What is a former name for the river on which Guntersville, Alabama was founded?
Tennessee River The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately 652 mi long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other names, as many of the Cherokee had their territory along its banks, especially in eastern Tennessee and northern Alabama. Its current name is derived from the Cherokee village "Tanasi".
Chickamauga Cherokee The Chickamauga Cherokee were a group that separated from the greater body of the Cherokee tribes during the American Revolution. The majority of the Cherokee people wished to make peace with the American rebels near the end of 1776 following several military setbacks and the reprisals that followed. The "Chickamauga" followers of headman, Dragging Canoe, moved with him down the Tennessee River away from their historic Overhill Cherokee towns in the winter of 1776–1777. Relocated in a more isolated area, they established eleven new towns in order to gain distance from colonists' encroachments. The frontier Americans associated Dragging Canoe and his band with their new town on the Chickamauga Creek, and began to refer to them as the "Chickamaugas." Five years later, the Cherokee once more moved further west and southwest into what is now called Alabama, establishing five larger settlements. They were then more commonly known as the "Lower Cherokee". This term was closely associated with the people of these "Five Lower Towns".