Hiawassee River

The Hiwassee River has its headwaters on the north slope of Rocky Mountain in Towns County in the northern area of the State of Georgia. It flows northward into North Carolina before turning westward into Tennessee, flowing into the Tennessee River a few miles west of what is now State Route 58 in Meigs County, Tennessee. The river is about long.

Hydrography

The river is dammed by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in four locations, all in Western North Carolina: Chatuge Dam, Mission Dam (not owned by TVA), Hiwassee Dam, and Apalachia Dam. Water is diverted from the stream bed at Apalachia Dam and sent through a pipeline, which is tunneled through the mountains for eight miles (13 km); then it flows through the Apalachia Powerhouse to generate electricity. The stretch of the river that flows between Apalachia Dam and Apalachia Powerhouse features reduced flow. The John Muir Trail in Tennessee's Cherokee National Forest goes along this part of the river.

The stretch of river that flows from the North Carolina/Tennessee state line to U.S. Highway 411 near Delano is designated as a Tennessee State Scenic River (Class III Partially Developed River). For recreational purposes, it is managed by the Tennessee Resource Management Division, in cooperation with TVA. The river features Class I through Class III rapids, depending on water levels.

After exiting the mountains through a gorge, the Hiwassee broadens, meandering through rural Polk and Bradley counties in Tennessee. It is crossed by a bridge carrying US-411 soon after it exits the mountains. U.S. Route 11 passes over the river at Calhoun and Charleston, Tennessee, where local industries such as Bowater Newsprint Mill and Arch/Olin Chemical use river water in their operations.

At this point the river interfaces with the impoundment of Chickamauga Dam (located in Chattanooga, Tennessee). Many marshes and wetlands surround the main channel, providing rich habitats for wildlife and areas for hunting and fishing.

Interstate 75 passes over the river on the border of McMinn and Bradley counties. The Hiwassee continues westward; it is crossed by SR 58's bridge (this bridge replaced an old historic and narrow bridge) on its way to its confluence with the Tennessee River. This area of the river is enjoyed by boaters, fishermen, and water skiers.

Major tributaries include Valley River, Nottely River, Coker Creek, Big Lost Creek, Spring Creek, Conasauga Creek, and Toccoa/Ocoee River.

Etymology

The Hiwassee River has been known by many variant spellings. The best-known of these is Hiawassee, which is also the name of the Georgia town through which the river flows. Other alternate spellings include Heia Wassea and Highwassee. Some less obvious but related names include Eufasee, Eufassee, Euphasee and Quannessee. Some Cherokee say the name came from the Cherokee word ''Ayuhwasi'', which means a meadow or savanna. The Muskogee (Creek) say the river's name is ''Koasati'' or ''Hitchiti'', Muskogee language words for the copperhead snake. The river is known for its many copperheads, even today.

History

Various Muskogean-speaking ethnic groups occupied the region of this river for many centuries before the arrival of the Cherokee. Tribes related to the Muscogee/ Creek, who also speak Muskogee languages, include the Choctaw, and Chickasaw. (The Seminole arose as a Muskogee-speaking people in Florida in the 19th century, made up of refugees from warfare in other regions.)

The Cherokee are an Iroquoian-speaking people, believed to have migrated to the Southeast from northern areas near the Great Lakes. That is where most Iroquoian-speaking peoples arose and had their territories, including the Five Nations of the ''Haudenosaunee'' (Iroquois Confederacy). (Later there were Six Nations, when the Tuscarora migrated from the South to New York in the early 18th century.)

Some historians originally thought that because the Europeans had encountered the Cherokee in the Hiwassee Valley in the 18th century, the latter people had occupied the territory for a longer period, but their dates in this region are unclear.

Early Spanish contact

Spanish explorers visited the region in the 16th century. Hernando de Soto probably crossed the Hiwassee River near its confluence with the Tennessee River at Hiwassee Island, in the spring of 1541 AD. Juan Pardo probably followed a trail that paralleled the river in 1567 AD. The town names and indigenous words that were recorded by de Soto's chroniclers in present-day Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee, can be translated by using contemporary Muskogean dictionaries. Most of the names and words are from the Koasati and Hitchiti languages, but a few are Muskogean and Alabama words. None is Cherokee.

The earliest European maps from the 17th century vaguely show the Hiwassee River Basin occupied by mountain branches of the Apalachee and the Kusa. The Kusa (or Coosa in English) were a chiefdom of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture. They are considered to be ancestral to the Muscogee Creek people. The Tama-tli of the Altamaha River Basin in southeastern Georgia are known to have had a colony in the Hiwassee valley between what is now Andrews, North Carolina and the Hiwassee River at Murphy, North Carolina.

British colonial era

English explorers and traders in the 1690s found most of the river valley occupied by Muskogean and Yuchi towns. At this time Cherokee villages were generally located east and north of the river. In 1714, two South Carolinan traders supplied the Cherokee with firearms and directed them to attack the Yuchi villages on the Hiwassee River. Most of the men in one Yuchi town were gone when the Cherokee attacked. They killed the remaining Yuchi, who had no firearms.

In 1715, the Cherokee invited the leaders of many Muskogean provinces, which eventually comprised the Creek Confederacy at the headwaters of the Savannah River, in what became the state of South Carolina. They murdered the Muskogean leaders as they slept. This precipitated a 40-year-long war between the Muscogee Creek and the Cherokee. Due to disunity among the Creek, a loose confederacy, the Cherokee took over the northeastern tip of what is now Georgia, but then was part of South Carolina. They drove the Muskogee and Yuchi from most of western North Carolina to west and south of the Hiwassee. Most of the branches of the Creek lost interest in this war after a few years.

18th-century Cherokee homeland

The Hiwassee River and its tributaries were part of Cherokee territory in the early 18th century. A town known as "Hiwassee" (''Ayuhwasi'') was located near the mouth of Peachtree Creek. Murphy, North Carolina later developed here. The area of the Valley River, a tributary to the Hiwassee, contained many Cherokee towns. Towns along these two rivers, plus those along the Nantahala, were collectively called the "Valley Towns", a geographical grouping devised by English traders and colonists. The Cherokee town known as Great Hiwassee (''Ayuhwasi Egwahi'') was located in today's Polk County, Tennessee, where the Hiwassee River emerges from the mountains. The settlements on the western side of the mountains were known as the Overhill Towns.

The Indians had several "highways" which passed through the area. The ''Great Trading Path'', the ''Overhill Trading Path'', and the ''Unicoi Turnpike'' ran along much of the Hiwassee River. Another old path, known as the ''Warrior Path'', ran from southern lands to Great Hiwassee, and then up the Conasauga Creek to the Cherokee town known as Great Tellico on the Tellico River.

The Kowita Creek (Muscogee

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