Cherokee Travel Guide

Introduction

48 miles SW of Asheville

The Cherokee Nation once claimed around 135,000 square miles of land encompassing sections of South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky. When Hernando de Soto, the Spanish explorer, moved into the southern mountains of the Appalachian range in 1540, the Cherokees numbered only about 25,000 -- a very small number compared with the millions who now occupy former Cherokee land.

When Soto arrived, he forever changed the way the Cherokees lived. With him on his quest for gold in the name of Spain came misery, disease, and death. Some of Soto's men killed or enslaved many of the Native Americans, believing that they were holding back information about the location of treasure. It's estimated that during the first 200 years of European occupation, 95% of the Cherokees died of diseases that the foreigners brought with them. The treatment of the Cherokees did not improve in later centuries. When the Cherokees adapted...