the eighteenth century there is reason to believe that they united with the Koasati; and
WHEREAS, the nations in this region were later supplanted by the Cherokee, who, in many cases, kept the same town names established by the earlier nations; and went on to establish numerous new towns such as Tellico, Echota, and Settico; and claimed all of Middle Tennessee as their territorial hunting ground; and who, after 1729, allowed a band of the Natchez to establish a town in what is now known as Monroe County, in an area that is still known as Notchy Creek; and
WHEREAS, while primarily living in York and Lancaster counties of South Carolina, the Catawba extended their settlement into the neighboring state of Tennessee; and
WHEREAS, portions of the Shawnee once lived in the Cumberland Basin of Tennessee before twice being expelled by an alliance of the Cherokee and Chickasaw; and after the formation of the Chickamauga Confederacy, the Shawnees were allowed to establish towns among their newfound allies, and left a memento of their name in the modern town of Sewanee; and
WHEREAS, about the time of the American Revolution, a war chief known as Dragging Canoe, and one thousand warriors and their families , did separate from the Cherokee Nation and, in association with the Muscogee (Creek) , the Choctaw, the Natchez , the Shawnee, Delaware, Mohawk, and White Tories did form a new band known by their anglicized name as the Chickamauga; and they established the new five lower towns namely Running Water Town, Nickajack Town, Long Island Town, Crow Town, and Lookout Mountain Town in the lower Tennessee and Sequatchie River valleys, both within Tennessee and the neighboring states of Georgia and Alabama; and
WHEREAS, the Chickasaw once occupied the land lying north of the south boundary of the state of Tennessee, which is bounded south by the thirty-fifth degree of north latitude, and which lands, hereby ceded, lies within the following boundary, viz: Beginning on the Tennessee river, about thirty-five miles, by water, below colonel George Colbert’s ferry, where the thirty-fifth degree of north latitude strikes the same; thence, due west, with said degree of north latitude, to where it cuts the Mississippi river at or near the Chickasaw Bluffs; thence, up the said Mississippi river, to the mouth of the Ohio; thence, up the Ohio river, to the mouth of Tennessee river; thence, up the Tennessee river, to the place of beginning which was signed by treaty between the United States and the Chickasaw at the town of Chicasa now known as Lawrenceburg in 1806 ; and
WHEREAS, beginning in 1952, several members of the Choctaw began to move to Lauderdale and Shelby Counties in West Tennessee in search of employment, and established communities there; where, in 1992 through the efforts of Choctaw community leaders in Lauderdale County and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, the Federal Government purchased 172 acres near Henning to establish housing for them; and they still retain their language and practice many of their customs; and
WHEREAS, there are many pre-historic Indian sites in Tennessee, such as Pinson Mounds, Old Stone Fort, and many lesser-known archaeological sites whose precise links to modern or historical First Nations has yet to be definitively established;
BE IT HEREBY RESOLVED, that the above mentioned First Nations Peoples known as the Catawba, Cherokee, Chickamauga, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Kaskinampo, Koasati, Mosopelia, Muscogee (Creek), Natchez, Shawnee, Tuskegee, And Yuchi, be acknowledged as the Historical First Nations of Tennessee; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that any other First Nation(s) that archaeological or historical research can link for which sufficient professional research and evidence is presented to the Tennessee Commission of Indian Affairs to demonstrate a link to Tennessee, will likewise be acknowledged as an Historical First Nation of Tennessee when sufficient evidence is presented .