Trading Path
The Trading Path (a.k.a. Occaneechi Path, The Path to the Catawba, the Catawba Road, Indian Trading Path, Unicoi Turnpike, Warriors' Path, etc.) is not simply one wide path, as many named historic roads were or are. It was a corridor of roads and trails between the Tsenacommacah or Chesapeake Bay region (mainly the Petersburg, Virginia area) and the Cherokee, Catawba, and other Native-American countries in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Indigenous folks had used and maintained much of the path for their expansive trading network for centuries prior to its use by  Europeans and/or European-Americans. Native and later European/European-American settlements occupied key points along the path. That section of the Trading Path through the Carolina piedmont was also known as the Upper Road, and a portion between North Carolina and Georgia was called the Lower Cherokee Traders Path. Both Natives and newcomers mainly used the Trading Path for commercial cargo carriage. In early colonial times, Virginian traders used the path to travel to Native American towns in the Waxhaws. They led long pack caravans of horses carrying "loads of guns, gunpowder, knives, jewelry, blankets, and hatchets, among other goods