It's important to remember that at first, these settlers had no legal right to be in what we now call Tennessee. The ones who stayed kept peace with the Cherokee people by going to Chota -- the most important Cherokee village in what is now Tennessee -- and working out a deal: The white settlers gave them goods worth about a thousand dollars in exchange for permission to live on "all the country on the waters of the Watauga River" for ten years. They did this on their own, without the permission of the government of England and in complete defiance of King George's Proclamation of 1763.

Soon there were enough white settlers that they needed some kind of government, and in 1772 some of their leaders signed an agreement known as the Watauga Compact that allowed for some self-government and created a court to deal with lawbreakers.

Fort Loudoun

For example: In the 1750s, the Cherokee living in what is now southeast Tennessee were on such friendly terms with England that they allowed -- perhaps even encouraged -- the government to build a fort there. It was the southernmost English fort during the French and Indian War and was called Fort Loudoun; click here to take a virtual tour of what it looked like. But within a few years relations between the English and the Cherokee soured. Fort Loudoun was beseiged, and the British soldiers and their families in the fort were killed.

The danger of trading

Regardless of whether they were at war or at peace, the coming of white European settlers posed another challenge to the tribes. The settlers had many things that the tribes wanted -- like guns, metal tools, utensils, pots, pans, and cloth. The Native Americans were able to trade corn and animal skins to acquire such things. For example, a Cherokee could generally trade three deerskins for a hatchet and 20 deerskins for a pistol.

Meanwhile there was something else about the white settlers that affected the Native Americans. When the white settlers began intermingling with them, they accidentally spread new diseases. In 1738 and 1739, an estimated half of the Cherokee population died from smallpox.

These settlers were land-hungry, and they knew that the country they were moving into was big and fertile. In 1775, a man named Richard Henderson called a meeting of some of the Cherokee tribal leaders and offered to purchase from them an enormous piece of land (much of what is now Middle Tennessee and southern Kentucky) for lots of European-made merchandise, such as mirrors, clothes, and jewelry.

Most of the Cherokee leaders agreed. After all, it wasn’t land on which they lived; only land on which they hunted, and they didn’t have any idea how big this settlement might grow. Among the Cherokee leaders who was in favor of the deal was Little Carpenter, one of the few Cherokee who had been to England and seen how formidable the white world was.

However, one of the Cherokee men – Little Carpenter's son Dragging Canoe – didn’t like the idea. He made a big speech against the land sale, saying that it would be "a dark and bloody ground" for the Europeans to settle (click here to read his entire speech). He then stormed away from the meeting along with many of his followers.

After the land buy, known as the Transylvania Purchase, Henderson sent a few people west to explore his territory. One of the first was Daniel Boone, who tried to start a settlement in what is now Kentucky. A couple of years later, Henderson sent about two hundred people – men, women and children – in two groups across the wilderness to settle a place on the Cumberland River that was then known as French Lick. By the way, it was called French Lick because French traders had already been there many times, and because there was a salt lick and spring there that drew wild animals from far away.

The women, children, and the rest of the men came by boat, led by James Donelson. (If you look at the map, you can see what a long boat ride this was, down the Watauga and Tennessee rivers, then upstream on the Ohio and Cumberland rivers.) Along the way they met up with war parties led by – guess who – Dragging Canoe. His followers by now were known as Chickamaugans, and they attacked the settlers many times as they came down the river. Thirty-three of the people who came on the boat ride died along the way. But eventually most of them made their way to French Lick, which by now had a fort there called Nashborough. 

Battle of the Bluffs

Today it is hard for us to imagine what French Lick looked like when the settlers got there. But somehow, working together, they improved the fort and built many cabins (using wood from many of the boats that they had just come on). They called their new home Fort Nashborough. 

Because of this, some Native Americans made attacks on the Fort Nashborough. The biggest attack was the so-called Battle of the Bluffs in 1781. What happened is this: a small group of Native American warriors came up to the fort, fired a few shots, and ran. The men inside Fort Nashborough grabbed their guns and chased after them, not realizing they were heading into a trap. After the men left the fort, a much larger group of Native Americans attacked the fort, by this time defended by mostly women and children. One of the women had an idea; she set loose all the settlers’ dogs (which had been trained to attack Native Americans). The dogs attacked the warriors and in the confusion the battle was turned and the fort saved. So the first battle ever in Middle Tennessee was won by dogs!

This wasn’t the only time that things got ugly between white settlers and Native Americans in Middle Tennessee. Cherokee and Creek warriors conducted many ambushes on farms all over what is now Middle Tennessee. Along the way many settlers lost sons, daughters, brothers and sisters in raids. One person who lived through the era later estimated that early Nashville lost about one man, woman, or child per week during the first fifteen years of its existence!

In 1788, forty settlers were floating down the Tennessee River near the site of present-day Chattanooga . They were ambushed by Dragging Canoe’s Chickamaugans, and thirty-seven of them were killed. That same year a family coming down river was attacked and slaughtered; the only members of the family who were spared were the mother, the daughters and one of the boys, whose name was Joseph Brown (more on his incredible story here). Six years later another group of thirty-three immigrants was slaughtered near Muscle Shoals.

Eventually, the settlers got revenge. In 1794, with the authorization of the government of North Carolina, about 1,500 armed settlers left Nashville and conducted a series of brutal attacks on Cherokee villages that were located in what is now southeastern Tennessee. It was known as the Nickajack Expedition.

From that point on relations between white settlers and Cherokee people got better. The Cherokee realized that they couldn’t defeat the white settlers, and that the only way that they could survive was to try to adapt to the white culture.