Coosa chiefdom - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Coosa chiefdom was a powerful Native American

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...

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...

dom near what are now Gordon

Gordon County, Georgia

Gordon County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of 2000, the population was 44,104. The 2007 Census Estimate shows a population of 52,044. The county seat is Calhoun.- History :...

and Murray

Murray County, Georgia

Murray County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of 2000, the population was 36,506. The 2007 Census Estimate showed a population of 40,664. The county seat is Chatsworth.It is part of the Dalton, Georgia, Metropolitan Statistical Area....

counties in Georgia

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...

, in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. 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.

Hernando de Soto

Hernando de Soto (explorer)

Hernando de Soto was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who, while leading the first European expedition deep into the territory of the modern-day United States, was the first European documented to have crossed the Mississippi River....

and his conquistador

Conquistador

Conquistadors were Spanish soldiers, explorers, and adventurers who brought much of the Americas under the control of Spain in the 15th to 16th centuries, following Europe's discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492...

s visited Coosa on their expedition through the Southeast United States in 1539–1541. The conquistadors recorded sketchy descriptions and impressions of the various chiefdoms they visited, describing Coosa as a series of communities

Community

The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...

and fertile gardens containing much food, rather than a town or city.

History

The Coosa chiefdom was centered along the Coosawattee River

Coosawattee River

The Coosawattee River is a river located in the northwest part of the U.S. state of Georgia.The river begins at the confluence of the Ellijay River and Cartecay River in the city of Ellijay in Gilmer County. The river flows west through the foothills of the north Georgia mountains.In Murray...

in present-day Gordon

Gordon County, Georgia

Gordon County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of 2000, the population was 44,104. The 2007 Census Estimate shows a population of 52,044. The county seat is Calhoun.- History :...

and Murray

Murray County, Georgia

counties in northwestern Georgia

Georgia (U.S. state)

. The capital of Coosa, called "Little Egypt" as an archeological site, had a large plaza and three mounds

Platform mound

A platform mound is any earthwork or mound intended to support a structure or activity.-Eastern North America:The indigenous peoples of North America built substructure mounds for well over a thousand years starting in the Archaic period and continuing through the Woodland period...

, as well as residential dwellings. Researchers have found various pottery

Pottery

Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

types, the most substantial of which reflect the site's Middle and Late Mississippian culture

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....

s (c. 1300-1600 A.D.) Archeologists have defined these as the Dallas

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...

, Lamar, and Mouse Creek phases of pottery. These type variations could indicate that the chiefdom underwent three archaeological phases and changes in culture, each with distinct pottery and artifact styles. Only one other village had a mound; the others associated with the chiefdom had only residential dwellings.

Hernando de Soto and his expedition entered the Coosa chiefdom in 1540. Chroniclers recorded that the chiefdom then consisted of eight villages. Archaeologists have identified the remains of seven of these, including the capital. The population of the Coosa is thought to have been between about 2,500 to 4,650 people. The chief of Coosa ruled over a significantly wider confederation of other chiefdoms, whose territory spread 400 miles along 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...

across northern Georgia into eastern Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

and central Alabama

Alabama

Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

, and whose populations totaled in the tens of thousands. This "paramount chiefdom consisted of seven or more smaller chiefdoms, representing about 50,000 people."

Following contact with Europeans and the associated introduction of Old World diseases, the populations of the Coosa and other local chiefdoms suffered extensive fatalities; the societies went into precipitous decline. By the close of the 16th century, most of the core area of the Coosa was abandoned. The surviving population withdrew to a few villages along the Coosa River

Coosa River

The Coosa River is a tributary of the Alabama River in the U.S. states of Alabama and Georgia. The river is about long altogether.The Coosa River is one of Alabama's most developed rivers...

in Alabama.

Northern Georgia was occupied 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...

in the early 18th century, but later abandoned. During the French and Indian War

French and Indian War

The French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...

(also known as the Seven Years War), a contingent of Muskogee under a chief named The Mortar reoccupied the site in 1759 in support of Ostenaco
Ostenaco
Ostenaco , who preferred to go by the warrior's title he earned at any early age, "Mankiller" , also known as Judd's Friend, who lived c...

and the other pro-French Cherokee. By the mid-1780s, the site was occupied by Cherokee.

Linguistics

The chroniclers of the de Soto Expedition recorded the name of the Coosa as Coça. This Medieval Spanish spelling would be pronounced today as "Koo-sha." The early French maps recorded several member towns of the Creek Confederacy as being occupied by the Cousha or Coushetta, in their transliterated form of the name as they heard it.

The Cherokee first appeared to use the word kusa to mean the Creek people

Creek people

The Muscogee , also known as the Creek or Creeks, are a Native American people traditionally from the southeastern United States. Mvskoke is their name in traditional spelling. The modern Muscogee live primarily in Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida...

of the Upper Towns, who were competitors and enemies. They called the Muskogee Creek ani-koweta. English speakers adopted "Coosa" as a frontier English version of the early Cherokee word. The contemporary Cherokee name for all Creek Indians is ani-kusa.

The Oklahoma Upper Creeks' autonym is Kvce (Muskogee alphabet), which is pronounced Kauche, or "Kaw-chee" in phonetic English. Kauche has no meaning, per se, in the Muskogee or Hitchiti

Hitchiti

The Hitchiti were a Muskogean-speaking tribe formerly residing chiefly in a town of the same name on the east bank of the Chattahoochee River, 4 miles below Chiaha, in west Georgia. They spoke the Hitchiti language, which was mutually intelligible with Mikasuki; both tribes were part of the loose...

languages. Linguists believe that during the early Colonial Period, the Kusa People spoke a dialect of Hitchiti. The French term for them, Cousheta/Coushetta, was sometimes written as Coushete]; in Hitchiti, the original meant "Kusa People."

History

Linguistics

See also