Internet Histories of the Chickamauga Seldom Aligns with Authoritative Documentation
When an article appears on the internet as a history of the Chickamauga, it is safe to begin with the understanding that more than likely it is incorrect. Very few authors of Chickamauga history on the internet have actual, verified, authoritative documentation of their claims.
It is imperative that people understand that the internet is seldom a repository of actual history. Typically, people make claims of history based upon myths, legends, hoaxes, fairy tales, and bold-faced lies. Even those articles which are highly documented as historically correct, use third and fourth level sourcing which originated from a very limited grouping of writings found in the Bureau of Ethnology’s anthropology or J. P. Brown. None of those documents are first, second or even third generation accounts of the histories they portray.
One such fallacy is associating a quote to the Moravian Missionary Steiner that the Chickamauga are in fact, Cherokee. After contacting the Moravian Church and speaking to their historical archivist concerning this attribution to Steiner, the archivist, reading from the German document stated, “That attribution to Steiner does not come from anything written by Steiner nor recorded as being spoken by Steiner.” He was kind enough to send a copy of the original hand written document for use in The Chickamauga Nation archives.
Another fallacy is that the Chickamauga are Cherokee. There are literally thousands of documents dispelling this myth, but the hoax continues. Archaeological digs, surveys, and studies document that the culture, history, and religion of the Chickamauga is that of the Mound Building Culture and the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. This places the Chickamauga in the Mississippian, Muskogean, and Mobillian Eras prior to Contact. The Erie people or du Chat Nation as the French called them, originated in the Lake Erie and Lake Huron regions of modern Canada, not the Southeast. The Jesuit Relations clearly state that the du Chat Nation was part of the Iroquoian Confederacy during the Beaver Wars and then was expelled from the Confederacy in the 1660s and 1670s when they began to migrate south. Their Chief, Charles Hicks documents this migration in his letters to John Ross in the early 1800s. Therefore, the Chickamauga and the Cherokee are two different ethnicities and people groups.
Another fallacy is that the Erie people, du Chat Nation, or Cherokee met de Soto in the 1500s. The Jesuit Relations, church records of the Catholic Church, makes this an impossibility logistically. But this fallacy continues to be perpetrated by the Cherokee Nation despite the letters of Chief Charles Hicks to John Ross clearly stating that the Cherokee were not in the Southeast at that time.
Another fallacy is that Dragging Canoe “founded the Lower Town Chickamauga.” The Colonial Papers of South Carolina document that the Lower Town Chickamauga existed in at least 1684 since they are signers of a Treaty with the British Colony. Not only that, Dragging Canoe’s Father, Attakullakulla, is also documented in the South Carolina Colonial Papers as being a Lower Town Chickamauga Chief in 1728. That should put to rest the false claim, but it will continue to have life on the internet because people do not go back to original sources and documents.
Another fallacy is that the Chickamauga who immigrated west of the Mississippi River between 1780 and 1809 were Cherokee. All of the Chiefs and their Tribes who immigrated west, were in fact Lower Town Chickamauga. The Cherokee Agency papers, the Arkansas Territorial Papers, the Presidential Papers, the State Department Records, the Spanish Treaties, the Arkansas Historical Society, and the Cherokee Nation itself all state that the Chiefs and Tribes who immigrated were in fact Lower Town Chickamauga. They were called many things by the United States government because of their speaking the Cherokee Trade Language, but none the less, they are Lower Town Chickamauga. They were called Chickamauga Cherokee, Arkansas Cherokee, Western Cherokee, Old Settler Cherokee, Red Stick Cherokee, mixed-blood Cherokee, and a litany of other names to long to list. Even with hundreds of first account documentation, the falsehood will continue because the Untied States government continues to perpetrate the lie.
These are just a few of the fallacies that appear on the internet as “history,” when the original, authoritative documents prove them to be lies.
(C) This document was produced at the request of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on July 18, 2019, to document the History, Anthropology, Culture, Religion, and Archaeology of The Chickamauga Nation.