Monroe County, Tennessee: History
During the early part of the 18th century, the area around what is now Monroe County was known as part of the traditional homelands of the Overhill Cherokee, a western subset of the Cherokee Nation. They had established towns and villages extending through much of the mountainous areas of western Virginia, the Carolinas, southeastern Tennessee, and portions of northeastern Georgia and Alabama. English colonists and European Americans tended to refer to these areas by geography: Lower Towns, along the upper Savannah River in South Carolina; Middle Towns in Western North Carolina west of the French Broad River; and the Overhill Towns, located generally along the west side of the Appalachian Mountains in present-day Tennessee, along the lower Little Tennessee River and upper Tennessee River; south into northeastern Georgia. Later, the Cherokee expanded into western Georgia and what developed as Alabama.
The Overhill Towns had developed along the Little Tennessee and Tellico Rivers throughout present-day Monroe County, Tennessee. These included Chota, Tanasi (the name source of "Tennessee"), and Great Tellico, which at various times were each considered the Cherokee principal town or "mother town". Also in this area were Citico, Toqua, Tomotley, Mialoquo, Chilhowee, and Tallassee.
Archaeological excavations at the Citico site suggest the area was inhabited for thousands of years before the arrival of European settlers. Artifacts uncovered from the Icehouse Bottom site near Vonore date to as early as 7500 BC, during the Archaic period. Later prehistoric occupants were from indigenous cultures, such as the Woodland era and Southern Appalachia Mississippian culture that preceded the rise of the historic Cherokee people. The latter group is believed to have migrated south from the Great Lakes area around 1000 CE or later.
They spoke an Iroquoian language, and most other Iroquoian tribes have historically occupied areas around the Great Lakes, including the powerful Five Nations of the Iroquois League, or Haudenosaunee, then based in present-day New York and Pennsylvania. The Tuscarora people of the Carolinas also spoke an Iroquoian language, and are believed to have come south. Following the disasters of the Yamasee War in the early 1700s, they decided to leave and migrated north, declaring the tribal migration complete in 1722 and settling near the Oneida people in western New York. …