Citico | |
 Citico ("Settacoo") onHenry Timberlake's 1762 "Draught of the Cherokee Country" | |
| Location | Monroe County, Tennessee |
|---|---|
| Nearest city | Vonore |
| Coordinates | 35°32′56″N84°5′56″W / 35.54889°N 84.09889°W /35.54889; -84.09889 |
| Built | 1000–1500 CE |
| NRHP reference No. | 78002614 |
| Added to NRHP | 1978 |
Citico (also "Settaco", "Sitiku", and similar variations;Cherokee:ᏏᏘᎫ,romanized: Sitigu) is a prehistoric and historicNative American site inMonroe County, Tennessee, in thesoutheastern United States. The site's namesakeCherokee village was the largest of theOverhill towns, housing an estimatedIndian population of 1,000 by the mid-18th century.[1] TheMississippian village that preceded the site's Cherokee occupation is believed to have been the village of "Satapo" visited by theJuan Pardo expedition in 1567.
The Citico site is now submerged by theTellico Lake impoundment of theLittle Tennessee River, created by the completion ofTellico Dam at the mouth of the river in 1979. The modern community ofCitico Beach has developed along the shoreline above the ancient site. The lake is managed by theTennessee Valley Authority and theTennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.
Tellico Lake covers the lower 33 miles (53 km) of the Little Tennessee River, which flows down from the mountains to the south and traverses parts ofBlount, Monroe, andLoudon counties before emptying into theTennessee River nearLenoir City. The Citico site was situated along the southwest bank of the river immediately below the river's confluence with Citico Creek, which empties into the river approximately 31 miles (50 km) upstream from the river's mouth. Citico is located in an area where theGreat Smoky Mountains and theUnicoi Mountains give way to theAppalachian Ridge-and-Valley Province.
Citico Beach is located along Highway 455 approximately 14 miles (23 km) south ofVonore. The Citico site is also visible from the Harrison Branch boat ramp, which is located just offU.S. Route 129 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Pumpkin Center.
On October 16, 1567, an expedition led by Spanish explorer Juan Pardo arrived at a village known as "Satapo" while en route toCoosa, a powerful chiefdom centered in modern northern Georgia. Research conducted by anthropologistCharles Hudson in the 1980s suggests that Satapo was situated at the Citico site in Monroe County, and that the two names are linguistically related. According to Hudson, the Pardo expedition leftOlamico (on Zimmerman's Island, now submerged byDouglas Lake) on October 13 and traveled southwest across the foothills of the Great Smokies, crossingLittle River at modern-dayWalland and traversingHappy Valley to arrive at "Chalahume" (Chilhowee) in the Little Tennessee Valley on October 15. After the expedition made its way to Satapo the following day, a friendly native warned Pardo of a plot against him, and the expedition returned to Olamico shortly thereafter.[2]
Hudson speculates that when the Cherokee replaced Satapo'sMuskogeean-speaking Mississippian inhabitants, the Cherokee kept the site's name. However, as theCherokee language lacksbilabial stops, the "p" sound in "Satapo" was replaced with a "k" sound, giving the site its Cherokee name.
The Cherokee believed that a cliff overlooking Citico was once home the "Tlanuwas"— two giant hawks that terrorized people in the valley until a high priest managed to rob their nest and drop their eggs in the water below, where they were devoured by theUktena.[3] A Cherokee village thrived at Citico when English explorers and traders began entering the Tennessee Valley in large numbers in the early 18th century. Citico's "head man" was among the 'chiefs' who met with Colonel George Chicken atTanasi in 1725 to form an alliance against the hostileCreeks. Citico appears on George Hunter's 1730 map of the Cherokee region and is mentioned byAlexander Cuming that same year as being one of the Overhill towns headed by a "prince" (i.e., not headed by a "king," and thus not a "mother town").[4]
CaptainHenry Timberlake, who visited the Overhill towns on a peace mission (theTimberlake Expedition) in 1761–1762, reported 204 warriors at Citico, the most of any Overhill town. Cheulah, the head man of Citico, greeted Timberlake with a ceremonial dance involving 400 townspeople and presented Timberlake with a string of beads. At a pipe-smoking ceremony held afterward at the Citico townhouse, Timberlake recalled smoking so manypeace pipes that he "could not stir for several hours."[5]
The Overhill Cherokee consistently found themselves at odds with encroaching Euro-American settlers. After the Cherokee aligned themselves with the British in theAmerican Revolution, the colonies dispatched forces underColonel William Christian andGeneral Griffith Rutherford to subdue the Overhill towns in 1776. WhenWar ChiefDragging Canoe refused to settle for peace, Christian burned five Overhill towns, including Citico.[6] The town burned had already been deserted because its entire population had chosen to follow Dragging Canoe's move to the southwest, where they re-established themselves at the mouth of a small creek in a town of the same name in what is nowChattanooga. HistorianJ. G. M. Ramsey reported a conference between militia commanderJohn Sevier and Cherokee ChiefHanging Maw held at the original Citico in 1782 in which the two sides agreed to a truce. Ramsey goes on to relate a violent encounter two years later between Major James Hubbard and Untoola— a Cherokee "head man" known as the "Gun Rod of Citico"— that left Untoola dead and led to a warrant being issued for Hubbard's arrest.[7]
In the late 1780s, a company of scouts led by Captain John Fain was collecting (or stealing) apples at the former site of Citico when they were ambushed by a band of Cherokees. Sixteen of Fain's men were killed, and 4 were wounded. A militia force led by Captain Nathaniel Evans arrived shortly thereafter to find several scalped and disemboweled bodies. Evans eventually linked up with Sevier's larger force, and the combined force set out in pursuit of the Cherokee responsible for the slaughter.[8]
In the early 19th century, Scots-Irish, English, and German families increasingly began to settle along the isolated ridges and hollows of theCitico Creek Wilderness. Citico Baptist Church, founded in the 1840s by the Rev. William Clinton Millsaps, is the burial site for many of these early settlers.
WhilePaleo-Indian fluted points andArchaic period (8000–1000 BCE) artifacts were uncovered at Citico and a substantialWoodland period (1000 BCE–1000 CE) site was located at nearby Harrison Branch, Citico probably did not rise to prominence until the 16th century.[9] Around this time, Citico is believed to have supersededToqua as the dominantDallas phase (ca. 1300–1550 CE) Mississippian village in the Little Tennessee Valley.[10]
In the 1880s, a mound survey conducted by the Smithsonian Institution reported eight mounds— one"temple" mound and seven smaller mounds— at the Citico site. The temple mound contained at least 91 burials. A brief excavation carried out by the Knoxville Chapter of the Tennessee Archaeological Society uncovered several Woodland, Mississippian, and Cherokee artifacts, includingshell gorgets and knife blades. The chapter also reported a Cherokee burial accompanied by a musket, knife, steatite pipe, and glass beads.[11]
In anticipation of the flooding of the site by Tellico Lake, University of Tennessee researchers conducted excavations at Citico in the late 1960s and late 1970s. Excavators uncovered the posthole patterns of 11 domestic structures, 55 burials, 119 features, and over 30,000 ceramics. The structures included two rectangular summer house/circular winter house pairings characteristic of Overhill Cherokee dwellings, a small circular structure, a square structure, and five rectangular structures. One of the rectangular structures was associated with the site's Mississippian occupation, while the other 10 structures dated to the Cherokee period.[12][13] These excavations also uncovered Spanish materials, includingClarksdale bells, lending further evidence to the theory that Citico was indeed the Satapo visited by the Pardo expedition in 1567.[14][15] An analysis of faunal remains from the Cherokee period showed a heavy reliance upon deer and bear for meat supplements which gradually gave way to a reliance upon domesticated animals, such as hogs and chickens, due to increased adoption of Euro-American agricultural methods.[16]
| Middle Mississippian |
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| South Appalachian Mississippian |
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| Fort Walton culture | |||||||||||
| Pensacola culture | |||||||||||
| Plaquemine Mississippian | |||||||||||
| Caddoan Mississippian | |||||||||||
| Upper Mississippian cultures |
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| Culture |
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