Where Is Tennessee?

Where Is Tennessee?

Around two in the morning on December 16, 1811, people from Arkansas to New York City were shaken awake by an earthquake. In Tennessee, people heard noises such as thunder, screaming, and the cries of animals. The air smelled like rotten eggs while the quakes continued. As the morning sun lit the new day, another violent quake shook the ground.

The New Madrid earthquakes made the land rise and fall like ocean waves. They bent large trees and created ten-foot-wide cracks in the ground. Hundreds of earthquakes and aftershocks rocked the people of Tennessee during the winter of 1811–1812. The land of Tennessee was changed forever.

People had been building their homes on that land for thousands of years. Those who lived through the New Madrid earthquakes had to be determined and creative. They repaired, rebuilt, and helped make Tennessee what it is today.

Chapter 1
Tennessee Land and First People

One of the most magnificent views in North America is Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains. Smoke doesn’t cover the mountains, though it looks that way. Plants and trees on the mountains give off vapors, which are a hazy fog or mist in the air. When the vapors combine with the air, we see the blue mist that has come to symbolize Tennessee. These mountains are part of the Appalachian Mountains, a range that stretches from Alabama all the way north into Canada. (The pronunciation of the word Appalachian varies from region to region, but many folks in Tennessee say appa-LATCH-un.)

The land of Tennessee includes the peaks and valleys of the Great Smoky Mountains, flat plains, and rolling hills. The area—and the life there—is diverse. With cool winters and warm summers, about two hundred kinds of trees cover more than half of Tennessee. Animals such as raccoons, American toads, and woodpeckers make their homes on land while catfish, beavers, and an occasional alligator swim through its streams, rivers, and lakes.

Tennessee is nearly four times as long as it is tall. The Great Smoky Mountains are on the eastern side, while the mighty Mississippi River forms the state’s western border. Seven states surround Tennessee: Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Arkansas, Kentucky, Virginia, and Georgia.

Underground, about ten thousand caves and caverns form pockets deep into the land of Tennessee. That’s more than any other state. Rushing water pours over Ruby Falls. At 260 feet high, this Chattanooga waterfall is underground! It is the tallest and deepest underground waterfall open to the public in the United States. The Lost Sea in Sweetwater, located between Knoxville and Chattanooga, is America’s largest underground lake.

People have admired Tennessee’s natural wonders for thousands of years. The first people to make Tennessee their home were hunters and gatherers. They used resources from the land and rivers for food and shelter. We don’t know what these people called themselves, but they’re known in history as the Woodland and Mississippian period peoples.

We do know that these prehistoric (prior to written history) people created art because we have some of it. Near Lebanon, Tennessee, a farmer found an 18.5-inch-tall carved sculpture of a kneeling man that dates from the Mississippian period. The stone sculpture was nicknamed Sandy. Today the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville displays this sculpture, as well as other art and historical human-made items called artifacts.

As the Woodland and Mississippian period peoples began farming, they settled into villages, including in the Mississippi River Valley. They made art, like pottery, and developed their skills growing crops. Some of their villages created giant mounds as early as 300 BCE and as “recently” as 1350 CE. The mounds are so big, they may have taken as long as two hundred years to build.

Many, many people worked on each mound. They used stone tools and carried soil in baskets or animal skins. Evidence of fifty mounds have been found at the Pinson Mounds, Mound Bottom, and Castalian Spring Mounds, spread over three hundred miles of Tennessee. Even though the mounds likely got smaller over time, today one of the Pinson Mounds still stands seventy-two feet high! That’s as tall as a seven-story building. The mounds often had structures on top of them which were part of the communities. Some were religious centers, burial sites, or even homes.

Eventually, the descendants of the Woodland and Mississippian period peoples formed groups. The Chickasaw (say: CHICK-uh-saw) Nation settled in the western part of the land we now call Tennessee. In the east, the Cherokee (say: CHAIR-oh-kee) Nation settled. They called their home Shaconage which means “place of the blue smoke.” Shawnee, Creek, and other nations also lived in what is now Tennessee. The state’s name comes from a Cherokee village called Tanasi.

In 1540, the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto, along with hundreds of soldiers, servants, and enslaved people, reached what would become Tennessee. The group looked for gold, silver, copper, and river pearls. They hunted and gathered food to eat and traded with Indigenous groups for items such as mulberries and honey. This was before there were honeybees in North America, so Indigenous people likely received the honey from trading with the Mayan people, in what is now Central America.

More groups from Spain, France, and England came looking for riches. They built forts and claimed land for their countries. European contact led to hardship for the Cherokee and Chickasaw Nations, as well as other Indigenous groups.

Many Indigenous people died from diseases like smallpox, which they had never been exposed to before. Others fought with settlers over resources. The French killed many from the Natchez Nation when they were at war. Shawnee people were forced to move by settlers who wanted their land. Europeans enslaved some Indigenous people. Some Indigenous groups became part of larger nations.

In 1763, the British (also called English) government made a law that all land between the Atlantic Ocean and the Appalachian Mountains was for European settlers. The land in the west was reserved for Indigenous nations. But in just five years, the treaty called the Proclamation of 1763 was broken and European settlers moved west to what would become Tennessee.

Though Indigenous, French, and Spanish people explored, hunted, and trapped on the land of Tennessee at different times, the British now dominated. In 1775, the war called the American Revolution began between the thirteen colonies and the British. The colonies won their independence to become the United States of America.

Tennessee wasn’t a state yet. Few settlers lived there. In 1784, a few counties banded together and called themselves the state of Franklin. It had its own governor—but the United States thought it was too far west.

Wilderness Road

Daniel Boone blazed—or created—the first trail from Tennessee to Kentucky. He knew more about the local land and trails than other white settlers. Investors hired Boone to create a road so more settlers could move west of the Appalachian Mountains.

In 1775, Boone led about thirty men out of what is now called Kingsport, Tennessee. They chopped down trees and brush to make a new trail. It went through the Appalachian Mountains in a place called the Cumberland Gap, where Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee now meet. Though called the Wilderness Road, it was really a rough trail that often had to be traveled on foot.

At first the Wilderness Road was about two hundred miles in length. Then it became even longer. By 1792, the road stretched to Knoxville, Tennessee. An estimated three hundred thousand settlers traveled the Wilderness Road between 1775 and 1810.

On June 1, 1796, the United States finally admitted Tennessee as the sixteenth state. Knoxville was the capital where government decisions were made. Soon, the capital’s location would change.