Ouasioto

Ouasioto was a name used for the Cumberland Mountains, the long Appalachian ridges southwest of the Kanawha country. The mountains divided waters flowing toward the Ohio from those of the Tennessee basin. Cumberland Gap offered a passage through the range and had long been used by Indigenous travellers. In 1750 the explorer Thomas Walker passed through the gap and gave it and the mountains the name Cumberland, after the Duke of Cumberland.