What is "cowee"

Cowee was an important Cherokee town located on the Little Tennessee River north of present-day Franklin, North Carolina, one of what were called the Middle Towns. The Cherokee occupied an existing developed site; it has been described as one of the best-preserved South Appalachian Mississippian culture sites in western North Carolina and has an earthwork platform mound. The Mississippian culture flourished from about 1000 to the 14th or 15th century.

The site consists of about of rolling fields and hills. The mound was part of the site, which became an important cultural center of the mountain Cherokee who later migrated south and occupied this area. British colonists attacked the village during the Anglo-Cherokee War, which accompanied the later years of the French and Indian War. It was attacked by colonial Patriot forces during the American Revolutionary War, when the Cherokee sided with the British.

During and after the revolution, the Cherokee also fought a series of actions in the Chickamauga area to evict encroaching European-American settlers. The Cherokee were forced out of the area and the site was abandoned. In the 1840s, the Hall family acquired the property. The Halls held the land for 175 years, and refused to allow private archaeological access to the main platform mound and village area.

The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as an archaeological site in 1973. In 2002 Hall descendants began negotiations that culminated in the 2007 transfer of the village and mound to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, along with conservation and preservation easements held by the state.