Are there any Native American tribes in Kentucky?
Cherokee Indians. The Cherokee claimed some land in southeastern Kentucky and traces of culture of Cherokee type are said to be found in archeological remains along the upper course of the Cumberland, but no permanent Cherokee settlement is known to have existed in historic times within this State. Chickasaw Indians.
What happened to the Indian tribes of Kentucky?
Kentucky history timeline revealed that the peak of the conflicts in which Indian tribes of Kentucky was part of was in the 1800s. It was around this time that they were being forced to leave their original settlements. Kentucky Indian tribes were mostly hunter-gatherers and hunter farmers.
Did the Cherokee live in Kentucky?
For more than 200 years, American historians have argued that the Cherokee never lived in Kentucky; rather, it was a hunting ground, a middle ground for all Indians, which was at the center of many dark and bloody disputes. Actually, many Nations of American Indians have lived in Kentucky since time immemorial.
What was the first permanent settlement in Kentucky?
By 1774, only a few bands of Native Americans lived south of the Ohio River; the major tribes, based north of the river, agreed not to hunt south of it. In 1774, Harrod's Town became Kentucky's first permanent European settlement. The town, named for James Harrod, was founded by the order of British governor of Virginia Lord Dunmore.
Where did the Cherokee tribe live in Kentucky?
It restated that the Cherokee land in Kentucky was restricted to the area east of the Little South Fork and south of the Cumberland River.
Did the Cherokee ever live in Kentucky?
Cherokee Indians are believed to have lived and hunted in what became Kentucky for hundreds of years before the first known white explorers made their way through the mountain passes.
Are there any native reservations in Kentucky?
There are no federally recognized Indian tribes in Kentucky today. Most Native Americans were forced to leave Kentucky during the Indian Removals of the 1800's.
Did the Trail of Tears Go through Kentucky?
Trail of Tears National Historic Trail Map The Trail of Tears National Historic Trail passes through the present-day states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.
What kind of Indians lived in KY?
The most prominent early indigenous tribes in Kentucky were the Cherokee, Chickasaws, and Shawnee. Most of these tribes were eliminated from Kentucky by about the early 1800s either through warfare or resettlement to other territories by the federal government.
What were the Native Americans' first settlements in Kentucky?
Although inhabited by Native Americans in prehistoric times, when explorers and settlers began entering Kentucky in the mid-18th century, there were no permanent Native American settlements in the region. Instead, the country was used as common hunting grounds by Shawnees from the north and Cherokees from the south. The Iroquois also hunted there until 1768. The exploration of the area that would become Kentucky was made in 1750 by a scouting party led by Dr. Thomas Walker. The Iroquois claim to much of what is now Kentucky was purchased in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768); that of the Shawnee and Mingo at the Treaty of Camp Charlotte concluding Dunmore's War (1774), and that of the Cherokee at the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals (1775). However, this last treaty (The "Transylvania Purchase") was not recognized by the renegade Cherokee Chief Dragging Canoe. During the American Revolution, settlers soon began pouring into the region; Dragging Canoe responded by leading his faction into the Chickamauga Wars (1776-1794), at the height of the War for Independence. The Shawnees north of the Ohio River, were also unhappy about the settlement of Kentucky, and allied themselves with the British.
Who explored Kentucky?
The Iroquois also hunted there until 1768. The exploration of the area that would become Kentucky was made in 1750 by a scouting party led by Dr. Thomas Walker.
What were the Shawnees unhappy about?
The Shawnees north of the Ohio River, were also unhappy about the settlement of Kentucky, and allied themselves with the British. After 1775, Kentucky grew rapidly as the first settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains were founded, with settlers (primarily from Virginia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania) entering the region via ...
What treaty did the Iroquois claim to the Cherokee?
The Iroquois claim to much of what is now Kentucky was purchased in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768); that of the Shawnee and Mingo at the Treaty of Camp Charlotte concluding Dunmore's War (1774), and that of the Cherokee at the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals (1775). However, this last treaty (The "Transylvania Purchase") was not recognized by ...
Why was the Fort of Kentucky built?
A fort was built there during the last year of the war for defense against the British and their Native American allies. Kentucky was a battleground during the war; the Battle of Blue Licks, one of the last major battles of the Revolution, was fought in Kentucky.
What was the westernmost part of Kentucky?
The westernmost part of Kentucky, west of the Tennessee River, was recognized as hunting ground belonging to the Chickasaw by the 1786 Treaty of Hopewell, and remained so until they sold it to the U.S. in 1818. Read more about this topic: History Of Kentucky.
What were the major crops in Kentucky?
Tobacco, corn, and hemp were the major crops of Kentucky, and the hunting stage of frontier life faded away. Kentucky's second largest city, and former capital Lexington, is named for Lexington, Massachusetts, site of one of the first battles of the Revolution.
What were the two cultures that lived in Kentucky?
Two different farming cultures lived in Kentucky after CE 1,000. Archaeologists call those groups who lived west of the Falls “Mississippians,” and those groups who lived east of the Falls “Fort Ancient. These people were the immediate ancestors of the Indian groups living in Kentucky when the first European explorers appeared in eastern Tennessee/western North Carolina in the early 1500s.
How long is Indian history in Kentucky?
As currently understood, American Indian history in Kentucky is over eleven thousand years long. Events that took place before recorded history are lost to time. With the advent of recorded history, some events played out on an international stage, as in the mid-1700s during the war between the French and English for control of the Ohio Valley region. Others took place on a national stage, as during the Removal years of the early 1800s, or during the events surrounding the looting and grave desecration at Slack Farm in Union County in the late 1980s.
What was the American Indian movement?
During this ethnic and cultural awakening of the 1960s and 1970s, long “forgotten” people appeared, claiming to be Indians. Also in the 1960s, state and federal governments passed legislation to address the preservation and protection of state and national heritage, which also included the ancient Indian past, and to address issues of ethnic inequality.
What is the best known chapter in Kentucky's American Indian history?
This is the best known chapter in Kentucky’s American Indian history. Events that take place in Kentucky intersect with historical events of national (the exploration and settling of the Trans-Alleghany West, American’s first frontier; and the American Revolution) and international (known as the Seven Years War in Europe, it was referred to as the French and Indian War in North America) scope. The names of American Indian peoples (Shawnee, Iroquois, Delaware, Cherokee, and Chickasaw) and individuals (Misemeathaquatha or Big Hominy; Hokolesqua or Cornstalk; Cathahecassa or Black Hoof; and Tecumseh) begin to appear in the historical record.
What is Kentucky's history?
Kentucky’s ancient American Indian history belongs to the broad Eastern Woodlands Tradition of North American Indian heritage. It shares many characteristics with the indigenous histories of the states that surround it.
When did the Indian Removal Act take place?
In truth, Kentucky’s Indian removal had taken place much earlier, first in response to the events of the French and Indian War, then the American Revolution, and finally, the War of 1812.
When did humans first live in Kentucky?
Based on evidence in other regions, humans were likely living in Kentucky prior to 10,000 BCE, but archaeological evidence of their occupation has yet to be documented. Stone tools, particularly projectile points ( arrowheads) and scrapers, are the primary evidence of the earliest human activity in the Americas.
What era was Kentucky in?
Archaic era (7500 BCE – 1000 BCE) By 7500 BCE, a catastrophic extinction of large game animals at the end of the Ice Age changed the culture of this area. By 4000 BCE, Kentucky peoples exploited native wetland resources.
How did the first settlers get their money?
They obtained cash from selling burley tobacco, hemp, horses and mules; the hemp was spun and woven for cotton bale making and rope. Tobacco was labor-intensive to cultivate. Planters were attracted to Kentucky from Maryland and Virginia, where their land was exhausted from tobacco cultivation. Plantations in the Bluegrass region used slave labor on a smaller scale than the cotton plantations of the Deep South.
What was the Woodland era?
The Woodland era represents the "middle" era between the mostly hunter-gatherers of the Archaic era and the agriculturalist Mississippian culture era. The Woodland era is a developmental stage without any massive changes but is constituted by a continuous development in shelter construction, stone and bone tools, textile manufacture, leather crafting, and agricultural cultivation. Archaeologist have identified distinctly separate cultures during the Middle Woodland period. Examples include the Armstrong culture, Copena culture, Crab Orchard culture, Fourche Maline culture, the Goodall Focus, the Havana Hopewell culture, the Kansas City Hopewell, the Marksville culture, and the Swift Creek culture. The remains of two distinct Woodland groups, the Adena (early Woodland) and the Hopewell (middle Woodland), have been found in present-day Louisville, and in the central Bluegrass and northeastern Kentucky areas.
Why did Kentucky support the Mexican American War?
Some citizens enthusiastically supported the war, at least in part because residents believed victory would bring new lands for the expansion of slavery. Others—especially Whigs, who followed Henry Clay, opposed the war and refused to participate. The quest for honor was especially important, as a rising generation sought their self-identity and a link with heroic ancestors. The state easily met its quota of 2500 volunteer troops in 1846 and 1847. Although the war's popularity declined after a year or two, clear majorities supported it throughout.
How many artifacts were found at Indian Knoll?
At Kentucky's Indian Knoll site, 67,000 artifacts were uncovered, including 4,000 projectile points and twenty-three dog burials, seventeen of which were well preserved. Some dogs were buried alone, others with their masters, some with adults, male and female, and others with children.
What are the evidences of early human activity in the Americas?
Based on evidence in other regions, humans were probably living in Kentucky before 10,000 BCE; however, archaeological evidence of their occupation has not yet been documented. Stone tools, particularly projectile points ( arrowheads) and scrapers, are primary evidence of the earliest human activity in the Americas. Paleo-Indian bands probably moved their camps several times per year. Their camps were typically small, consisting of 20 to 50 people. Band organization was egalitarian, with no formal leaders and no social ranking or classes. Linguistic, blood-type and molecular evidence, such as DNA, indicate that indigenous Americans are descendants of east Siberian peoples.
What tribes claimed land in Kentucky?
Cherokee Indians. The Cherokee claimed some land in southeastern Kentucky and traces of culture of Cherokee type are said to be found in archeological remains along the upper course of the Cumberland, but no permanent Cherokee settlement is known to have existed in historic times within this State. Chickasaw Indians.
Where did the Shawnee Indians settle?
Their more permanent settlements were farther south about Nashville. At one Shawnee town, located for a short time near Lexington, Ky., the noted Shawnee chief, Blackhoof, was born. The tribe crossed and recrossed the State several times in its history and used it still more frequently as a hunting ground.
Where did the Mosopelea Indians live?
Mosopelea Indians. This tribe may have lived within the boundaries of Kentucky for a brief time, perhaps at the mouth of the Cumberland River, when they were on their way from Ohio to the lower Mississippi.
Who were the Chickasaw Indians?
The westernmost end of Kentucky was claimed by the Chickasaw, and at a very early period they had a settlement on the lower course of Tennessee River, either in Kentucky or Tennessee. Mosopelea Indians.
What river did the Yuchi Indians live on?
Yuchi Indians. According to some early maps, the Yuchi had a town in this State on a river which appears to be identical with Green River.
Who created the Kentucky myth?
John Filson, an opportunistic investor, land speculator, and entrepreneur, created this myth and many others in a book, The Discovery, Settlement, and Present State of Kentucky, published five years after his death in 1788. The book included “an account of Indian Nations inhabiting within the limits of the thirteen United States, their manners and customs, and reflections of their origin.” It told readers that there were no Indians living in Kentucky, they were located in the other states. Filson emphasized that the Cherokee and other Nations had no valid claim to Kentucky because it was originally settled by an ancient white race that greatly predated the Indians. Ironically, the very people Filson claimed did not live in Kentucky killed him.
Where did the Cherokee people live after the Trail of Tears?
After Red Bird’s murder, remnants of his people lived along Little Goose Creek, in Clay County, which was the dividing line between the Cherokee and white settlers until the end of the Trail of Tears in 1839. Some of the Cherokee on the Trail of Tears escaped and secretly joined their extended families in Clay County. Since then, the Cherokee people of Kentucky have suffered genocide and today they are subjected to ethnocide. Ironically, outside of the reserve lands in North Carolina and Oklahoma, there are more people of Cherokee descent in Kentucky than any other state.
What were the Cherokee doing in 1729?
By 1729, the Shawnee were serving as guides into northern Kentucky for the French military who considered Kentucky part of New France. At this time, the Cherokee were busy fighting the Choctaw, Creek, and Yamasee to the south for their English allies. As a gesture of thanks, Sir Alexander Cuming took seven of the principal Cherokee Chiefs to England with him in 1730, including Oukah (King) Ulah, brother of Moytoy, uncle of Wilenawa (Great Eagle), father of many well-known Kentucky Cherokee leaders including Doublehead, born in McCreary County. Although this visit strengthened allegiance with the British, the Cherokee population in Kentucky and elsewhere was cut in half by smallpox just eight years later, making it difficult to defend their northern borders. To make matters worse, the Creek and Choctaw had allied themselves with the French.
What was the first treaty between the Cherokee and the Cherokee?
On October 2, 1798, the first Treaty of Tellico was negotiated with the Cherokee Nation. It allowed for safe passage of settlers using the Kentucky road, running through Cherokee land between the Cumberland Mountain and the Cumberland River, in exchange for hunting rights on all relinquished lands, a further refinement of the Holston Treaty of 1791.
What was the name of the place where the Cherokee killed Red Bird?
The white settlers’ hatred of Red Bird and his people grew, in part, out of their indifference between the Chickamauga who fought with the Shawnee in the Northwest Territory against Kentucky troops at Fallen Timbers, Tippecanoe, and the River Raisin, and Cherokee who fought alongside American forces in the Southeast against the Creek at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. It was this ignorance and arrogance that led to the murder of Chief Red Bird and his crippled friend Jack in Clay County. They were brutally attacked in their sleep by a party of white hunters in the river bottom, just above the mouth of Hector’s Creek, on the west side of the Red Bird River, directly across from its confluence with Jack’s Creek where Chief Red Bird’s cabin was located. An angry young man in the party that had lost his father, some say at the Yahoo Falls massacre, mutilated Chief Red Bird and Jack with their own tomahawks. The murderers threw the bodies of Red Bird and Jack into a place called “Willie’s Hole,” and stole their belongings. Not long after the crime, Red Bird’s longtime friend, John Gilbert, discovered the slaughtered bodies. The angry young man, said to have had an odd surname, returned to the scene just as John Gilbert was pulling the bodies ashore. Together, they buried the elder Cherokee in the sandy floor of a nearby rockshelter.
What was the treaty between the Cherokee and the United States?
In an attempt to make peace with the Cherokee, and redefine the new boundary lines in Kentucky, the United States negotiated the Treaty of Holston on July 2, 1791. It restated that the Cherokee land in Kentucky was restricted to the area east of the Little South Fork and south of the Cumberland River. The treaty was signed by Kentucky Cherokee Chief Doublehead, his brother, Chief Standing Turkey, their nephew, John Watts, and witnessed by Thomas Kennedy, representative of Kentucky in the Territory of the United States South of the Ohio River. Unfortunately, the boundary line remained unclear and disputed by Cherokee not present at the treating signing, and the fighting continued for the next seven years. One of the last skirmishes in Kentucky occurred at the salt works and Cherokee burial grounds on Goose Creek in Clay County, on March 28, 1795.
What did the Treaty of Paris do to the Cherokee?
With the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, France gave up all claims to Kentucky and its resources. In exchange for their help during the war, the British victors proclaimed that Kentucky was to be recognized as Indian Territory and no person could make a treaty with the Cherokee or buy land from them without their permission. While the treaty of 1763 allowed the Cherokee to retain all of their land in Kentucky, their possession was short-lived.
What is the history of Kentucky?
History of Kentucky – the Blue Grass State. One of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth, Kentucky was originally a part of the state of Virginia. Once a noted hunting ground of the American Indians, it was continuously inhabited as early as 1,000 B.C. to about 1650, AD exclusively by Native Americans.
Who was the first European to travel to Kentucky?
The first known European to travel into Kentucky was Hernando de Soto and his followers when they ascended the west bank of the Mississippi River in 1543. The region was included in the charter of Virginia in 1584. Other explorers followed including Colonel Abraham Wood, seeking trade with the Indians; Captain Batt, from Virginia in 1670; Jacques Marquette in 1673; Chevalier Robert de la Salle in 1682, and others.
What was Kentucky County known for?
After the American Revolution, the counties of Virginia beyond the Appalachian Mountains became known as Kentucky County. Eventually, the residents of Kentucky County petitioned for a separation from Virginia and in 1792, Kentucky became the 15th state to join the Union.
Why was Kentucky neutral during the Civil War?
As a result, Kentucky officially remained “neutral” throughout the war due to Union sympathies of many of the Commonwealth’s citizens. When the Civil War was over, Kentucky was not subject to military occupation during the Reconstruction Period, as it was “officially” a neutral state.
What are the most popular natural attractions in Kentucky?
Significant natural attractions include the Red River Gorge, one of Kentucky’s most visited places; Cumberland Gap, a chief passageway through the Appalachian Mountains in early American history; Land Between the Lakes and Big South Fork National River National Recreation Areas, and more.
What is the largest city in Kentucky?
Supporting a population of about 4.3 million people, Kentucky’s capitol is Frankfort and its largest city is Louisville.
Who was the first governor of Kentucky?
Isaac Shelby , a military veteran from Virginia, was elected the first Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. This opened up more and more settlement and by the mid-18th century, when greater numbers of European and colonial explorers came to the area, there were no major Native American settlements in the region.
