The First Peoples

The First Peoples. . Native peoples have lived in the Cumberland River Valley for thousands of years. Though no formal history of the region's earliest civilizations was recorded, the remains of their presence are visible today in the form of archaeological sites and landscape features associated with settlements, rituals and burials., Paleo-Indians (12,000 B.C.) , Archaic (8000 B.C. - 1000 B.C.) , Woodlands (1000 B.C. - 1000 A.D.) , Mississippians (1000 - 1500 A.D.). , The Mound Builders , The last dominant pre-Columbian Native civilization in the Nashville area were the Mississippians. An agricultural people, maize (corn) production helped to establish sustainable communities that developed along the Cumberland River and its tributaries., Near the State of Tennessee's Bicentennial Mall, archaeological resources used in manufacturing salt from brine - fire pits, fragments of burned limestone, large pottery sherds and caches of clay and mussel shells - were unearthed. Once the home of a large Mississippian settlement, villagers procured salt from the surrounding mineral springs to enhance agriculture and to exchange as a valuable commodity., Trading routes stretched as far as the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. Shells acquired in these areas functioned as both money and for use as ceremonial vessels or gorgets (pendants worn around the neck) that featured animals and supernatural characters. When the first Europeans explored the continent's southeastern waterways in the 16th century, Mississippian civilization had all but disappeared., The old chiefs have given you good lands, but to keep them will not be easy. It will be a dark and bloody ground. , Tsiyu Gunsini, Dragging Canoe, Struggle for Control, New Regional tribes emerged to compete for control of middle Tennessee in the late 17th century. The Shawnee, native to the Ohio River Valley, created trading villages along the Cumberland. However, they were short-lived. By the mid-1700s, no permanent settlements existed in the Central Basin. Instead, much of the region was utilized as an inter-tribal hunting ground; more by the Cherokee, Shawnee, Delaware and Chickasaws; less by the Choctaw and Creek. Eventually, the Cherokee laid claim to the entire region, land they acquired through hostile takeover from the Shawnee., In 1776, the Transylvania Land Purchase transferred control of 20 million acres between the Ohio and Cumberland rivers to Richard Henderson, a land speculator from North Carolina. Tsiyu Gunsini, a young Cherokee warrior also known as Dragging Canoe, opposed the deal. In response, he created new towns along Chickamauga Creek near present-day Chattanooga. Many of the chiefs followed him south, including Ostenaco. From there, he carried out attacks against the newly-formed settlements in the 1780s and early 1790s.