Long Island of the Holston: Sacred Ground on a Violent Frontier

Long before frontier forts rose along the rivers of eastern Tennessee, the Long Island of the Holston was sacred ground to the Cherokee people. Resting in the Holston River near present-day Kingsport, the island served as a council site, treaty ground, spiritual gathering place, and crossroads for generations of Native Americans long before white settlers entered the region. Cherokee leaders believed the island held deep spiritual significance, and many important councils and negotiations were held there

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To the Cherokee, the land was not merely property. It was ancestral ground tied to identity, memory, and survival. The rivers, hunting territories, and burial lands surrounding Long Island were part of a living world entrusted to them by their forefathers. When settlers began pouring into the frontier after the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals in 1775, many Cherokee leaders believed their world was slipping away.

But to the settlers pushing westward across the Appalachian Mountains, the frontier represented opportunity, freedom, and survival. Families built cabins along isolated river valleys under constant fear of attack. Small militia forts sprang up across the Holston and Watauga settlements as protection against raids during the Revolutionary War era.

Among those frontier leaders was John Sevier, one of the most famous militia commanders in early Tennessee history. Sevier became a central figure in defending the overmountain settlements during the Cherokee wars of the Revolution. Living among the Watauga settlements, he helped organize militia resistance against Cherokee attacks that were encouraged and supplied by the British during the war.

In July 1776, fighting exploded around Long Island during what became known as the Battle of Island Flats. Cherokee warriors under leaders such as Dragging Canoe attacked frontier settlements in an effort to halt the advancing tide of settlement. Frontier militia companies gathered near Long Island to stop them. The fighting was brutal and personal, because both sides believed they were defending their homes.

The settlers viewed themselves as protectors of isolated families struggling to survive in wilderness country. Many militia men were farmers who grabbed rifles and left plows standing in the fields when alarms spread through the settlements. They believed they were defending wives, children, and the dream of a new nation.

The Cherokee perspective was tragically different. To them, the settlers were invading sacred homelands despite earlier agreements and royal proclamations intended to limit colonial expansion west of the mountains. Younger Cherokee leaders such as Dragging Canoe warned that selling land to settlers would destroy their people forever. He reportedly predicted the frontier settlements would become “a dark and bloody ground.” History would prove him painfully correct.

Frontier forts became symbols of this collision between two worlds. Small stations and stockades dotted the Holston settlements, including forts in the vicinity of Long Island. Though references to “Fort Womac” are scarce and sometimes confused with other frontier stations, local traditions place small defensive forts and stations throughout the Holston settlements during this era. These crude forts were often little more than log walls surrounding cabins where settlers gathered during attacks. Life inside them was harsh, crowded, and uncertain.

Men such as my 5th great grandfather, Solomon Cole, were part of that frontier militia tradition. Thousands of militia soldiers served short tours protecting settlements, scouting trails, guarding forts, and fighting sudden engagements against Native war parties. Unlike Continental Army soldiers, many frontier militia records were poorly kept, lost, or destroyed over time. As a result, numerous veterans never received pensions because they could not prove their service years later. Sadly, Solomon Cole’s story was not uncommon. Many frontier men sacrificed greatly during the Revolution yet disappeared almost entirely from official history because of missing paperwork, burned courthouses, or incomplete militia rolls.

Their service, however, helped shape the survival of the frontier settlements along the Holston River.

Today, Long Island remains one of the most historically significant places in Tennessee. Though much of the island changed through later industrial development, portions of the sacred ground were eventually returned to the Cherokee people in recognition of its importance to their history and culture.

The story of Long Island of the Holston is not a simple tale of heroes and villains. It is the story of two peoples fighting for survival, identity, and homeland during one of the most turbulent periods in early American history. Along the rivers and forts of the Tennessee frontier, both the militia soldier and the Cherokee warrior believed they were defending what mattered most.