Monroe County is a county located on the eastern border of the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 46,250. Its county seat is Madisonville, and its largest city is Sweetwater.
Vonore is a town in Monroe County, Tennessee, which is located on the southeast border of the state. The population was 1,574 as of the 2020 census. The city hall, library, community center, police department, and fire department are located on Church Street.
The Little Tennessee River is a 135-mile (217 km) tributary of the Tennessee River that flows through the Blue Ridge Mountains from Georgia, into North Carolina, and then into Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. It drains portions of three national forests— Chattahoochee, Nantahala, and Cherokee— and provides the southwestern boundary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Chota is a historic Overhill Cherokee town site in Monroe County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. Developing after nearby Tanasi, Chota was the most important of the Overhill towns from the late 1740s until 1788. It replaced Tanasi as the de facto capital, or 'mother town' of the Cherokee people.
Tanasi was a historic Overhill settlement site in present-day Monroe County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The village became the namesake for the state of Tennessee. It was abandoned by the Cherokee in the 19th century for a rising town whose chief was more powerful. Tanasi served as the de facto capital of the Overhill Cherokee from as early as 1721 until 1730, when the capital shifted to Great Tellico.
Fort Loudoun was a British fort located in what is now Monroe County, Tennessee. Constructed from 1756 until 1757 to help garner Cherokee support for the British at the outset of the French and Indian War, the fort was one of the first significant British outposts west of the Appalachian Mountains. The fort was designed by John William Gerard de Brahm, while its construction was supervised by Captain Raymond Demeré; the fort's garrison was commanded by Demeré's brother, Paul Demeré. It was named for the Earl of Loudoun, the commander of British forces in North America at the time.
The Anglo-Cherokee War, was also known from the Anglo-European perspective as the Cherokee War, the Cherokee Uprising, or the Cherokee Rebellion. The war was a conflict between British forces in North America and Cherokee bands during the French and Indian War.
Oconostota was a Cherokee skiagusta of Chota, which was for nearly four decades the primary town in the Overhill territory, and within what is now Monroe County, Tennessee. He served as the First Beloved Man of Chota from 1775 to 1781.
Moytoy of Tellico, also known as Amatoya Moytoy Kanagaota was a prominent leader of the Cherokee in the American Southeast.
Great Hiwassee was an important Overhill settlement from the late 17th through the early 19th centuries. It was located on the Hiwassee River in present-day Polk County, Tennessee, on the north bank of the river where modern U.S. Route 411 crosses the river. The site is now part of the Tennessee Forestry Division's East Tennessee Nursery.
Great Tellico was a Cherokee town at the site of present-day Tellico Plains, Tennessee, where the Tellico River emerges from the Appalachian Mountains. Great Tellico was one of the largest Cherokee towns in the region, and had a sister town nearby named Chatuga. Its name in Cherokee is more properly written Talikwa, but more commonly known as Diligwa. It is sometimes spelled Telliquo, Telliquah or, in Oklahoma, Tahlequah. There were several Cherokee settlements named Tellico, the largest of which is distinguished from the others by calling it "Great". The meaning of the word "Talikwa" is thought to be lost by the Cherokees. However, in an article authored by reporter Tesina Jackson of the Cherokee Phoenix the meaning of the word is stated as "the open place where the grass grows".
Ostenaco was a Cherokee leader, warrior, orator, and leader of diplomacy with British colonial authorities in the 18th century. By his thirties, he had assumed the warrior rank of "otacity" (mankiller), and the title "tassite" of Great Tellico. He eventually rose to assume the higher Cherokee rank of chief-warrior.
The Tellico Blockhouse was an early American outpost located along the Little Tennessee River in what developed as Vonore, Monroe County, Tennessee. Completed in 1794, the blockhouse was a US military outpost that operated until 1807; the garrison was intended to keep peace between the nearby Overhill Cherokee towns and encroaching early Euro-American pioneers in the area in the wake of the Cherokee–American wars.
Overhill Cherokee was the term for the Cherokee people located in their historic settlements in what is now the U.S. state of Tennessee in the Southeastern United States, on the western side of the Appalachian Mountains. This name was used by 18th-century European traders and explorers from British colonies along the Atlantic coast, as they had to cross the mountains to reach these settlements.
Tomotley is a prehistoric and historic Native American site along the lower Little Tennessee River in Monroe County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. Occupied as early as the Archaic period, the Tomotley site was occupied particularly during the Mississippian period, which was likely when its earthwork platform mounds were built. It was also occupied during the eighteenth century as a Cherokee town. It revealed an unexpected style: an octagonal townhouse and square or rectangular residences. In the Overhill period, Cherokee townhouses found in the Carolinas in the same period were circular in design, with,
Citico is a prehistoric and historic Native American site in Monroe County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The site's namesake Cherokee village was the largest of the Overhill towns, housing an estimated Indian population of 1,000 by the mid-18th century. The Mississippian village that preceded the site's Cherokee occupation is believed to have been the village of "Satapo" visited by the Juan Pardo expedition in 1567.
Gerald F. Schroedl is a professor of anthropology at the University of Tennessee. He specializes in Southeastern United States and Caribbean prehistoric and historic archaeological sites. He is an authority on Cherokee prehistory and the archaeology of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina.
Bussell Island, formerly Lenoir Island, is an island located at the mouth of the Little Tennessee River, at its confluence with the Tennessee River in Loudon County, near the U.S. city of Lenoir City, Tennessee. The island was inhabited by various Native American cultures for thousands of years before the arrival of early European explorers. The Tellico Dam and a recreational area occupy part of the island. Part of the island was added in 1978 to the National Register of Historic Places for its archaeological potential.
Sequoyah v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 480 F.Supp. 608 (1979), was a Tennessee court case that ruled on the applicability of the Free Exercise clause to the relationship and significance of land sacred to the Cherokee people, specifically the Little Tennessee River and its surrounding valley. The suit, brought by three Cherokee individuals and two Cherokee organizations/bands to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, sought an injunction to restrain the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) from flooding the sacred Cherokee land along the Little Tennessee River for the purpose of creating the Tellico Dam. The plaintiffs argued that the flooding of the Little Tennessee River valley, given their specific spiritual and historical relationship to the land, would infringe on their right to practice their religion.
