Tuskegee was an Overhill Cherokee

Overhill Cherokee

The term Overhill Cherokee refers to the former Cherokee settlements located in what is now Tennessee in the southeastern United States. The name was given by 18th century European traders and explorers who had to cross the Appalachian Mountains to reach these settlements when traveling from...

 village originally on the bank 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:...

 at the mouth of the Tellico River. Today the site lies under the artificial lake, Tellico Reservoir

Tellico Reservoir

Tellico Reservoir, also known as Tellico Lake, is a reservoir in Tennessee, created by the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1979 upon the completion of Tellico Dam. The dam impounds the Little Tennessee River and the lower Tellico River...

, created by Tellico Dam

Tellico Dam

Tellico Dam is a dam built by the Tennessee Valley Authority in Loudon County, Tennessee on the Little Tennessee River just above the main stem of the Tennessee River. It impounds the Tellico Reservoir....

.

During the Chickamauga wars

Chickamauga wars

The Chickamauga Wars were a series of raids, campaigns, ambushes, minor skirmishes, and several full-scale frontier battles which were a continuation of the Cherokee struggle against encroachment by American frontiersmen from the former British colonies...

, nearly all of Tuskegee's inhabitants joined the warriors of Dragging Canoe

Dragging Canoe

Tsiyu Gansini , "He is dragging his canoe", known to whites as Dragging Canoe, was a Cherokee war chief who led a band of Cherokee against colonists and United States settlers...

 and emigrated southwest to the later Chattanooga, Tennessee

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...

 area, where they founded a town with the same name on an island in 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...

 which is now called Williams Island but for nearly a century was called Tuskeegee Island. Its 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...

 name was "Taskigi".

Tuskegee was the childhood home of Sequoyah

Sequoyah

Sequoyah , named in English George Gist or George Guess, was a Cherokee silversmith. In 1821 he completed his independent creation of a Cherokee syllabary, making reading and writing in Cherokee possible...

, who created the Cherokee syllabary

Cherokee syllabary

The Cherokee syllabary is a syllabary invented by Sequoyah to write the Cherokee language in the late 1810s and early 1820s. His creation of the syllabary is particularly noteworthy in that he could not previously read any script. He first experimented with logograms, but his system later developed...

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See also

• Ft. Loudoun State Park - near Vonore, Tennessee
  Vonore, Tennessee
  Vonore is a town in Blount and Monroe counties in the U.S. state of Tennessee. The population was 1,162 as of the 2000 census.-Geography:Vonore is located at ....
  
  

• Cherokee Heritage Trails - Provides directions to and basic information on the Overhill Cherokee towns in Tennessee