There is no such things as a “CHICKAMAUGA cherokee.”
These two groups of people are ethnically separate and never existed in the same proximity in the Southeast Woodlands until the mid-1670s at the earliest. We know from historical documents, Catholic Church Records and Letters from Cherokee Chief Charles Hicks to John Ross, that the Erie People (Cherokee) were in the Lake Erie / Lake Huron region until the mid-1670s. The Lower Town Chickamauga and their Cultural and Religious Cousins, who are part of the Mound Culture, existed in the Tennessee River Valley according to archaeological records from approximately 600 – 800 AD and possibly as early as 2000 BC from other Carbon Dating Studies.
The Moravian Church Record documents that the Cherokee “were as ignorant as the whites of their origin or purpose, having only a general tradition that their forefathers had found them in much the same condition on first coming to the country.” The Chief Charles Hicks letters clearly state that the Cherokee were not Mound Builders and that they killed the Priests of the Mounds and took over the Mounds and built their buildings on top of the Mounds to prove their superiority over the Mound Culture.
Additionally, church records are legally admissible in court as evidence, so therefore, here are church records from the Moravian Church which clearly indicates that intermarriage between the Upper and Lower Cherokees was strictly prohibited. With such, it would have been in violation of the practices of the laws of the Chickamauga or the Cherokee to intermarry with the other, thus rendering the use of the term Chickamauga Cherokee illegitimate.
Therefore: it is impossible for the Cherokee and the Chickamauga to have the same ethnic or racial backgrounds. It is impossible for the Cherokee and the Chickamauga to have existed in the same proximity prior to the mid-1670s. It is evident the Chickamauga and Cherokee shared a Trade Language from approximately the 1650’s forward and this linguistic tie is the sole similarity between the two people.
Our research has already proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Lower Cherokee were in fact, Chickamauga and accepted as so by the United States government. So, there cannot be a Chickamauga Cherokee. It is impossible. The Chickamauga were not some angry offshoot of the Cherokee, there were an established people in the Southeast Woodlands for over 1000 years before the Cherokee migrated south from the Great Lakes region. The Chickamauga were here long before the Canadian immigrants invaded our lands.
We know who built the Mounds, the Chickamauga and their Cousins, the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole.
(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.