Three hundred years ago the southern Appalachians were home to the sovereign Cherokee people. Over fifty towns and settlements were connected by a well-worn system of foot trails, many of which later became wagon roads built by Cherokee turnpike companies. This Indian trail system, which climaxed around 1800, was the blueprint for the basic circuitry of the region's modern road and interstate system.
This map is a snapshot of the major trails and roads centered around western North Carolina in the late 18th Century. (A New and General Map of the Southern Dominion Belonging to the United States of America, Laurie & Whittle, London, 1794.) Click on any area of the map to see an enlarged view of that area.
Stagnant European economies and the discovery of new natural resources sparked competitive world markets that led to wars between nations to procure land, gold, furs, and slaves from North America. By the 1700s, the British, French, and Spanish were fighting over what we call the Southeast.
Above, a remnant section of Gunter's Landing trail near Wills Town, Alabama used by 1100 Cherokee Indians in the Trail of Tears 1838.
The early Indian trails had evolved logically and inevitably - the result of thousands of years of Native Americans' interactions with animals, tribal migration, relocations, population shifts, and lifestyle changes due to European contact and trade. They evolved within a landscape of obstacles and destinations, following corridors that combined efficiency with the path of least resistance.
Geological features were the key factors that led to the establishment and development of village sites and trail locations. Dividing ridges, passes and gaps, springs, river shoals, shallows, waterfalls, fords, and valleys all determined ultimately where trails and sometimes even tribal boundaries were established. Travel routes considered good camping sites had springs and sometimes natural shelters, such as rock overhangs along bluffs.
In Europe, deerskins had become the material of choice for the designer jeans of the day. Fad and fashion in the streets of London were the beginning of the end of freedom for the Native Americans from whom we inherited our first road system. From the late 1690s on there was fierce competition between the French and the English to monopolize the trade of the Native Americans.
The demand for deerskins would seduce the Indian tribes of Alabama and the Southeast into a dependency on manufactured European trade goods. The traditional industries and crafts that were the foundation of native economic freedom began to be abandoned. Pack trains leaving from Charles Town, South Carolina delivered manufactured European goods such as metal pots, cloth, knives, blankets, guns, powder balls, and rum. Traders returned laden with deer, beaver, bear, and other animal skins. Deerskins served as currency, and the value of a traded item was measured in deerskins. In 1732, a pistol traded for five buck-skins or 10 doeskins, and a knife for two buckskins or four doeskins.