December 2005, Number 2
Sequoyah
speaks
William F. Martin was proud of his
Cherokee heritage and was committed
to sharing the history of the Cherokees and
their descendants in eastern Tennessee.
In 1999, Bill began to assemble and produce a periodical that would
make this heritage accessible to the people of the region. The product of his
effort, Sequoyah Speaks, was published in 2000 and contained articles on Moccasin Bend, John Ross, Sequoyah, Tennessee’s first crops, along with news notes.
Sadly, Bill’s untimely death precluded the publication of the second Sequoyah Speaks.
With this issue, we have resurrected Bill Martin’s dream and hopefully created a viable
means to foster knowledge about the Cherokee Indians in eastern Tennessee. It is an effort by
three facilities, each committed to the study of Sequoyah and Native Peoples of Tennessee—the
Sequoyah Birthplace Museum and the University of Tennessee’s Frank H. McClung Museum and
Department of Anthropology.
Sequoyah Speaks will be published once or twice a year, and each issue will contain two or three
articles and a section on current news, discoveries, or exhibitions. The focus of the articles may be
historic, ethnographic, archaeological, genealogical, or contemporary issues. Articles, solicited or
unsolicited, will be reviewed and chosen by an editorial board. All articles will be written in a style
that is understood and accessible to the lay reader. Distribution will be free of cost to museum
members, and to public libraries along with high school, college, and university libraries in eastern
Tennessee and western North Carolina. Sequoyah Speaks will also be posted on the Web sites of
the Sequoyah Museum (www.sequoyahmuseum.org) and the Frank H. McClung Museum (http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/).
The editor and the editorial board are all individuals who have been involved with Cherokee
studies for many years. Most have been actively engaged in research on the 18th and 19th century
Cherokee in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina.
Founding Editor
William F. Martin
Editor
Dr. Gerald F. Schroedl, Professor,
Department of Anthropology,
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Editorial Board
Dr. Jefferson Chapman, Director, Frank
H. McClung Museum, The University of
Tennessee, Knoxville
Dr. John R. Finger, Professor Emeritus,
Department of History, The University of
Tennessee, Knoxville
Dr. Duane H. King, Executive Director,
Southwest Museum of the American
Indian, Los Angeles, California
Dr. Brett H. Riggs, Research Archaeologist and Adjunct Assistant Professor,
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Dr. Barbara R. Duncan, Director of
Education, Museum of the Cherokee
Indian, Cherokee, North Carolina
Russell G. Townsend, Tribal Historic
Preservation Officer, Eastern Band of
Cherokee Indians
William F. “Bill” Martin was full of energy and love for many things, but his greatest love
was his Cherokee heritage. A member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Bill
gave generously of his time and service to causes related to his roots. Serving on the
boards of the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum, the Frank H. McClung Museum, and the
Cherokee Historical Association, he initiated and supported programs that brought Cherokee culture to the people of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. This publication,
Sequoyah Speaks, is one of Bill’s initiatives.
Bill graduated from Washington College Academy in Limestone, Tennessee, and attended the University of Chicago and the University of Tennessee. Bill sang with the Chicago
Lyric Opera and later served on the board of the Knoxville Opera Company. Opera remained
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A Bulletin of the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum, The University of Tennessee
Department of Anthropology and Fr ank H. McClung Museum
by John R. Finger
The Treaty of Sycamore Shoals,
negotiated in 1775 between a few
prominent Cherokee and a group of
speculators, resulted in one of the
most infamous cessions of Indian
lands. The instigator of the treaty was
Richard Henderson, a powerful judge
and landholder from North Carolina
who organized a cabal that by 1775
was known as the Transylvania Company. Their intention was to acquire
much of present-day Kentucky and
Middle Tennessee, a fertile and gamerich region long coveted by competing
groups of speculators and hordes of
prospective settlers who viewed it as
the “Promised Land.”
H
enderson’s proposed acquisition would violate Britain’s
Proclamation of 1763, which prohibited white encroachment on Indian lands west of the Appalachians. Already, however,
the proclamation had been routinely violated, most notably by
whites settling in present-day upper East Tennessee. Those living
near the Watauga River had even organized an ad hoc government,
the Watauga Association. Though the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals
would be an even more blatant violation, Henderson believed the
mounting problems between Britain and her American colonies
precluded effective enforcement of the proclamation. He and his
associates would take their chances.
The Indian sellers included certain elders of the Overhill Cherokee living in East Tennessee, including Oconostota and Attakullakulla (the Little Carpenter), who had already approved in principle a cession of land for trade goods valued at ten thousand
pounds sterling. They and several other leaders were not overly
concerned about selling land that the Cherokee did not actually
occupy and which was also claimed by other tribes. Many of the
younger Cherokee, however, opposed such a sale because their
people had long hunted throughout that area.
The treaty grounds were at Sycamore Shoals, a traditional gathering place on the Watauga at present-day Elizabethton. During
more than two weeks beginning March 1 an estimated twelve hun-
dred Cherokee showed up, as well as hundreds of frontier whites,
all hoping to savor the spectacle and festivities. So confident of success was Henderson that he had already begun advertising the new
lands and had hired a detachment under Daniel Boone to improve
the Indian path through Cumberland Gap to the Bluegrass region of
Kentucky. This would later become the famous “Wilderness Road.”
Not until March 14 did serious bargaining begin, and Henderson
was dismayed to find that, despite his entreaties, Cherokee leaders
were reluctant to agree to the terms he proposed. Prominently opposing the treaty was Attakullakulla’s own son, the war leader Dragging Canoe, who arose in council to warn that no cession of land
was likely to satisfy white demands for very long. But Henderson
persisted, and on March 17 the Cherokee elders finally agreed to
sell what the Transylvania Company wanted, prompting Dragging
Canoe to point toward Kentucky and proclaim that it would become a “dark and bloody” ground for settlers. Then he stalked out,
never again to meet with Americans in council.
Thus Henderson and his associates acquired some twenty million acres extending from the Kentucky and Ohio rivers southward to the divide between the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers
(see map). The Cherokee also sold a two-hundred-thousand-acre
“Path Deed” providing convenient access from the Holston River
to Cumberland Gap. By the time the council ended, Boone and his
axemen were already clearing the Wilderness Road. And within
another week settlers along the Watauga and Nolichucky rivers,
following Henderson’s example, had purchased their own lands
from compliant Cherokee leaders.
Besides violating Britain’s Proclamation of 1763, the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals aroused the fierce opposition of Virginia and North
Carolina, which claimed the area ceded by the Cherokee (though
the Transylvania Company might have avoided some of this trouble
had it included Virginia’s Patrick Henry as a member). Henderson
and his cronies were unable to validate their claims and eventually received a relatively modest compensation of several hundred
thousand acres from Virginia and North Carolina.
Dragging Canoe’s warning about the Transylvania Company having purchased a dark and bloody ground proved prophetic. The
Treaty of Sycamore Shoals was concluded barely a month before
British troops and colonial militia clashed at Lexington and Concord, and many of the younger Cherokee leaders, enraged by American encroachments before and after the treaty, sided with the British in the American Revolution. Dragging Canoe himself was the
most feared adversary of white settlers, but Creek, Shawnee, and
Delaware warriors also terrorized the Tennessee and Kentucky
frontiers. Indian hostilities did not completely end until more than
a decade after the Revolution. By then the lands acquired by the
Transylvania Company were rapidly filling up with settlers.
John R. Finger is professor emeritus, Department of History, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
SUGGESTED READINGS:
How the West Was Lost: The Transformation of Kentucky from Daniel Boone to Henry Clay, by Stephen Aron. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. 1996.
Tennessee Frontiers: Three Regions in Transition, by John R. Finger. Indiana University Press, Bloomington. 2001.
December 2005, Number 2
The Cherokee lands included in the
Sycamore Shoals Agreement*
Compiled from a map by Royce and other sources by William F. Martin and Charles A. Reeves, Jr.
*Also known as the Transylvania Purchase. It has also been called a “treaty,” but neither Henderson nor his
parnters were authorized to sign treaties with or to purchase land from the native Americans.
The Closing paragraph and signatures of the agreement,
signed on march 17, 1775:
Note: While the agreement was signed in 1775,
it was never recognized
as a legitimate sale of
property until it was filed
in the Hawkins County,
Tennessee Courthouse in
1795, recorded in Court
Book I, page 147. the
following is a copy of a
portion of that event.
Many thanks to Troy Keesee, Billie McNamara, Fred Smoot and Mike Toomey for their help in
determining the boundaries of the agreement, which in some cases are still approximate.
December 2005, Number 2
MAIZE OR CORN
An Ancient Gift from the Americas
by Gary D. Crites
I
n the cosmology of the Ani´-Yûñ´wiya´, or Principal People (Cherokee), it has always been known that “The Old Woman” (corn) first arose
from the blood of Selú, wife of Kana´ ti (The Lucky Hunter). No plant has
been more important in the economy and ceremony of the People. Today,
corn, or maize, is grown on every continent except Antarctica. In the new
millennium, maize from the Americas, along with rice and wheat first domesticated in East Asia and the Middle East, respectively, form the grain
triad to feed a burgeoning world population.
Maize is an English word derived from the word mahiz (or mahis), a
Taino word spoken by an elite group of Arawaks, the people who first
greeted Columbus in the Caribbean. In the Taino language mahiz means
“source of life.” After being carried to Europe in the 15th century, maize
quickly spread to Africa, India, and China. Native peoples in the Americas
created all the major types still in use today: pop, flint, flour, dent, and
sweet. By the time Columbus reached the Caribbean, an estimated 300
types were already being grown in the New World. In the 18th century
Swedish taxonomist Carl Linnaeus, who developed today’s plant classification system, used a combination of the Taino name, and the Greek word
Zeia, meaning grain or cereal, to derive the binomial classification, Zea
mays. Today the United States, China, and Brazil together produce about
73 percent of annual global production. Humans consume less than five
percent. Fifty percent is fed to farm animals and the remainder is used in
an incredible variety of products, including: aspirin, clothing, shoe polish,
glue, fuel, packaging, sweeteners, and fireworks. Maize truly is a Native
American gift to the world.
Surprisingly to many, the “origin” of maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) is still a
topic of investigation and disagreement among scientists. Three grasses,
annual teosinte (Zea mays ssp. parviglumis), perennial teosinte (Zea diploperennis), and gamagrass (Tripsacum spp.), are at the heart of current
research into the origin of maize.
Annual Teosinte Hypothesis: Based on data derived from isozyme
and chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) studies, Zea mays ssp. parviglumis, a native
of the Río Balsas area in Guerrero, Mexico, is considered by most researchers to be the closest relative of maize. Researchers who agree that this teosinte is the direct ancestor of maize believe that mutations in a few genes
(perhaps as few as five), or a rapid change of male flowers of the tassel to
female flowers in the leaf axils, led to the appearance of “maize”. However,
unlike maize, which produces multiple-rowed ears of kernels that have
lost the ability to shatter on maturity, teosinte produces a single row of
five to seven small, hard kernels that are enclosed in a hard fruit case that
shatters when mature, scattering kernels on the ground (Figure 1).
Hybrid Origin Hypothesis: Recent genetic (DNA) studies have revealed similarities in the chromosomes of perennial teosinte (Zea diploperennis Iltis, Doebley and Guzman), a rare, previously unknown relative
of maize discovered in the mountains of Jalisco, Mexico, in the late 1970s,
and Eastern gamagrass (Tripsacum dactyloides L.), a perennial grass found
in North America (including Tennessee), south to northern South America (Figure 2). When these two grasses were cross-pollinated in the 1980s,
some of the resulting fruits bore a striking resemblance to the oldest, most
primitive maize cobs ever recovered. This fertile hybrid, named Tripsacorn, not only had rows of exposed, paired kernels, the kernels were attached to a “corncob-like” structure. This has led some researchers to suggest a Tripsacorn hybrid occurred in the distant past that was protected
and tended by people, eventually producing the earliest cultivated maize.
Antiquity of Maize: The oldest domesticated maize cobs known in
the Americas come from an archaeological site in the Valley of Oaxaca,
Mexico, and are approximately 6,200 years old. The oldest directly dated
corn remains from the United States come from the Southwest. Maize
dating 3,800 years old has been recovered from the Old Corn and Bat Cave
sites in New Mexico, and recent research at McEuen Cave, Arizona, has es-
tablished that maize was being grown in that region approximately 4,000
years ago.
The oldest maize known from eastern North America are charred fragments of kernels or cupules (the part of the cob in which the kernels sit)
that come from the American Bottom area of Illinois near St. Louis (2,000
years old), Lincoln County in south-central Tennessee (1,800 years old),
Monroe County in eastern Tennessee
(1,775 years old), and Harness Mound
in Ohio (1,720 years old). Kernel fragments from the Ice House Bottom site
in Monroe County appear to be a small
flint, possibly a popcorn type. Popcorns
are the most ancient maize types known.
They have small spherical or globular
grains with floury or soft starch cores
and flinty or hard outer shells. Chapalote,
1
an ancient pop type, produces 12-14 rows
of globular, flinty kernels. The size and
shape of 1,775-year-old kernel fragments from Monroe County, Tennessee, are similar to this type, and to a type called Reventador. Reventador
is also known as North American Pop. A modified form of Reventador is
called Midwest Twelve-Row (Figure 3).
By 1,100 years ago, maize rapidly was becoming the most important
food plant in the Tennessee Valley. The predominant type at this time produced 8-10 rowed cobs with large and crescent-shaped kernels (Figure 4).
Maize with 12-16 rows of kernels was also present. Maize remains from
Cherokee sites in the lower Little Tennessee River Valley in eastern Tennessee indicate that tropical and eastern/northern flint types were present. Cob specimens indicate 8-14 rows. Although 8-10-rowed maize was
most common, the Cherokee also grew a larger 12-14 row variety. During
the 17th and 18th centuries there was a trend toward maize with larger
and fuller ears. Maize remains recovered from sites in the southern Appalachians and Tennessee Valley typically are charred, so scientists cannot tell how many color variations existed. However, it is reasonable to
assume that many Cherokee families maintained specific colors for generations.
The first evidence of dent corn appears in the region in Cherokee samples dating to the early 18th
2
century at the Hiwassee Old
Town site on the Hiwassee
River in Polk County, Tennessee. Dent corn kernels
consist of a floury starch
core with flinty starch on
the outside. Because the top
(crown) of the kernel loses moisture as the kernel matures, there is a collapse in the interior starch volume that produces the “dent” in the top of
each kernel. This maize was probably introduced from Mexico. Some old
southern dents, called gourdseed and shoepeg, were crossed with northern flint corn to produce the modern “corn belt” dents. Dent corn is the
most intensively grown type on the planet today, accounting for approximately 73 percent of commercially grown maize (Figure 5).
Not only has maize been a critically important food resource, it has
been the focus of major ceremonies of the Cherokee and other native
Southeastern groups. Prior to the late 1800s, perhaps no regular ceremony
was more important than the green corn ceremony, also referred to as the
green corn festival or green corn feast.
3
Two corn crops were planted in the
Cherokee country. An early corn was
planted in small garden plots as soon
as threat of frost passed. Late corn was
planted about a month later in large
fields located in the river bottoms. A
preliminary green corn ceremony was
associated with the corn first becoming fit to eat in mid summer. The mature green corn ceremony was intended to coincide with ripening of the late
corn, usually in September. The ceremony was an expression of gratitude
for a successful, abundant corn crop. It was a time of ritual cleansing and
spiritual renewal. Some records indicate that the last community-wide
celebration of the green corn ceremony on the Qualla Boundary was in
1887, although some expressions of the ceremony were maintained by individual households after that time and continue today.
Research continues on archaeologically recovered maize from Tennessee. The Frank H. McClung Museum, on the University of Tennessee
campus in Knoxville, houses one of the largest and diverse collections of
Pre-Columbian maize in eastern North America.
4
Maize recovered from Tennessee documents
changes in maize and its relationship with native peoples in the Tennessee Valley over the last
2,000 years.
It has been estimated that the human population of this planet will double to approximately
12 billion within the next 50 years. As demands
upon resources intensify, researchers and planners may increasingly inquire, is there a future
in the past? Millennia of interrelations between
native peoples and the plants briefly discussed
here, and in the winter 2000 issue of Sequoyah Speaks, have resulted in the
kinds of plant genetic diversity and cultural understanding that hold the
promise of a powerful contribution to our future.
Figure Captions
1. Annual teosinte. The direct ancestor of maize?
2. Eastern Gamagrass. Recent DNA work suggests gamagrass
may have played a major role in the origin of maize.
3. Reventador (right) and Chapalote (center) have kernels
that are similar to 1,775 –1,800 year-old maize recovered in
Tennessee. Lady Finger (left) is an Argentine pop corn that some
researchers think is similar to very early maize in the Americas.
4. Eight-rowed flint/flour type with kernels virtually identical
in size and shape to 1,000 year-old eight-rowed maize from
Tennessee.
5. Dent corn with kernels similar to some recovered from 18th
century Cherokee occupation debris near the Hiwassee River in
Polk County, Tennessee
Note: All measurements in mm.
5
Acknowledgements: Dr. M. Steven Shackley, Department of Anthropology, University of California,
Berkeley, and Dr. Wirt “Chip” Wills Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, graciously
provided data regarding the early occurrence of maize in the Southwestern United States.
Suggested Readings on back cover.
Dr. Gary Crites is curator of paleoethnobotany at the Frank H. McClung
Museum and adjunct assistant professor in the Department of
Anthropology, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
December 2005, Number 2
Sequoyah
Birthplace
Museum
Production
Angie Dobbs, Designer
Kathryn Aycock, Production Editor
Printing by the University of Tennessee
Graphic Arts Service
Inquiries may be directed to
Sequoyah Birthplace Museum
P.O. Box, Citico Road
Vonore, TN 37885
Phone 423–884-6246
Fax 423–884-2102
E-mail: [email protected]
or
The Frank H. McClung Museum
1327 Circle Park Drive
Knoxville, TN 37996–3200
865–974–2144
(continued from front)
a passion throughout his life and he would launch into an operatic aria at a moments notice. Bill saw
active military service while stationed in Vietnam and Korea, assigned to the Adjutant General Corps
as a military advisor.
Bill was owner and president of Roof Design Works and was an active leader in the community
including the Lions Club, East Tennessee Community Design Center, Knoxville Arts Council, the East
Tennessee Revolving Minority Loan Fund, and Washington College Academy.
Continued from “Maize or Corn”
SUGGESTED READINGS & Web Sites
Tellico Archaeology: 12,000 Years of Native American History, by Jefferson Chapman. Revised edition. The Tennessee Valley Authority and University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville. 1994.
A Cross Between Two Maize Relatives: Tripsacum dactyloides and Zea diploperennis (Poaceae) by Mary W. Eubanks. Economic Botany 49:172-182. 1995.
The Mysterious Origin of Maize by Mary W. Eubanks. Economic Botany 55: 492-514. 2001
The Southeastern Indians, by Charles Hudson. The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville. 1976.
From Teosinte to Maize: The Catastrophic Sexual Transmutation, by Hugh H. Iltis. Science 222: 886-893. 1983.
Corn and Culture in the Prehistoric New World. Sissel Johannessen and Christine A. Hastorf, editors. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado. 1994.
Comparative Analysis of the Río Balsas and Tehuacán Models for the Origin of Maize, by Richard S. McNeish and Mary W. Eubanks. Latin American Antiquity 11: 3-20. 2000.
Green Corn Ceremonialism in the Eastern Woodlands. Occasional Contributions from the Museum of Anthropology of the University of Michigan No.13, by John Witthoft. (Although now out of print a photo
copy of this very useful source can be ordered for a very nominal cost by contacting the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology Publications office via e-mail at [email protected]). 1949.
The Maize Page. http://maize.agron.iastate.edu
Maize GDB (Maize Genetics and Genomics Database). http://www.maizedb.org/
This site provides links to several resources for about maize and genetics for students and educators. There is a link to an interactive site that lets students navigate through a corn plant, learning about
the activities of each part of the plant.
Non-Profit Org.
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