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Culture Periods Represented: Historic
The Great French Lick historical marker shown below fails to mention that the French trading post built near the intersection of Jefferson Street and 5th Avenue was built to trade with the Shawnee who lived in the area in the early 1700's.
Great French Lick Marker on Jefferson Street
During the late 1600's and early 1700's the Shawnee had many villages along the Cumberland River. Chaouanon - French for "Shawnee" - was the Cumberland's first European name.
The Shawnee speak an Algonkian language. Algonkian tribes lived mainly in what is now the northern United States, but Shawnee bands traveled widely and settled in places from the Ohio River valley to the Savannah River in Georgia. They were highly skilled warriors and other tribes often asked Shawnee bands to come and live with them.
The Cherokee may have given the Shawnee permission to settle on the Cumberland in 1672. Around 1689 a French deserter from La Salle's army joined a group of Shawnee in Illinois. He traveled with them to their Cumberland River villages, and stayed there for about three years. Sometime before 1710 another Frenchman opened up the trading post mentioned in the "Nashville Mound" site description. This trader's presence may have been the reason the Shawnee were forced to abandon the area in 1715.
During the Historic Period the Indian nations who lived and hunted in the Middle Cumberland valley were caught up in the trade wars between England, France, and Spain. These nations fought each other over control of the fur trade with the Indians. Sometimes the Indian nations fought for the European nation they favored, even against other Indians.
In the early 1700's England and France both tried to gain the favor of the Chickasaws, legendary warriors who some historians say were the most highly skilled fighters of all the Southern Indians. Chickasaw territory was mainly in northwest Alabama, northeast Mississippi, and western Tennessee, but they claimed the Middle Tennessee area as well. An alliance with this powerful tribe was important for both European nations. When the Chickasaws sided with the English, this led to conflicts between the Chickasaws and the French government.
Hostilities between the French and the Chickasaws began in 1710. Over the next 10 years many small-scale battles were fought, and in 1720 a full-scale war broke out. During the hostile period before the war, probably because of the French trading post on the Nashville Mound, the Chickasaws began putting pressure on the Shawnee to leave their villages on the Cumberland River. The Shawnees resisted. In 1715 the Chickasaws, aided by the Cherokee, launched an attack on the villages at French Lick. The Shawnee then abandoned the area, but returned some years later. Chickasaw attacks drove them away again in 1745 and they never came back to live in the area.
Eventually the Shawnee settled along the Ohio River in southern Ohio and northern Kentucky. In the late 1700's they led the resistance against intruders on Indian lands in the Ohio valley. They also exchanged warriors with Dragging Canoe's Chickamaugans as a sign of solidarity between the two groups. The Shawnee warriors lived and fought alongside the Chickamaugans in Tennessee, and the Chickamaugans did likewise with the Shawnee in Ohio.
In the 1750's there was a Cherokee village near Nashville, possibly one of the same village sites on the Cumberland earlier occupied by the Shawnee. Around 1755 a Shawnee warrior captured a young woman, whom he later married, during a raid on this village. This couple became the parents of Tecumseh, who grew up to be one of the greatest Indian leaders in history.
The Cherokee had abandoned their village on the Cumberland by 1760, but Tecumseh later paid several "visits" to his mother's birthplace. He and his older brother, Chesekau, spent two years with the Chickamaugans beginning in 1788. During this time they participated in raids on the Cumberland settlements. Chesekau was killed during one of these raids, possibly against Bledsoe's Station in Sumner County.
In the early 1800's Tecumseh almost succeeded in uniting all Indian tribes east of the Mississippi to fight against the loss of Indian land and the destruction of Indian cultures. He traveled widely, speaking to the leaders of many Indian nations. He convinced most of them to join an Indian confederacy to halt the tide of American settlers which was spilling into Indian territory. But an attack led by William Henry Harrison on the confederacy's headquarters in Ohio during Tecumseh's absence broke the spirit of the confederacy. Tecumseh and his remaining followers allied themselves with the Britsh during the War of 1812, and Tecumseh died in battle during this conflict.
The Battle of the Thames, Where Tecumseh Was Killed in 1813
(From an 1813 engraving by R. Rawdon in the Anne S. K.
Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library)
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