Hernando de Soto was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who was involved in expeditions in Nicaragua and the Yucatan Peninsula. He played an important role in Francisco Pizarro's conquest of the Inca Empire in Peru, but is best known for leading the first European expedition deep into the territory of the modern-day United States. He is the first European documented as having crossed the Mississippi River.
The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek or just Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy, are a group of related Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands in the United States. Their historical homelands are in what now comprises southern Tennessee, much of Alabama, western Georgia and parts of northern Florida.
Childersburg is a city in Talladega County in the U.S. state of Alabama. It was incorporated in 1889. At the 2020 census, the population was 4,754. It has a history dating back before 1540, when it was noted as a village of the Coosa Nation visited by the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto. It is said a member of De Soto’s crew fell ill and was left to settle in the area of present day Childersburg where the Coosa people cared for the ill explorer. The Alabama Army Ammunition Plant, important during World War II, was located 4 miles (6 km) north of Childersburg.
Sylacauga is a city in Talladega County, Alabama, United States. At the 2020 census, the population was 12,578.
Crystal Cavern(s), also known throughout the years as Alabama Caverns and McClu(n)ney Cave, is a small cavern containing crystal formations located in Clay, Alabama, USA.
Russell Cave National Monument is a U.S. national monument in northeastern Alabama, United States, close to the city of Bridgeport. The monument was established on May 11, 1961, when 310 acres (1.3 km2) of land were donated by the National Geographic Society to the American people. It is now administered and maintained by the National Park Service. The national monument was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.
Etowah Indian Mounds (9BR1) are a 54-acre (220,000 m2) archaeological site in Bartow County, Georgia, south of Cartersville. Built and occupied in three phases, from 1000–1550 CE, the prehistoric site is located on the north shore of the Etowah River.
The Coosa River is a tributary of the Alabama River in the U.S. states of Alabama and Georgia. The river is about 280 miles (450 km) long.
Joara was a large Native American settlement, a regional chiefdom of the Mississippian culture, located in what is now Burke County, North Carolina, about 300 miles from the Atlantic coast in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Joara is notable as a significant archaeological and historic site, where Mississippian culture-era and European artifacts have been found, in addition to an earthwork platform mound and remains of a 16th-century Spanish fort.
Tuskaloosa was a paramount chief of a Mississippian chiefdom in what is now the U.S. state of Alabama. His people were possibly ancestors to the several southern Native American confederacies who later emerged in the region. The modern city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is named for him.
The Coosa chiefdom was a powerful Native American paramount chiefdom in what are now Gordon and Murray counties in Georgia, in the United States. It was inhabited from about 1400 until about 1600, and dominated several smaller chiefdoms. The total population of Coosa's area of influence, reaching into present-day Tennessee and Alabama, has been estimated at 50,000.
Lookout Mountain Caverns is the second-longest known cave in Hamilton County, Tennessee. Its mapped length of 2.481 miles places it at 361st on the United States Long Caves List. Unofficially, anecdotal reports of cave expeditions have exceed 12 miles with legends exceeding 82 miles. The cave is closed and public access is forbidden.
DeSoto State Park is a public recreation area located on Lookout Mountain 8 miles (13 km) northeast of Fort Payne, Alabama. The state park covers 3,502 acres (1,417 ha) of forest, rivers, waterfalls, and mountain terrain. It borders the Little River, which flows into the nearby Little River Canyon National Preserve. The 104-foot-tall (32 m) DeSoto Falls, the state's highest waterfall, is found in a separate part of the park 6 miles (9.7 km) north of the main park.
Rickwood Caverns State Park is a public recreation area and natural history preserve located 7 miles (11 km) north of Warrior, Alabama. The 380-acre (150 ha) state park offers tours of caverns with illuminated limestone formations estimated to be 260 million years old, blind cave fish, and an underground pool.
Abihka was one of the four mother towns of the Muscogee Creek confederacy. Abihka is also sometimes used to refer to all Upper Creek people.
Chiaha was a Native American chiefdom located in the lower French Broad River valley in modern East Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. They lived in raised structures within boundaries of several stable villages. These overlooked the fields of maize, beans, squash, and tobacco, among other plants which they cultivated. Chiaha was at the northern extreme of the paramount Coosa chiefdom's sphere of influence in the 16th century when the Spanish expeditions of Hernando de Soto and Juan Pardo passed through the area. The Chiaha chiefdom included parts of modern Jefferson and Sevier counties, and may have extended westward into Knox, Blount and Monroe counties.
Manitou Cave is a cave in Alabama, near the town of Fort Payne, in the side of Lookout Mountain. In the early 1800s, the Fort Payne area was a Cherokee settlement named Willstown. This was the home of Sequoyah during his time of creating the Cherokee syllabary. Later, Sequoyah's son wrote on the walls of Manitou Cave using this syllabary, documenting ceremonial events and other culturally significant information and history. In the 1830s, Cherokee people were forcibly relocated from this area along the Trail of Tears, leaving the cave empty for some time. During the Civil War, the cave was a source of saltpeter for the Confederate Army. The mineral was mined by laborers to provide the essential ingredient for black powder. The cave was also designated fallout shelter during the Cold War.
Ida Elizabeth Brandon Mathis (1857–1925) was an American farmer and businesswoman who advocated for methods that would improve conditions for Southern farmers, including crop diversification and rotation and better methods of financing for small farmers. She is credited with reducing agricultural poverty in Alabama and diminishing the state's dependence on imported food.
