CHICKAMAUGA NATIVE AMERICANS

The Chickamauga Native Americans  gallery portrays their alliance with the British during the Revolutionary War in 1775, and their development of five towns along the Tennessee River. The gallery shows how the Chickamauga strove to prevent white American settlement into Middle Tennessee by attacking boats on the Tennessee River heading to Middle Tennessee and by using the ancient Cisca Trail from St. Augustine, Florida. The trail crossed the plateau at what is now Monteagle and descended into Middle Tennessee on a section known as Nickajack Trail. From the trail the Chickamauga attacked settlements that had been established at Nashboro, Murfreesboro and other sites in hit and run raids.. The gallery tells the story of Joseph Brown, a white boy captured in 1788 from one of the boats heading for Middle Tennessee. He was taken into captivity and placed with one of the families of the Chickamauga. He learned the trail system. In a prisoner exchange he was released to the American settlers. In 1794 he guided the militia led by Major James Ore along the Cisca Trail to Nickajack Town where the militia destroyed the principal Chickamauga towns. The Chickamauga dispersed, many to the plateau, where they were when the plateau was opened for white settlement. In time many of them intermarried or otherwise cohabited with the settlers and took their surnames. By 1828 they were so mixed into the settler population that they were bypassed by the Trail of Tears removal. Their descendants are today a significant part of the population of the plateau.