Chalahume

Chalahume belongs to the Overhill Cherokee country along the Little Tennessee River at the western edge of the southern Appalachians. The river supplied fish, fertile bottomland and a canoe route through mountain valleys. Cherokee towns occupied both banks of the river, with fields, council houses and paths linking the settlements.

Tanasi stood near a sharp bend of the river and became the de facto capital of the Overhill towns from the 1720s until authority shifted to Great Tellico. Chota later developed nearby and became a meeting place for chiefs and colonial negotiators. Henry Timberlake recorded twelve dwellings and twenty-one warriors at Tanasi in 1765.

The Overhill towns were centers of diplomacy during the struggles among Britain, France and the American colonies. Cherokee farmers combined maize, beans and squash with hunting and gathering. The river remained the central route until settlement and war displaced the towns in the early nineteenth century. The townhouse, town fields and river land formed a political landscape in which councils and clan relationships governed daily life. Cherokee women cultivated riverbottom fields while men hunted deer and conducted diplomacy along the Little Tennessee. The riverbottom fields produced maize, beans and pumpkins, while nearby mountains offered chestnut, game and winter shelter.