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The following data is extracted from Cherokee of the Smoky Mountains.

De Soto turned westward crossing "very rough and high ridges," to the upper waters of the French Broad, thence southerly until he reached some Cherokee settlements, where he was hospitably received. Still no gold was found, and the only treasure that he carried back was a dressed buffalo skin, the first ever seen by white men.

Long before their discovery by Europeans, the Cherokees had developed for themselves the rudiments if civilization. They were not roving hunters but dwelt in villages of log huts and cultivated the soil. They raised corn, beans, potatoes, (probably some variety of sweet potato) squashes and fruits: also practiced various simple industries. Their tribal organization, though looser than the confederacy of the Iroquois, was yet coherent enough for the whites to recognize as the "Cherokee Nation."

Scotch and Irish traders began to traffic with the Cherokees about the middle of the 17th century. Some of them remained and intermarried with the Indians, gaining much influence over them. Yet whatever tendency such mingling may have had toward bringing the Cherokees into friendly relations with the British was neutralized by the haughty bearing and ruthless policy of the border settlers and provincial governments.

It is a commonplace of history that our own colonists, wherever they encountered Indians, stirred up bad blood and then proceeded to spill it. The French, for the most part only traders, and relatively few in number, were content to let the Indians live their own life in their own way. For this reason the French had little trouble with the natives. The English, on the contrary, came in swarms, with greed of land and a fixed purpose to seize and hold. So it resulted that when war broke out between the French and English (in America), most of the native tribes sided with the New France.

In this crisis the Cherokees found themselves in a pinch between conflicting interests. Their heads really were with the French, but they were constrained to ally themselves with the English for protection against their hereditary foes, the neighboring Indian tribes, who had promptly gone over to the French side.

They were destined to rue the bargain, for they fell out

Source: Cherokee of the Smoky Mountains

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