Inhabitants of Our Region – Part 1
Pre-History: Indigenous Tribes
According to the NC Office of State Archeology, the prehistory of our state spans a period of at least 12,000 years, during which time several native Indian cultures developed, flourished, and changed.
Little evidence has been left of how the first three groups lived. However, archaeologists generally consider the main manifestation of Mississippian Indian culture in WNC to be the
Pisgah people, who were likely ancestors to the Cherokees. The 1991 edition of The Tar Heel Junior Historian below explains more about them.
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The Cherokees
He does have a point: While storytelling is deeply rooted across each early WNC cultural layer—from the early Native American tribes, to European explorers and, later, the wave of immigrant settlers, as well as enslaved Africans brought here against their will—it wasn’t until the late 1800s that folklorists began collecting and writing them down.
So, especially where little artifact evidence remains, we can often learn about the language, people, and events of our past through the stories and songs they told and sang while working or during social gatherings, many of which have been passed down through generations.
More than a thousand years ago, these people began developing a distinctly Cherokee way of life. Theirs was a matriarchal society, with land being handed down through the women of the tribe. They lived in towns of rectangular log houses and worked extensive, communally-held farms nearby. There was a council house for meetings and religious ceremonies, since these were a highly spiritual people with ceremonies and customs that maintained a balance in all things.Corn, beans, and squash—the “three sisters”—were staples in their diet.
Cherokee life represented in a painting by Greg Harlin, McClung Museum of Natural History & Culture, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
FIRST EUROPEANS: THE SPANISH EXPEDITIONS
A depiction of DeSoto meeting with native Americans.
The tribes had developed a thriving and sophisticated culture by the arrival of Hernando DeSoto’s expedition in 1540, a watershed event that led to drastic and lasting change for the Great Cherokee Nation. De Soto’s men were the first, and possibly the last, Europeans to see the great Indian chiefdoms of what archaeologists call the “Mississippian period.”
According to the North Carolina History Project, while scholars disagree on the exact path of Hernando De Soto’s expedition in the Southeast US from 1539–1542, it’s generally agreed that he passed through the present-day Piedmont and into western North Carolina.
One theory suggests that De Soto and his men traveled to Chalague (southwest of Charlotte), Guaquili (near Hickory), and Joara (near Morganton). Meanwhile, there is a historical marker in Highlands, Macon County, that claims the route passed there. This is not surprising, since, as strangers in a strange land, the group lacked accurate means of measuring their location or how far they had traveled, and they left only written journals of their travels.
At any rate, it’s generally agreed that the Spaniards traveled in the mountains and eventually along the French Broad River, which they followed for a time before turning toward present-day Tennessee and elsewhere.
Reports of the time indicate the Native Americans along the way acted generously; however, and unfortunately, the Spanish treated the Indians less kindly. DeSoto and his company marched across Cherokee land in their search for gold, taking slaves and demanding food and tribute.
In late 1566, another Spaniard, Capt. Juan Pardo, with a second expedition of 125 men, arrived with instructions to claim the interior southeast region for Spain. He was to pacify the native inhabitants, convert them to Catholicism, and establish an over-land route to Spanish silver mines in Mexico (it was mistakenly believed Mexico was much closer than it actually was).
Despite what was supposed to have been a more cooperative relationship, the local inhabitants were soon angered again by the Spanish demands for food, women, and canoes.
Newly introduced diseases (such as smallpox, measles, and syphilis) were also beginning to destabilize the native community, causing additional resentment and fear.
A depiction of Pardo meeting with native Americans.
In fact, some scholars believe that as much as 95% of the Native American people were lost to disease over the course of the next 150 years.
Others argue that figure was not universal, or really even common, and that “the excess mortality Native American nations faced was the result of a toxic combination of factors including, but not limited to, epidemic disease, the indigenous slave trade, instigated warfare, territorial displacement, and resource deprivation…and the population could not rebound.”
Pardo left a contingent of his men behind before heading northwest to continue explorations, and he never returned to the area. Within two years, the Indians had burned the six Spanish forts that Pardo’s men had built in the region and killed all but one of the 120 Spanish men stationed in those garrisons. Wisely, Spain then ended all attempts to conquer and colonize the southeastern interior.
However, the die had already been cast: These first encounters signaled the beginning of the end of the native way of life, and a new era of colonization. Read Part 2 here.
Read Part 2 here.
