Tennessee (state)

D

Local Government

Most of Tennessee’s 95 counties are governed by county courts made up of popularly elected justices of the peace and presided over by a county judge or chairman. In some counties administrative functions are performed by elected county commissions. The government of Davidson County is combined with that of the city of Nashville.

There are 336 municipalities in Tennessee, most of which are governed by a mayor and council. Some municipalities, however, have either the council and manager form of government or the commission form of government.

E

National Representation

Tennessee elects two U.S. senators and nine members of the U.S. House of Representatives. The state casts 11 electoral votes in Presidential elections.

VIII

History

A

First Inhabitants

In the prehistoric period, several different Native American cultures flourished in Tennessee. Nomadic hunters, whose culture is called Paleo-Indians by archaeologists, were present about 11,500 years ago. Divided into small bands, they ranged widely over the land, hunting many now-extinct animals. In the Archaic culture, from about 8,000 to 2,500 years ago, woven baskets and highly specialized stone tools abounded. Beginning about 2,500 years ago, people of the Woodland culture practiced horticulture, mound building, and the making of clay pottery. Mounds remaining from this period still exist in many parts of Tennessee.

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By the 1500s the state was occupied by essentially the same Native American peoples who were there when whites first entered the area. From west to east, the dominant peoples in early historic times were the Chickasaw, the Yuchi, and the Cherokee.

The Chickasaw, most of whom lived in northern Mississippi and Alabama, claimed western Tennessee. The Cherokee lived on the upper reaches of the Tennessee River and claimed the eastern part of the present state as their hunting ground. The Yuchi, part of the Creek, and other small tribes were driven out to the south about 1700. About the same time the Chickasaw and Cherokee forced the Shawnee, who had lived in the north central region, to move north of the Ohio River. Thereafter Middle Tennessee was a hunting ground, disputed between the Chickasaw and Cherokee but inhabited by neither. Both peoples maintained their claims to much of Tennessee into the 19th century.

B

Exploration Period

B

1

First European Explorers

Spanish explorers were the first Europeans to enter the area. Hernando de Soto came in 1540 on his way to the Mississippi River and crossed it in 1541 near the site of present-day Memphis. In northeastern Mississippi he met the Chickasaw, whom he recorded as “Chicaza.” From an early time they maintained a landing place at the site of present-day Memphis, which was connected to their settlements in Mississippi by a 256-km (160-mi) trail.

Another Spaniard, Juan Pardo, explored eastern Tennessee in the 1560s and built several forts, including one near present-day Chattanooga. The forts were later abandoned, and Spain showed little further interest in the area.

The Spanish contact was a disaster for the Native Americans because the Spanish brought European diseases to which the Native Americans had no immunity. A severe population decrease soon occurred, most likely caused by the spread of these diseases. The central Mississippi valley was thinly inhabited by the time the French arrived in 1673. Those who survived the plague merged into larger groups and developed a consciousness of national identity such that, by the time of white settlement, the Cherokee and Chickasaw particularly were capable of concerted action in both war and peace. Both nations were quick to adopt elements of white culture, and by the time of the American Revolution (1775-1783) lived in substantial log cabins like those of the white settlers.

B

2

French and English

In 1673 English explorers James Needham and Gabriel Arthur led an expedition from Virginia into eastern Tennessee. Others followed. In the same year the French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet described the Chickasaw Bluffs, near the site of Memphis, on their voyage down the Mississippi. Another Frenchman, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, set up a temporary post, Fort Prud’homme, on the Chickasaw Bluffs near the site of Memphis in 1682. La Salle continued down the Mississippi to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico. On the basis of this exploration he claimed all the land drained by the Mississippi for France, naming it Louisiane (in English, Louisiana).

The claim to Louisiana gave the French an enormous but not clearly defined area for trade and settlement. Thirty years later, French traders built a temporary post at the site of Nashville, which was later called the French Lick after them. However, they never founded a true settlement in Tennessee, and even their trading priority was disputed by the English. The English maintained that they had rights in the area because their explorers, Needham, Arthur, and others, had been there before La Salle.

C

The Colonial Period

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