Not Everything You Read on the Internet is Academically Verified: But It Is Most Likely Whitewashed and Redwashed
Academically Verified: The Chickamauga are Muskogean and Mobillian and therefore are racially, ethnically, culturally, and religiously a different people than the Iroquoian dialect speaking Huron, and Erie peoples who are called cherokee.
There is a major historical falsehood that exists about the Chickamauga being cherokee. The falsehood started off innocent enough when England and the United States called all people cherokee who could partially speak the trade language called Cherokee. The Chickamauga spoke a Southern dialect of Cherokee mixed with their traditional Mobillian language dialects. England and the Colonies initially made no real distinctions of each group of people in treaty making and identification. Eventually though, the falsehoods took on a life of their own and the United States and Allied Tribes began to fabricate history to protect their war of genocide and ethnic cleansing because of the traditionalist culture and religion of the Southeast Ceremonial Complex followed by the Chickamauga. Thankfully, we have academic verification to prove the difference between the Chickamauga and the cherokee.
Academically, both anthropologically and historically, it is impossible to conclude that the Chickamauga and the cherokee are the same people. Anthropologically and historically the evidence is overwhelming that the existence of the Chickamauga people has always revolved around the Southeast Ceremonial Complex and Mound Building in the Mississippi Bottoms.
The traditionalistic religion and culture of the Southeast Woodlands during the Mississippian, Muskogean, and Mobillian eras is shared by the Chickamauga (Tisca-Mogee), Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole. Academic verification places the Mound Building religion and culture of the Southeast Ceremonial Complex in the river valleys of the Mississippi, Arkansas, Ohio, and Tennessee at 600 – 800 AD and possibly as early as 1,000 BC depending on the classification of the materials. The placement of the Chickamauga in the understood timeline of the Southeast places them there between 1,000 BC at the earliest, and 800 AD at the latest. This clearly places the Chickamauga in the Southeast Woodlands about 1,000 years prior to the cherokee ever leaving the Great Lakes region.
One must remember that it is impossible to identify the cherokee as being in the Southeast Woodlands prior to the 1670s. Therefore, any identification as cherokee in the Southeast Woodlands prior to the 1670s must be identified as Chickamauga(Tisca-Mogee). The anthropology associated with archaeological excavations in the Southeast does not demonstrate a discernible Iroquoian influence until the very late seventeenth and very early eighteen centuries. There is no discernible archaeological evidence that the Iroquoian speaking, Huron and Erie people, who were already mostly Christianized ever existed in the Southeast prior to the 1670s - 1680s.
Academically Verified: A second myth that is propagated is that the Chickamauga are disgruntled cherokee. Nothing could be further from the truth because the Chickamauga were never cherokee. This myth begins with something like Dragging Canoe was upset at the leadership of the cherokee and left and started the Chickamauga. The truth is that Attakullakulla, the father of Dragging Canoe was not cherokee, he was Nipissing captured by the cherokee when he was a child. Dragging Canoe's mother was Nionne Ollie who was a traditionalist Natchez who would have taught Dragging Canoe the religion and culture of the Ceremonial Mound Complex. The religion, culture and tribe of the child is always determined by the ancestry of the mother. Dragging Canoe left the cherokee and hit the War Pole as a sign of his unwillingness to accept their appeasement policies of selling of their lands to white people, which was a violation of the religion and culture of the Mound Builders. When Dragging Canoe left, he took his warriors and their families and joined the already existent Chickamauga (Tisca-Mogee) on the Tennessee River near Chattanooga.
Anthropological Research Verified by Academics
James A Brown
The distinctiveness of the Spiro materials has constantly attracted attention. From the time of their initial discovery in a mound in eastern Oklahoma, they were recognized as constituting an unusual find that replicated on a grander scale the older discoveries from the Deep South at Moundville, Alabama, and Etowah, Georgia. The artwork in stone, copper, and marine shell from the three major locales - Spiro, Moundville, and Etowah - now constitutes what archaeologists of eastern North America have come to call the "Southern Cult." In this group Spiro stands out as having what has been called a "gaudy" assemblage (Willey and Phillips 1958:166), due to the relative "freedom, abandon, and completely heterodox manner" of Southern Cult motifs at Spiro as compared with those at the other centers (Waring 1968a: 68\ It has even been proposed that Spiro is sufficiently different to warrant consideration as a special Spiro complex of the Southern Cult (Krieger 1945). Baerrcis (1957) followed this line of thought one step further in advancing the notion of an antecedent "Spiro Ceremonial Cult."
The Morrison Site: Evidence for Terminal Late Woodland Mount Construction in the American Bottom
Investigations at the Spiro, Oklahoma Morrison burial mounds site during the 1990s reveal a previously unknown mound center dating to the early Edelhardt phase of the Terminal Late Woodland period (ca.1000 – 1030 A.D.). The site provides evidence suggesting mound and plaza construction occurred immediately preceding the rise of Cahokia as a sociopolitical and religious center. Excavations in 1994 confirmed the presence of one rectangular platform mound and a related residential occupation in close proximity. Due to the presence of a white-on-red seed jar fragment, this site is theorized to have been revisited between 1050 and 1100 A.D.
Nicholas Honerkamp 1990
John Walthal (1980:107) also mentions mounds of this type in his summary of the Burial Mound III period (A.D. 600-1000) for Alabama: "Small conical earthen mounds... are characteristic of this time. Layers or pavements of stone or shell were constructed over individual burials or over the entire structure."
Nicholas Honerkamp, PhD 1989
The two principal rockshelter sites recorded in the survey were in localities where the maximum relief between stream and adjacent tableland did not exceed ten meters. Only limited generalizations can be made about the periods of occupation of the shelters and the activities that occurred there. The presence of limestone-tempered ceramic fragments in both TCS #2 (40GY79) and TCS #7 (40GY82) indicate an association with the Woodland period, a time period in which sedentary Indian populations manufactured pottery tempered with crushed limestone. The undecorated shards of limestone-tempered pottery are not especially diagnostic from a temporal standpoint, as limestone-tempered pottery continued to be made into the Mississippian period after A.D. 1100. The bluffs of the Cumberland Plateau provided a rich source of stone for lithic tools. In both rockshelters, white quartzite and flints ranging in color from light brown to very dark brown and gray were manufactured into a variety of tools. Doubtless, additional testing will produce a more interesting sample of these tools than those discarded by looters and collected during our survey.
William W. Baden 1983
The 1976 excavations at the site of the Cherokee village of Tomalty (40MRS) on the Little Tennessee River exposed 98,595 square feet of surface area. Follow the removal of the plow zone with a self-loading pan, 147 features and 18 burials were excavated. A total of 2198 postmolds were exposed and 19 structures were identified. Identification procedures were applied to 14,051 aboriginal ceramic sherds, 6150 lithic artifacts, 11,893 Euro-American items, 4.85 kgms of botanical material, and 13, 998 animal bones and shell fragments.
The assemblage of artifacts collected suggests that the sire area has been occupied since the Early Archaic (7900 – 6100 B.C.). The most extensive occupations consisted of a Mississippian I/II Martin Farm/Hiwassee Island, A.D. 900 – 1300) component represented by at least two structures and the apparent basal portion of one Woodland or early Mississippian burial mound or cemetery (ca. A.D. 700), and a Cherokee occupation which produced the largest amount of material. Ethnohistoric accounts suggest that the historic village may have been founded and occupied by Lower, Middle, and Valley Cherokee refugees between 1751 and 1776. Archaeological evidence (structure form and ceramic types) support this. Because archaeologically the site appears to represent a rather short term occupation with very little feature overlap, it provides evidence of clear pattern in refuse disposal practices and space utilization.
Aaron Deter-Wolf 2013
In addition to a higher number of sites, the Harpeth and West Harpeth River Valleys are home to such significant Archaic sites as Anderson (40WM9) and Ensworth High School (40DV184), as well as the principal Woodland center of Glass Mounds (40WM3). The contrast between prehistoric occupation of the South Harpeth River watershed and the adjacent West Harpeth/Harpeth River drainage is especially pronounced during the Mississippian period, when Old Town (40WM2), Gray Farm (40WM11), and West Harpeth (40WM406) mound centers, as well as numerous sites containing stone-box cemeteries, were established along the eastern drainages. As noted above, only two sites within the South Harpeth River watershed have yielded Mississippian artifacts.
The wide river terraces overlooking the West Harpeth and Harpeth Rivers would have provided an exponentially greater resource base for prehistoric populations, as compared with the relatively narrow and deeply incised South Harpeth River Valley. The main channels of the Harpeth and West Harpeth Rivers also would have facilitated contact between groups spread throughout the Central Basin, thereby greatly increasing access to non-local or specialized materials. Exotic materials including non-local chert from Ensworth High School (Deter-Wolf 2004), copper from Glass Mounds (Jennings 1946; Putnam 1973), and marine shell from Gray Farm and Anderson (Brain and Phillips 1996; Dowd 1989) all indicate that sites along the eastern waterways enjoyed the benefits of regional trade networks.
Sarah A. Levithol, Michael C. Moore, and W. Steven Spears 2015
The first mention of any archaeological site in Putnam County comes from William Edward Myer’s unpublished manuscript Catalogue of Archaeological Remains in Tennessee (Myer 1923). In this work, Myer mentions four sites within Putnam County. The first and most significant is Officer Mounds, claimed to be on the land of Abraham H. Officer two and one-half miles northeast of Algood on Turkey Creek, and one mile from the northern base of Algood Mountain (Myer 1923:103). This site was quite large, with its three mounds still somewhat intact when he visited despite the fact that they had been plowed for 25 years. Mound 1, almost completely plowed out of existence, was noted by Mr. Officer to have been ten feet high and 35 feet in diameter. The decayed remnant of a wood pole (12 inches in diameter) was reported at the mound top. Mound 2 was originally six feet high and 35 feet in diameter, and Mound 3 was formerly eight feet high. Myer’s investigation did not yield any burials or significant artifacts, and Mr. Officer claimed he never found any in his years farming the land (Myer 2014:80-81).
Spears noted in a partial draft manuscript that local residents mentioned a prehistoric mound site was behind Officer Chapel, but that it was no longer present due to plowing activity. This report was not investigated at that time as the reported site was well outside the project right-of-way. The Officer Mound mentioned by Myer is possibly the same mound mentioned by the locals. While no mound is recorded in the vicinity of Officer Chapel in the Division site files, there are at least six sites recorded in that area (40PM26, 40PM27, 40PM35, 40PM36, 40PM83, 40PM84). Three have an undetermined prehistoric component, and the other three have Archaic and/or Woodland components.
The 40PM89 data recovery work confirmed late Paleoindian, Archaic, and Woodland occupations. This work revealed intensive use of a terrace knoll during the late Middle Woodland (AD650-700) based on assemblage data, structural remains, and several radio carbon dates. This site appears to have been used as a warm season habitation based on floral remains and architectural details. Two small structures uncovered at the site were interpreted as a warm season dwelling and storage building. Both are considered part of the late Middle Woodland component. Light use of the knoll from the Early Archaic until Mississippian periods was evidenced by point types and a circular Cox Mound shale gorget fragment (Figure 7) that dates AD 1200-1350 (Childress and Buchner1993:137–202). Most gorgets of this style are made of marine shell, which makes this find very unusual. A similar, yet smaller, shale specimen was recovered from the Castalian Springs mound complex in Sumner County (DuVall & Associates 2005).
Michael C. Moore 2005
Brentwood is situated on the Little Harpeth River, fifteen miles from Nashville. The central portion of the farm is a natural elevation surrounded by low land running off to the Little Harpeth. Two very cold springs rise on the side of the hill. This beautiful spot was chosen by the Stone-Grave people for a village site. Here they dwelt and cultivated the land, raising corn, squashes and beans. The character of their houses is not known, but probably these were framed with upright posts, roofed with branches, and covered in with bark or clay. Some such structures have left, by their decay, circular ridges of earth, showing the outlines of the houses. In the Annual Report for 1878 is a diagram of one these towns which I explored and a description of objects found at that time, which are of the same character as those found since in this region.
The distinguishing feature of these people is the burial of their dead in stone graves. Stone graves occur from Kentucky to Alabama to Georgia, but are more numerous in the Valley of the Cumberland than in any other part of that great region. Occasionally similar graves have been found outside of these limits, as in Ohio, Illinois, and even in New Jersey, but these isolated cases may or may not be of the same people, since similar cists, or stone graves, are also common in various parts of the Old World. To open these graves and remove their contents may seem like sacrilege, but there is no other way to study the history of these people, and again if they were not opened for science, their contents would be turned over by the plough, as is now the case every year. From the Cumberland Valley there have been brought to the museum the contents of several thousand stone graves, forming by far the largest collection ever brought together. On the farm at Brentwood the graves covered a knoll or small hill; up on the top of the hill they were very numerous and close together; on the sides groups of graves were found, or here and there a single grave.
The Brentwood Library excavations yielded charred floral remains from a variety of feature contexts, including structures, palisades, and refuse-filled pits. Six samples of wood charcoal were prepared and submitted for radiocarbon assay. Three of these samples originated from Structures 2, 3, and 4. The Structure 2 sample derived from a charred timber section on the floor, whereas the samples for Structures 3 and 4 were obtained from interior posts. A fourth sample was obtained from the exterior palisade line (Feature 279, post 180) exposed along the southeastern site boundary. Another two samples originated from refuse-filled pits (Features10 and 60).
Tables 2 and 3 document the calibrated results for each sample (Stuiver et al. 2002). Figure 66 illustrates the calibrated date ranges. As expected, all six samples yielded calibrated results within the Thruston phase range of A.D. 1250 to1450. These results place the site (at 1-sigma) between cal A.D. 1298 and 1465.
Charles R. Ewen, Thomas R Whyte, R. P. Stephen Davis, Jr 2011
Burke-phase sites provide evidence of earthen mounds, large structures, mortuary practices marking elite statuses, and hierarchical settlement patterns centered on large sites. At least 50 Burke-phase sites are located in the core phase area along Upper Creek and Johns River in Burke County (Beck and Moore 2002; Moore 2002:50–99), and in the vicinity of the Nelson Mound and Triangle sites in the extreme upper Yadkin valley in Caldwell County(Moore 2002:100– 124, 315–321; Thomas 1894:333–350). Surveys along Upper Creek and Warrior Fork have identified the locations of small sites representing Burke-phase farmsteads and larger sites representing villages, and a single site, Berry, whose location, large size, and earthen mound all support its identification as the focal settlement within the province of Joara (Figure19-6).
Based on our research during the past ten years, we focus here on four lines of evidence—mound construction, settlement patterns, mortuary assemblages, and documentary sources—in arguing that the Burke phase represents a single regional polity or chiefdom, and, specifically, the chiefdom known to the Pardo expeditions as Joara.
The Jesuit Priests
The Jesuit priests were meticulous in keeping details of their missionary pursuits in New France. The 73 volumes of The Jesuit Relation and Allied Documents: Travels and Exploration of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France from 1610 – 1791 provides indisputable evidence as to the origins of the cherokee, their Christianization, and when they began to leave the Huron and Erie regions of the Great Lakes. The Jesuits record that the cherokee were not strong fighters and that led to them being kicked out of the Iroquoian Confederacy in the 1660s - 1670s.
The cherokee did not begin to leave the Great Lakes region until well after the Beaver Wars ended in 1664 with the last surrendering in 1682. History as recorded by the Jesuit priests makes it impossible for the cherokee to be in the Southeast Woodlands prior to the 1670s. They spoke an Iroquoian language and were mostly converted to Christianity at this time. The earliest that the cherokee could have entered the Southeast portion of the continent would be between 1670 and 1685. It is physically impossible for the cherokee to be in the Southeast Woodlands prior to the 1670. It is physically impossible for the cherokee to have the same culture, language, and religion of the Chickamauga. It is scientifically, historically, and anthropologically impossible to place the cherokee in the Southeast Woodlands until the 1670s.
As the cherokee made their way South from the Great Lakes, they assimilated different tribes and group of people into their body. When the cherokee left the Huron and Erie lakes region, they had no traditional religion because they had become Christianized. They had no traditional culture because they assimilated so many different tribes and peoples into their tribe that there was no longer a traditional culture. By the time they eventually made it to the Southeast Woodlands, they were a people without a culture or religion. This is why they were so willing to sell of the lands of the Southeast, because it was not theirs and they were no bonds to tie them to it. They were eager to get rid of the traditional religion because the traditionalists would not go along with their appeasement policies with the United States. They even went so far as to murder and assassinate the priests of the traditionalist religion to eradicate the traditional religion from the Southeast.
The evidence that does exist however clearly demonstrates the Southeast Ceremonial Complex Mound Builders of different tribes traded, intermarried, and fought each other throughout the entirety of their history in the Southeast. The evidence that does exist anthropologically and archaeologically is the culture and religion of the Southeast Woodland Tribes is inclusive of the Chickamauga (Tisca-Mogee).
Further In-depth reading
The True Origin of the cherokee and the Pre-History of the cherokee Country
https://www.chattanoogan.com/2014/9/7/283818/Origin-of-the-Cherokee---Part-1-of-5.aspx
https://www.chattanoogan.com/2014/9/15/284418/Origin-of-the-Cherokee---Part-2-of-5.aspx
https://www.chattanoogan.com/2014/9/20/284720/Origin-of-the-Cherokee---Part-3-of-5.aspx
https://www.chattanoogan.com/2014/9/25/285045/Origin-of-the-Cherokee---Part-4-of-5.aspx
https://www.chattanoogan.com/2014/9/29/285326/Origin-of-the-Cherokee---Part-5-of-5.aspx - The Bibliography for these articles is in Part 5 of 5