Editing Ducktown, Tennessee (section)

===Pre-mining period===

The [[Cherokee]] inhabited the Copper Basin as early as the late 18th century, well before the arrival of the first Euro-American settlers.  Their territory extended into northern Georgia. The Cherokee village of ''Gawonvyi'' (also known as Kawana)&mdash; which means “duck place” in English<ref name="Outdoors">{{cite web |last1=Outdoors |first1=Cascade |title=History Of Ocoee River & The Area |url=https://cascadeoutdoors.com/2019/08/15/history-of-ocoee-river-and-the-area/ |website=cascadeoutdoors.com |access-date=October 14, 2020}}</ref>&mdash; is believed to have been located at the confluence of the [[Ocoee River]] and Tumbling Creek.  The village's name was recorded on Cherokee annuity distribution rolls as "Ducktown" in 1799.  According to tradition, Ducktown was named after a Cherokee leader named Chief Duck.<ref name=barclay>R.E. Barclay, ''Ducktown Back in Raht's Time'' (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1946), 4-5.</ref>

In 1836, the Cherokee relinquished control of the Copper Basin to the U.S. government as part of lands they ceded in Tennessee and Georgia in the [[Treaty of New Echota]].  Although the U.S. removed many of the basin's Cherokee inhabitants in the march to Indian Territory, some avoided the roundup by hiding out in the surrounding mountains.  They would later help build the Old Copper Road (now part of US [[U.S. Route 64]]). In the 1840s and 1850s, Ducktown was called ''Hiwassee'' or ''Hiawassee,'' after the Cherokee name for a major river in the area. This name was subsequently adopted for the city's first major mining operation.<ref>Barclay, pp. 8-9.</ref>