East Of Flatwoods
The Indian tribes that were most concerned with the passage of settlers down the Boone Wilderness Trail and their settlement of Powell Valley and of Kentucky were the Cherokee and the Shawnee.
The Cherokee were the most powerful and numerous of the tribes in the Southeast. Their domain at its greatest spread over southwest Virginia, east Tennessee, western North and South Carolina, northern Georgia, and northwestern Alabama and encompassed 40,000 square miles. The tribe originated west of the Mississippi and was a part of the same ethnic group as the Iroquois. In their passage to the East the Cherokee and Iroquois split with the latter going to the Mohawk Valley of New York. The Cherokee drove the Creek Indians out of the region defined above, and were in constant war with them till both were conquered by the settlers. Even though the Cherokee continued to refer to the Iroquois as “Big Brother”, they often were in conflict over the land between them, especially the land in Virginia. The settlers and their governments played the two tribes against each other as they purchased first one tribe’s land rights and then the other’s.
The larger tribe was divided into three geographic and linguistic groups; the Lower Towns of South Carolina, the greater Chattanooga region; the Middle Towns of the central Smokies; and Overhills in Northeast Tennessee. At the height of their power they could field 6,000 warriors.
Chota on the Little Tennessee River was the capital of the Overhills, in whose territory the Great Warrior’s Path lay. Much of the fighting between the Cherokee and the settlers was with the Overhills. However, about half way through the Cherokee Wars the Cherokee split into peace and war factions, and the war factions of each of the three subtribes united and moved to Chattanooga area near Chickamauga Creek, and thence became generally known as the Chickamaugans. It was this group that engaged in the most bitter of the campaigns against the settlers, and against the emigrants on this Trail. Among the leading war chiefs of the Chickamauga Cherokee were Dragging Canoe, Double Head, John Watts, and Bob Benge.
The Shawnee lived in southern Ohio during the pioneer period, but before that the tribe had been split, with portions living in widely scattered places in the East. For instance, the tribe that was called the Savanahs in Georgia were really a subdivision of the Shawnee. Another division lived in close association with the Cherokee, and were referred to as the Cherokee Shawnee. There was a contingent that included the young Tecumseh that lived with the Chickamaugans near Chattanooga, and frequently accompanied Chief Benge on his raids along this Trail.
The Cherokee generally raided in East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and the Cumberland Valley of Kentucky; while the Shawnee were the scourge of the Blue Grass.