Chiaha
Encyclopedia
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
chiefdom
Chiefdom
A chiefdom is a political economy that organizes regional populations through a hierarchy of the chief.In anthropological theory, one model of human social development rooted in ideas of cultural evolution describes a chiefdom as a form of social organization more complex than a tribe or a band...
located in the lower French Broad River
French Broad River
The French Broad River flows from near the village of Rosman in Transylvania County, North Carolina, into the state of Tennessee. Its confluence with the Holston River at Knoxville is the beginning of the Tennessee River....
valley in modern East Tennessee
East Tennessee
East Tennessee is a name given to approximately the eastern third of the U.S. state of Tennessee, one of the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee defined in state law. East Tennessee consists of 33 counties, 30 located within the Eastern Time Zone and three counties in the Central Time Zone, namely...
, in the southeastern United States. They lived in raised structures within boundaries of several stable villages. These overlooked the fields of maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
, beans, squash, and tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
, among other plants which they cultivated. Chiaha was the northern extreme of the paramount Coosa chiefdom
Coosa chiefdom
The Coosa chiefdom was a powerful Native American paramount chiefdom near 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...
's sphere of influence in the 16th century when the Spanish expeditions of Hernando de Soto and Juan Pardo
Juan Pardo (explorer)
Juan Pardo was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who was active in the later half of the sixteenth century. He led a Spanish expedition through what is now North and South Carolina and into eastern Tennessee. He established Fort San Felipe, South Carolina , and the village of Santa Elena on...
passed through the area. The Chiaha chiefdom included parts of modern Jefferson
Jefferson County, Tennessee
*...
and Sevier
Sevier County, Tennessee
Sevier County is a county of the state of Tennessee, United States. Its population was 71,170 at the 2000 United States Census. It is included in the Sevierville, Tennessee, Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Knoxville-Sevierville-La Follette, TN Combined Statistical Area. The...
counties, and may have extended westward into Knox
Knox County, Tennessee
Knox County is a county in the U.S. state of Tennessee. Its 2007 population was estimated at 423,874 by the United States Census Bureau. Its county seat is Knoxville, as it has been since the creation of the county. The county is at the geographical center of the Great Valley of East Tennessee...
, Blount
Blount County, Tennessee
Blount County is a U.S. county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. Its population was 123,010 at the United States Census, 2010. The county seat is at Maryville, which is also the county's largest city....
and Monroe counties.
The Spanish explorers' accounts of Chiaha provide a rare first-hand glimpse of life in a Dallas Phase
Dallas Phase
Dallas Phase is an archaeological phase, within the Mississippian III period, in the South Appalachian Geologic province.-Geography:Dallas peoples moved into southwest Virginia from northeastern Tennessee in the early 13th century...
Mississippian-era
Mississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally....
village. The Dallas culture, named after Dallas Island near Chattanooga
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga is the fourth-largest city in the US state of Tennessee , with a population of 169,887. It is the seat of Hamilton County...
where its distinct characteristics were first observed, dominated much of East Tennessee between approximately 1300 and 1600 AD. Both the de Soto and Pardo expeditions spent several days at Chiaha's principal village. The Pardo expedition constructed a fort nearby. But, by the time English explorers arrived in the area in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the Chiaha area was largely uninhabited and dominated by the Cherokee
Cherokee
The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
.
Geographical setting
The chief village of Chiaha was called Olamico in their own language. The Hernando de Soto expedition recorded the name as Chiaha and the Pardo expedition as Olamico. It was located on an island in the French Broad RiverFrench Broad River
The French Broad River flows from near the village of Rosman in Transylvania County, North Carolina, into the state of Tennessee. Its confluence with the Holston River at Knoxville is the beginning of the Tennessee River....
, in modern times called Zimmerman's Island. This island was located 33 miles (53.1 km) upstream from the mouth of the French Broad and approximately 1 miles (1.6 km) upstream from the present location of Douglas Dam
Douglas Dam
Douglas Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the French Broad River in Sevier County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The dam is operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority , which built the dam in record time in the early 1940s to meet emergency energy demands at the height of World War II...
. With the completion of Douglas Dam in 1943, a reservoir was created that completely submerged Zimmerman's Island, ending possible archeological excavation of Olamico and the area.
Hernando de Soto, 1540
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
and South Carolina. In early May of 1540, they arrived at Cofitachequi
Cofitachequi
Cofitachequi was a paramount chiefdom encountered by the Hernando de Soto Expedition in South Carolina. They encountered the Chiefdom of Cofitachequi in April of 1540, at the Mulberry Site, a large mound at the junction of Pine Tree Creek and the Wateree River, near present-day Camden...
, a paramount chiefdom which dominated much of the southeastern U.S. east of the Appalachian Mountains
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...
. The expedition continued north through modern North Carolina, arriving at the village of Xuala (Joara
Joara
Joara was a large Native American settlement, a regional chiefdom of the Mississippian culture, located in what is now Burke County, North Carolina. Joara is notable as a significant archaeological and historic site. It was a place of encounter in 1540 between the Mississippian people and the...
) on May 21 and reaching the headwaters of the Toe River on May 26. The expedition traced the Toe to its mouth along the Nolichucky River
Nolichucky River
The Nolichucky River is a major stream draining the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina and east Tennessee. The river is long.-Hydrography:...
, and the expedition followed the Nolichucky into modern Greene County, Tennessee. On June 4, while camped near the confluence of Lick Creek and the Nolichucky River, the expedition was greeted by several Chiaha natives, who brought the Spaniards a ration of corn
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
. The expedition arrived at Chiaha the following day.
Chiaha was the first fortified town
Palisade
A palisade is a steel or wooden fence or wall of variable height, usually used as a defensive structure.- Typical construction :Typical construction consisted of small or mid sized tree trunks aligned vertically, with no spacing in between. The trunks were sharpened or pointed at the top, and were...
which the de Soto expedition encountered. The expedition's chroniclers described the village's location as "two crossbow shots" (appx. 600 yards (548.6 m)) from the upstream (eastern) end of the island. The island ranged between one and two crossbow shots in width. The river was wide on both sides, but could be forded. Maize was growing along the river banks opposite the island. The chief of Chiaha loaned de Soto his house, and the expedition members were initially well treated by the village's inhabitants. After approximately two weeks, however, de Soto angered the village elders when he asked them to provide thirty women for his expedition. The offended people quickly got all the women away from the village. De Soto threatened to attack the settlement, and the people fled to an impenetrable island further upstream. De Soto finally dropped his demand for women, and instead asked for porters, which Chiaha agreed to supply.
On June 28, the de Soto expedition departed westward along the French Broad River. They followed the river to its mouth at modern Knoxville
Knoxville, Tennessee
Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...
and continued along the banks of the Tennessee River
Tennessee River
The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately 652 miles long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other names...
to the village of Coste, which was located on Bussell Island
Bussell Island
Bussell Island, formerly Lenoir Island, is an island located at the mouth of the Little Tennessee River 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, and is currently...
at the mouth of the Little Tennessee River
Little Tennessee River
The Little Tennessee River is a tributary of the Tennessee River, approximately 135 miles long, in the Appalachian Mountains in the southeastern United States.-Geography:...
. The expedition followed the Little Tennessee to the village of Tali (probably a predecessor of the Cherokee village of Toqua
Toqua (Tennessee)
Toqua is a prehistoric and historic Native American site in Monroe County, Tennessee, located in the southeastern United States. Along with the Overhill Cherokee village for which the site was named, Toqua was home to a substantial pre-Cherokee town that thrived during the Mississippian period...
), where they intercepted a Native American trail that led them southward to Coosa
Coosa chiefdom
The Coosa chiefdom was a powerful Native American paramount chiefdom near 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...
.
While they were at Chiaha, the chief of Coste met with de Soto. He told him of mines of "yellow metal" thirty leagues to the northeast, in the territory of the Chisca tribe. De Soto sent two members of his expedition northeastward to investigate. They found only minor copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
resources, rather than the gold they anticipated, and later described the terrain as very rugged. The Spaniards returned in canoes the Chisca had given them and rejoined the main expedition at Coste.
Juan Pardo, 1567
In 1565 and 1566, Pedro Menéndez de AvilésPedro Menéndez de Avilés
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés was a Spanish admiral and explorer, best remembered for founding St. Augustine, Florida in 1565. This was the first successful Spanish foothold in La Florida and remained the most significant city in the region for several hundred years. St...
, hoping to expand the Spanish colony of La Florida
Spanish Florida
Spanish Florida refers to the Spanish territory of Florida, which formed part of the Captaincy General of Cuba, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and the Spanish Empire. Originally extending over what is now the southeastern United States, but with no defined boundaries, la Florida was a component of...
into what is now the southeastern United States, founded settlements at Saint Augustine in northeastern Florida and Santa Elena
Santa Elena, la Florida
Santa Elena was a Spanish settlement founded by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés on what is now Parris Island, South Carolina. There had been a number of earlier attempts to establish colonies in the area by both the Spanish and the French, who had been inspired by earlier accounts of the plentiful land...
at Parris Island
Parris Island, South Carolina
Parris Island is a former census-designated place , currently a portion of Port Royal in Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 4,841 at the 2000 census. As defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, Parris Island is included within the Beaufort Urban Cluster and the larger...
in modern South Carolina. In December of 1566, De Aviles dispatched an expedition under Captain Juan Pardo
Juan Pardo (explorer)
Juan Pardo was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who was active in the later half of the sixteenth century. He led a Spanish expedition through what is now North and South Carolina and into eastern Tennessee. He established Fort San Felipe, South Carolina , and the village of Santa Elena on...
into the interior with the goal of subduing the native inhabitants and mapping a route to the Spanish settlement at Zacatecas, Mexico
Zacatecas, Zacatecas
Zacatecas is a city and municipality in Mexico and the capital of the state of Zacatecas. It is located in the north central part of the country. The city had its start as a Spanish mining camp in the mid 16th century. Prior to this, the area's rich deposits in silver and other minerals were known...
, where they had silver mines. Pardo followed the Wateree River
Wateree River
The Wateree River, about 75 mi long, is a tributary of the Santee River in central South Carolina in the United States, which flows to the Atlantic Ocean...
northward into North Carolina, eventually arriving at the village of Joara
Joara
Joara was a large Native American settlement, a regional chiefdom of the Mississippian culture, located in what is now Burke County, North Carolina. Joara is notable as a significant archaeological and historic site. It was a place of encounter in 1540 between the Mississippian people and the...
(De Soto's Xuala). Pardo built Fort San Juan at Joara and explored the area nearby before being recalled to Santa Elena. He left a 30-man garrison at Fort San Juan under the command of Sergeant Hernando Moyano de Morales.
While Pardo was away, Moyano spent several days searching for gold and gems in the Joara area (modern Burke County, North Carolina
Burke County, North Carolina
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 89,148 people, 34,528 households, and 24,342 families residing in the county. The population density was 176 people per square mile . There were 37,427 housing units at an average density of 74 per square mile...
). In April of 1567, he marched northward across the mountains with 15 soldiers and a contingent of natives (likely a Joaran army) and attacked and destroyed a Chisca village in the upper Nolichucky valley. After receiving a serious threat from a mountain chief, Moyano was forced to continue westward down the Nolichucky to the French Broad, and thence to Chiaha on Zimmerman's Island. They built a small fort near the fortified capital of Chiaha (known as Olamico, a Muskogean word for "chief town") and awaited Pardo's arrival.
Pardo's second expedition began on September 1, 1567, and in just over three weeks, he was back at Joara. After learning of Moyano's uneasy situation, he left Joara for Chiaha on September 29. Pardo passed through the village of Tocae (near modern Asheville
Asheville, North Carolina
Asheville is a city in and the county seat of Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. It is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the 11th largest city in North Carolina. The City is home to the United States National Climatic Data Center , which is the world's largest active...
) on October 1, and then spent several days following the French Broad River across the Appalachian Mountains into modern Cocke County, Tennessee. He arrived at the village of Tanasqui (probably at the confluence of the French Broad and Pigeon River
Pigeon River (Tennessee - North Carolina)
The Pigeon River of western North Carolina and east Tennessee rises above Canton, North Carolina. Below this, it flows roughly parallel to Interstate 40 for many miles and is impounded by a dam -- Walters Dam -- belonging to Progress Energy before entering Tennessee, where it flows into the French...
) on October 6, and reached Chiaha the following day.
Pardo remained at Chiaha for five days before departing for Coosa. He spent several days traversing the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains
Great Smoky Mountains
The Great Smoky Mountains are a mountain range rising along the Tennessee–North Carolina border in the southeastern United States. They are a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains, and form part of the Blue Ridge Physiographic Province. The range is sometimes called the Smoky Mountains or the...
in modern Sevier
Sevier County, Tennessee
Sevier County is a county of the state of Tennessee, United States. Its population was 71,170 at the 2000 United States Census. It is included in the Sevierville, Tennessee, Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Knoxville-Sevierville-La Follette, TN Combined Statistical Area. The...
and Blount
Blount County, Tennessee
Blount County is a U.S. county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. Its population was 123,010 at the United States Census, 2010. The county seat is at Maryville, which is also the county's largest city....
counties before reaching the village of Chalahume in the Little Tennessee Valley. At the village of Satapo just downstream, Pardo was told that the Coosa chief was plotting to kill him, so he turned back. He again passed through Olamico on October 20 and departed back up the French Broad on October 22. He arrived back at Santa Elena in February of 1568.
The people of Chiaha
Childersburg, Alabama
Childersburg is a city in Talladega county in the U.S. state of Alabama. At the 2000 census the population was 4,927. It claims 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...
) to the south. While most villages visited by Pardo were headed by a low-level local chief known as an orata, three villages— Chiaha, Joara, and Guatari— were each headed by a major regional chief known as a mico (some Muskogean-speaking tribes still used the word "mico" for "chief" as late as the 19th century). Micos were apparently subject to a paramount chief
Paramount chief
A paramount chief is the highest-level traditional chief or political leader in a regional or local polity or country typically administered politically with a chief-based system. This definition is used occasionally in anthropological and archaeological theory to refer to the rulers of multiple...
. At the time of De Soto's expedition, paramount chiefs resided at Cofitachequi
Cofitachequi
Cofitachequi was a paramount chiefdom encountered by the Hernando de Soto Expedition in South Carolina. They encountered the Chiefdom of Cofitachequi in April of 1540, at the Mulberry Site, a large mound at the junction of Pine Tree Creek and the Wateree River, near present-day Camden...
and Coosa, but by the time of Pardo's expedition, Cofitachequi's power had been greatly reduced. The only known paramount chief was at Coosa, which Pardo never visited.
Life at Chiaha was probably characteristic of life in a Dallas-phase Mississippian period village. The Mississippian period, which began in Tennessee around 900 AD, marked the transformation of Native American tribes into complex agrarian societies. Mississippian peoples
Mississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally....
lived in or near relatively large villages whose design was centered on large, constructed plazas. These public plazas were flanked by one or more mounds used for religious and political purposes and related to the people's cosmology. The larger mounds, known as "platform mounds", were topped by public buildings. The Dallas cultures also built elaborate burial mounds.
In 1940, archaeologists surveyed Zimmerman's Island before it was inundated by reservoir waters. They photographed a 30 feet (9.1 m) Mississippian-style platform mound near the upstream end of the island (see External links). Researchers have noted that the fortifications
Palisade
A palisade is a steel or wooden fence or wall of variable height, usually used as a defensive structure.- Typical construction :Typical construction consisted of small or mid sized tree trunks aligned vertically, with no spacing in between. The trunks were sharpened or pointed at the top, and were...
described by the Spanish chroniclers (i.e., having square towers or bastions at various intervals) at nearby Tanasqui were consistent with the Dallas-phase fortifications excavated at the Toqua
Toqua (Tennessee)
Toqua is a prehistoric and historic Native American site in Monroe County, Tennessee, located in the southeastern United States. Along with the Overhill Cherokee village for which the site was named, Toqua was home to a substantial pre-Cherokee town that thrived during the Mississippian period...
site in the 1970s. They were likely to have been revealed by excavation on Zimmerman's Island as well.
Like most Dallas-phase peoples, the Chiahans relied heavily on corn for sustenance. At Chiaha, De Soto and his men were given large portions of sofkee (a gruel similar to hominy
Hominy
Hominy or nixtamal is dried maize kernels which have been treated with an alkali in a process called nixtamalization.The English term hominy is derived from the Powhatan language word for maize. Many other Native American cultures also made hominy and integrated it into their diet...
grits), honey, and a sweet-tasting sauce made from bear fat. The people also collected the wild fruits, such as mulberries and grapes, that grew in abundance in the surrounding hills. The Chiahans stored their crops in raised storehouses, which the Spaniards called barbacoas.
Relationship to the Cherokee
The relationship between the Mississippian people in the Tennessee Valley and the later CherokeeCherokee
The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
inhabitants has been a source of debate since the late 19th century. Some have argued that the Cherokee are the descendants of the Mississippian people who lived in the valleys of Southern Appalachia until the late 16th century. Based on both linguistic and archeological evidence, most scholars agree that the Cherokee, an Iroquoian-speaking people, did not arrive in the region until later, after having migrated from the Great Lakes
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
area, where they and other Iroquoian peoples coalesced. They either conquered the Mississippian inhabitants or occupied their already-abandoned villages. By contrast, the language of the Dallas-phase inhabitants of the upper Tennessee Valley (including the people of Chiaha) was a Muskogean language
Muskogean languages
Muskogean is an indigenous language family of the Southeastern United States. Though there is an ongoing debate concerning their interrelationships, the Muskogean languages are generally divided into two branches, Eastern Muskogean and Western Muskogean...
known as Koasati
Koasati language
Koasati is a Native American language of Muskogean origin. The language is spoken by the Coushatta people, most of whom live in Allen Parish north of the town of Elton, Louisiana, though a smaller number share a reservation near Livingston, Texas, with the Alabama people...
. It is still used today by the Koasati tribe of Louisiana.
The chroniclers of De Soto and Pardo show that Cherokee-speaking people coexisted with the Mississippian Muskogean-speakers as early as the 16th century. Cherokee-speaking people lived in the mountains between Joara and Chiaha, most notably at Guasili, a village in the Nolichucky valley visited by De Soto. While Pardo was at Joara, he was visited by several Cherokee-speaking chiefs. At Chiaha, however, Pardo was not visited by any Cherokee-speaking chiefs. The fact that Chiaha and Tanasqui were the only two fortified villages noted by Pardo (other than the Chisca village destroyed by Moyano) may suggest that the people of Chiaha were at war with the Cherokee living in the mountains. Several Mississippian village names mentioned by Pardo were retained in some form by their later Cherokee inhabitants, namely Citico
Citico (Tellico archaeological site)
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 population of 1,000 by the mid-18th century...
(Pardo's Satapo) and Chilhowee
Chilhowee (Cherokee town)
Chilhowee was a prehistoric and historic Native American site in Blount County and Monroe County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States...
(Pardo's Chalahume) in the Little Tennessee Valley. The name of the Cherokee capital of Tanasi
Tanasi
Tanasi is a historic Overhill Cherokee village site in Monroe County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The village is best known as the namesake for the state of Tennessee...
, also in the Little Tennessee Valley, may have been influenced by the earlier village of Tanasqui, which according to Pardo was just east of Chiaha. The village of Jore, a Cherokee Middle Town visited by colonist Alexander Cuming in 1730, may have been named after Joara
Joara
Joara was a large Native American settlement, a regional chiefdom of the Mississippian culture, located in what is now Burke County, North Carolina. Joara is notable as a significant archaeological and historic site. It was a place of encounter in 1540 between the Mississippian people and the...
.
Related sites and peoples
- List of sites and peoples visited by the Hernando de Soto Expedition
- Southeastern Ceremonial ComplexSoutheastern Ceremonial ComplexThe Southeastern Ceremonial Complex is the name given to the regional stylistic similarity of artifacts, iconography, ceremonies, and mythology of the Mississippian culture that coincided with their adoption of maize agriculture and chiefdom-level complex social organization from...
External links
- Zimmerman's Island Mound— photograph and brief description on the Frank H. McClung Museum website
- In the Footsteps of De Soto — Destination Chiaha