page_title: Cherokee military history
section_title: Cherokee–American wars
hierarchical_section_title: Cherokee military history / Cherokee–American wars
caption_attribution_description: English: Cól-lee, a Band Chief, 1834
context_page_description: The Cherokee people of the southeastern United States, and later Oklahoma and surrounding areas, have a long military history. Since European contact, Cherokee military activity has been documented in European records. Cherokee tribes and bands had a number of conflicts during the 18th century with European colonizing forces, primarily the English. The Eastern Band and Cherokees from the Indian Territory fought in the American Civil War, with bands allying with the Union or the Confederacy. Because many Cherokees allied with the Confederacy, the United States government required a new treaty with the nation after the war. Cherokees have also served in the United States military during the 20th and 21st centuries.
context_section_description: Dragging Canoe and his band migrated to the area near present-day Chattanooga, Tennessee, establishing eleven new towns (four of which were named for towns on the Little Tennessee River: Toqua, Citico, Tuskeegee and Chota). He made his headquarters in the town of Chickamauga, which lent its name to the surrounding area; frontiersmen and colonists called his band the Chickamauga, although they were never a separate tribe. Dragging Canoe began a guerrilla war which lasted nearly two decades and terrorized the western frontier, from the edge of the Muscogee nation north to the Ohio River and east into Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.
  Because of Chickamauga Cherokee activity, frontiersmen, colonies and states launched punitive raids against the Cherokee (usually the Overhill Towns). However, large forces invaded the Chickamauga area in 1777 and destroyed all eleven towns. After another invasion in 1782 Dragging Canoe and his people moved further west and southwest to what became known as the Five Lower Towns, west of the Cumberland Mountains and below the navigation hazards in the Tennessee River Gorge. Because of their new location and additional populations from the Lower Towns people, he and his people began to be known as the Lower Cherokee. Their headquarters was not invaded again until the final year of the wars.
  Around this time that Dragging Canoe, now based in Running Water Town (Amogayunyi, present-day Whiteside, Tennessee), began to cooperate with the Upper Muscogee—usually as separate forces but sometimes combining for large operations. The Shawnee and other northern tribes were allies, and the Shawnee sent warriors to fight with his band. Chiksika and his younger brother, Tecumseh, were members of a Shawnee war party which remained for nearly two years. The Cherokee responded in kind, sending warriors north.
  As Dragging Canoe and his fellows in the other southern tribes were forming a coalition to fight the Americans with the aid of the British, the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783. He went south to Pensacola, receiving support from the West Florida Spanish to continue his war and maintaining relations with the British governor at Detroit.
  The 1788 murder of Old Tassel, headman of the Overhill Cherokee and chief of the Cherokee, and several other pacifist chiefs invited by the State of Franklin, outraged the Cherokee. More joined the Chickamauga Cherokee in their raids or carried out raids of their own. Franklin sent a large force to invade the Five Lower Towns, which was defeated at the foot of Lookout Mountain. Dragging Canoe raised an army of over 3,000 Cherokee and Muscogee which split into war bands, some of which were hundreds strong.
  Four more years of frontier warfare ensued. Dragging Canoe returned to his hometown in 1792 after a long diplomatic trip in which the Lower Muscogee and Choctaw accepted his invitation to join the war; the Chickasaw declined. After a large dance at Lookout Mountain Town (Utsutigwayi or Stecoyee, present-day Trenton, Georgia) celebrating his diplomatic success and a recent raid by The Glass and his brother Turtle-at-Home on the Cumberland River into Kentucky, Dragging Canoe was found dead.
  He was succeeded as leader of the Lower Cherokee by Old Tassel's nephew, John Watts, assisted by Bloody Fellow and Doublehead. Watts quickly renewed the alliance with Spain through West Florida and shifted his headquarters to Willstown (present-day Fort Payne, Alabama). The next year, he sent a delegation to Knoxville (capital of the Southwest Territory) to seek a peace. This delegation (which included his deputy, Doublehead) was attacked. Watts raised an army of over one thousand Cherokee, Muscogee and Shawnee. Although they were thwarted at Knoxville, they destroyed several smaller settlements along the way. Activities at one, Cavett's Station, set in motion rivalries which would dominate Cherokee affairs into the 19th century.
  The following autumn (1794) General Robertson, military commander of the Mero District (as the Cumberland River settlements were called) in t
caption: George Catlin's Cól-lee, a Band Chief (1834)
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