Chatanugi

Chatanugi recalls the country along the Tennessee River near Lookout Mountain, where the Cumberland Plateau meets the ridges and valleys of the Appalachians. The name Chattanooga may refer to a rock rising to a point. Long before the later town, the Citico settlement and mound stood beside the river, while a mound near Chickamauga Creek bears witness to an older history of occupation.

In 1776 the Cherokee leader Dragging Canoe established a centre of resistance in this region against encroaching settlers, as war spread across the Cherokee country. John Ross, later principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, founded a landing on the river in 1816. Ross's Landing became a centre of Cherokee settlement and river commerce in the years immediately before removal.