A New Map of the Cherokee Nation [and] A Sketch of the Cherokee Country

19th century interpretations of important maps of the Cherokee Country.

These two 19th-century reprints offer a fascinating comparative study of the Cherokee frontier during the Anglo-Cherokee War and the years following. Each image provides a rough approximation of the region between the Cherokee (Tennessee) River and the Savanna and Keowee Rivers. Various geographic features and settlements are labeled, with additional commentary on the traversability of local waterways. Fort Loudon/Savanna Hill was one of the first significant British outposts west of the Appalachian Mountains.

• A New Map of the Cherokee Nation with the Names of the Towns & Rivers they are Situated on first appeared in an issue of the London Magazine in 1760. Originally by Thomas Kitchin, this later re-issue was engraved by A. Trochsler & Co. of Boston around 1855.
• A Sketch of the Cherokee Country was engraved by G.G. Smith and published in Vol. IV of Bancroft’s’ General History of the United States in 1852. It’s a reduced image of a map that first appeared in 1772 as part of Thomas Mante’s “The History of the Late War in North-America, and the islands of the West-Indies.”

Sources: Library of Congress; Tennessee Virtual Archive