Tuskegee (Cherokee town)
Coordinates: 35°35′43″N 84°12′08″W / 35.59517°N 84.20227°W
Tuskegee (also spelled Toskegee, Taskigi, and similar variations) was an Overhill Cherokee town located along the Little Tennessee River in what is now Monroe County, Tennessee, United States. The town developed in the late 1750s alongside Fort Loudoun, and was inhabited until the late 1770s, when it was evacuated and probably burned during the Cherokee–American wars. Tuskegee is best known as the birthplace of the Cherokee craftsman Sequoyah.
Now flooded by Tellico Lake, the Tuskegee site was investigated by archaeologists prior to inundation in the 1970s.
While there are several maps and accounts of the Overhill country by early explorers, Tuskegee is not mentioned before 1757, leading historians to suspect the town's development coincided with the construction of Fort Loudoun (1756–1757) by the British colony of South Carolina. A map of the area drawn in either 1756 or early 1757 by John Stuart, an officer in Fort Loudoun's garrison, does not mention Tuskegee, suggesting the town did not exist at the time of the fort's construction. A map by William G. De Brahm, the engineer who designed the fort, mentions a place called "Taskigee old Town" near one of the proposed sites for the fort (the term "old town" often denoted a cleared or previously-inhabited area).
The early correspondence of Fort Loudoun's garrison does not mention Tuskegee, and typically uses Tomotley, a Cherokee town located further upriver to the south, as a reference point. Tuskegee is mentioned in a letter from the fort dated January 11, 1757. The town is frequently mentioned thereafter as having the same location as Fort Loudoun.
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