Chota and Tanasi Cherokee Village Sites | |
 Monument at the Chota site | |
| Location | Monroe County, Tennessee |
|---|---|
| Nearest city | Vonore |
| Coordinates | 35°33′18″N84°7′52″W / 35.55500°N 84.13111°W /35.55500; -84.13111 |
| Built | c. 1600-1745 A.D. |
| NRHP reference No. | 73001813 |
| Added to NRHP | 1973 |
Chota (also spelledChote,Echota,Itsati, and other similar variations) is a historicOverhill Cherokee town site inMonroe County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. Developing after nearbyTanasi, Chota (Cherokee:ᎢᏣᏘ,romanized: Itsati) was the most important of theOverhill towns from the late 1740s until 1788. It replaced Tanasi as thede facto capital, or 'mother town' of theCherokee people.
A number of prominent Cherokee leaders were born or resided at Chota, among themAttakullakulla,Oconostota,Old Hop,Old Tassel,Hanging Maw, andNancy Ward.[1][2]
The former Chota and Tanasi sites are listed together on theNational Register of Historic Places; Tanasi also has an archaeological site designation (40MR62) assigned in 1972. Since 1979, both sites have been mostly submerged by theTellico Lake impoundment of theLittle Tennessee River. Archeological excavations were conducted before the dam was completed.
During the excavations, the site of the Chota townhouse was found. Major Cherokee towns were centered around a large townhouse or council house, the site of community meetings of hundreds of people. These were usually built on top of an existingplatform mound in the center of the town. These earthworks had typically been built by ancestral peoples of theSouth Appalachian Mississippian or earlier cultures.
Prior to the flooding of Tellico Reservoir, the Chota townhouse site was raised above the reservoir's operating levels and connected via a causeway to the mainland. The Chota monument, situated directly above the ancient townhouse site, consists of eight pillars —one for each of the seven Cherokeeclans, and one for the nation. The grave of ChiefOconostota, found in the 1969 excavations, was re-interred next to the monument. This site is now managed by the federally recognizedEastern Band of Cherokee Indians, based inCherokee, North Carolina.
The Little Tennessee River enters Tennessee from its source in theAppalachian Mountains and flows for just over 50 miles (80 km) through parts ofBlount, Monroe, andLoudon counties before joining theTennessee River near present-dayLenoir City. Tellico Lake, created by the completion ofTellico Dam in 1979, spans the lower 33 miles (53 km) of the river. The Chota site is located approximately 27 miles (43 km) above the mouth of the river, opposite a sharp bend in the river known as Bacon's Bend.
Both Chota and Tanasi were developed by the Cherokee on a relatively flat terrace along the river, flanked by steep hills rising to the south. These hills are part of theAppalachian Ridge-and-Valley Physiographic Province, which is characterized by narrow, elongated ridges and steep hills. TheGreat Smoky Mountains and theUnicoi Mountains, both part of the main Appalachian crest, rise a few miles to the southeast and southwest, respectively.
The Tanasi and Chota monuments are located just off Highway 360 (Citico Road) on Bacon Ferry Road, which ends in a cul-de-sac parking lot. A short, maintained trail connects the parking lot to the Chota monument.
Tanasi is first mentioned in early 18th-century documents as the base or destination of various English colonial traders and diplomats. Tanasi appears on multiple maps of the Overhill territory produced in the 1720s and 1730s, but Chota does not. This suggests that Chota may have been part of Tanasi, or may not have been considered a town before the 1740s.[3] In the 1720s, the head man of Tanasi— known simply as the "Tanasi Warrior"— was the chief of the Overhill towns in what is now Tennessee, and the Middle and Valley towns in Western North Carolina.[4] Chota does not appear in historical records until around 1745.[5]
In 1730, however,Moytoy of Tellico, with the help of English emissaryAlexander Cuming, was crowned "Emperor of the Cherokee." This effectively shifted the overall capital to his town ofGreat Tellico, where Moytoy was chief.[6] When Moytoy died in 1741, his son,Amouskositte, attempted to succeed him as emperor. ButConocotocko, called Old Hop by the English, was the head man at Chota and began to consolidate power. By 1753 Chota had usurped Great Tellico as the "mother town" of the Overhill Cherokee.[7][8]
Around this time, on the eve of theFrench and Indian War, the Cherokee were reportedly leaning toward the French side, prompting the English colonies ofVirginia andSouth Carolina to increase contact with leaders of the Overhill towns in order to strengthen an alliance. Virginia sent Major Andrew Lewis with 60 men to build a fort at Chota, which was completed in August 1756. It was never garrisoned because the Cherokee allied with the English against the French. Later that year, South Carolina sent engineer William de Brahm with 300 men to buildFort Loudoun, which was completed on the Little Tennessee River in March 1757.
By 1760, relations between the British and Cherokee had soured,erupting into open conflict by February. After Cherokee warriors laidsiege to Fort Loudoun, a confrontation between 14 Cherokee hostages atFort Prince George and the fort's garrison on February 16 resulted in the death of the hostages. After several months, the Fort Loudoun garrison surrendered. The Cherokee killed many of them as they struggled to return to Virginia, and took plunder from the fort to Chota.[9]
After the fall of Fort Loudoun, British forces launched another offensive against the Cherokee, and the Overhill towns sued for peace. This was granted in theTreaty of Long Island in 1761. Virginia authorities dispatcheda friendship delegation led by colonist and military officerHenry Timberlake to solidify peace with the Overhill towns. He reached Chota in late December 1761, accompanied byOstenaco (the head Cherokee man atTomotley). At a ceremony inside the Chota townhouse, Ostenaco ceremoniously buried a hatchet, symbolizing peace between the British and Cherokee, and the parties smoked ritual tobacco in peace pipes. Timberlake spent the night in Old Hop's "hot-house" (a circular dwelling used by the Overhill Cherokee in cooler months) before proceeding toCitico the next day.[10]
Timberlake kept a journal, which was published posthumously as his memoirs. He also made a detailed map of the Cherokee towns along the river, entitled "Draught of the Cherokee Country". It recorded 52 dwellings and a townhouse at Chota. He listed chiefs, the number of warriors, and general population for each of the major towns.Conocotocko (Old Hop) was listed as governor of both Chota and Tanasi. The 175 warriors available at Chota made up the second-largest contingent among the Overhill towns, behind onlyCitico.
At the outbreak of theAmerican Revolution, the Cherokee aligned with the British, hoping to expel American colonists from their territory. In 1776,Dragging Canoe (the head man atMialoquo), Old Abraham ofChilhowee, andThe Raven led an unsuccessful three-pronged attack againstHeaton's station,Fort Watauga, and Carter's Valley, respectively. In response, Virginia sentColonel William Christian to subdue the Overhill towns. Christian's force entered the Little Tennessee Valley unopposed and negotiated a truce with chiefsAttakullakulla (Dragging Canoe's father) andOconastota. When Dragging Canoe refused to negotiate, however, Christian destroyed the towns of Great Tellico, Citico, Mialoquo, Chilhowee, andToqua.[11]
In 1780,John Sevier, who had just returned from theBattle of Kings Mountain, led an invasion of the Overhill country in response to several attacks by Cherokee on American settlements. His party destroyed most of the remaining Overhill towns, including their capital, Chota.
The Cherokee rebuilt Chota by 1784, but it never recovered its former status. In 1788,Old Tassel—who had become the leader of theOverhill towns—was murdered with another chief by Americans under a flag of truce at Chilhowee.[12] Largely in response to this atrocity, theChickamauga Cherokee moved their capital further south toUstanali, near what developed as modernCalhoun, Georgia.[13][14]
In the late 1790s, theDuke of Orleans paid a visit to the American fort known asTellico Blockhouse while on a tour of East Tennessee. There the duke watched more than 600 Cherokees engage in a ritual "ballplay" at Chota; he bet six gallons of brandy on the outcome.[15] By this time, only five dwellings remained standing in the town.[16]
In the 1880s, Cyrus Thomas, working for theSmithsonian Institution, conducted a survey of ancient earthworkmounds in the Little Tennessee Valley. Thomas excavated a mound at the Chota site and uncovered several artifacts. The site was undisturbed for decades.
In 1939, aUniversity of Tennessee team, mainly under the auspices of Thomas Lewis and Madeline Kneburg, conducted excavations at the Chota site. Laborers were paid by theWorks Projects Administration during theGreat Depression. Their findings, which Lewis and Kneburg hoped would provide comparison data for theirHiwassee Island findings, included 85 pit features, 12 burials, and one structure.[17]
After theTennessee Valley Authority announced plans in 1967 to build Tellico Dam, which would flood several historic Cherokee sites, the University of Tennessee initiated a plan to conduct salvage archeological excavations throughout the Little Tennessee Valley. Excavations were conducted at Chota between 1969 and 1974, as litigation stalled the dam project. The excavations uncovered 783 features (mostly refuse pits), the postmold layouts of 31 structures, and 91 burials.[18] Burial 10, uncovered in 1969, was identified by its grave goods (namely a pair of wire spectacles) as that of Chief Oconostota.[19] Thousands of stone and ceramic artifacts were uncovered, including projectile points dating to theArchaic period (8000–1000 B.C.).[20]
The structures uncovered at Chota included two townhouses, one of which had a diameter of 60 feet (18 m) and another a diameter of just over 50 feet (15 m). The smaller townhouse, which was slightly older, may have been the Tanasi townhouse. Other structures included a 48-foot (15 m) x 23-foot (7.0 m) summer pavilion flanked by a 100-foot (30 m) x 160-foot (49 m) village plaza, and 11 rectangular summer dwelling/circular winter dwelling pairings. Dwellings were spaced between 40 feet (12 m) and 100 feet (30 m) apart and were located up to 2,000 feet (610 m) from the townhouse.[21] One of the dwellings was classified as EarlyMississippian culture (c. 1000–1300 A.D.), while the others were historic Cherokee.[22]
In 1986, the burials revealed at the Chota site were reinterred in a burial mound at the Sequoyah Museum, nearVonore.[23] The exception was the remains of Oconostota, which were buried next to the Chota monument over the townhouse site, as desired by the Cherokee.
The eight pillars stand for the sevenclans and one for the Cherokee nation as a whole.
