stopping places alone- the line. The road
was completed within the next three years, and became the great high-
way from the coast to the Tennessee settlements. Beginning on the
Tugaloo or Savannah a short distance below the entrance of Toccoa
creek, it crossed the upper Chattahoochee, passing through Clarkes-
ville, Nacoochee valley, the Unicoi gap. and Hiwassee in Georgia;
then entering North Carolina it descended the Hiwassee, passing
through Hayesville and Murphy and over the Great Smoky range into
Tennessee, until it reached the terminus at the Cherokee capital,
Echota, on Little Tennessee. It was officially styled the Unicoi turn-
pike,' but was commonly known in North Carolina as the Wachesa
trail, from Watsi'sa or Wachesa, a prominent Indian who lived near
the crossing-place on Beaverdam creek, below Murphy, this portion
of the road being laid out along the oldIndian trail which already
bore that name. 3
Passing over for the present some negotiations having for their pur-
pose the removal of the Cherokee to the West, we arrive at the period
of the Creek war.
Ever since the treaty of Greenville it had been the dream of Tecum-
tha, the great Shawano chief (33), to weld again the conf ederacj' of the
northern tribes as a harrier against the further aggressions of the white
man. His own burning eloquence was ably seconded by the subtler
persuasion of his brother, who assumed the role of a prophet with a
new revelation, the burden of which was that the Indians must return
to their old Indian life it' they would preserve their national existence.
The new doctrine spread among all the northern tribes and at hist
reached those of the south,