Record: the document says itPattern: documents line upLens: our readingOpen: not yet provenDisputed: argued, often by a hostile witness
Year: 1005 · Places: Carolinas, Tennessee, Europe
SUMMARYTanasi: the town that named the state (Nov 8, 2026; TANASI line research)
RECORD (Tennessee Encyclopedia, "Overhill Cherokees," Gerald F. Schroedl)Tanasi was a "close neighbor" of Chota in the Little Tennessee River valley, present-day Monroe County, and was overtaken by Chota in size and population by the 1740s; two monuments were placed at the Chota site in the 1980s, one "dedicated to Tanasi."
RECORD (Wikipedia, "Tanasi," citing Schroedl ed., Overhill Cherokee Archaeology at Chota-Tanasee, 1986)"Tanasi was located along the west bank of the Little Tennessee 27 miles (43 km) upstream from the river's mouth"; it "served as the de facto capital of the Overhill Cherokee from as early as 1721 until 1730"; Cyrus Thomas (Smithsonian) surveyed a mound there in the late 1880s; Thomas Lewis and Madeline Kneburg dug in 1939 (WPA); "between 1969 and 1974, University of Tennessee archaeologists conducted excavations"; "The 1972 excavations uncovered 191 features, 22 burials, 1005 postmolds, and 6 structures at the Tanasi site alone"; the site went under water "after completion of a dam on the Little Tennessee River in 1979" (Tellico); spellings "Tanase, Tenasi, Tenassee, Tunissee, Tennessee"; Mooney: "the meaning of the town's name is unknown."
RECORD (Wikipedia, "Name of Tennessee")a Cherokee town "Tanasi" appears on maps "as early as 1725"; Gov. James Glen of South Carolina is credited with the modern spelling in his 1750s letters; Timberlake's Draught of the Cherokee Country (1765) spread it; the 1796 convention "adopted 'Tennessee' as the name of the state" (no single person credited)
RECORD (Tennessee Encyclopedia, "Pardo Expedition," David H. Dye)in 1567 Pardo "stopped at the fortified town of Tanasqui on the French Broad River on October 6."
PATTERNthe state, the river and the whole valley carry one Cherokee town's name; the paper colony took the people's word because the people kept saying it (P180)
DISPUTEDwhether Pardo's "Tanasqui" (French Broad, 1567) is the same name as Tanasi (Little Tennessee) is argued; a Yuchi origin ("meeting place") rests on Yuchi.org per Wikipedia (weak)
LENS (WW9)the land's own name outlived the paper; Tanasi sits under a TVA lake, and the name still sits on the state
OPENwho moved the name at the 1796 convention (the popular credit to Andrew Jackson is not in any source opened); the 1725 map itself (title, maker); Juan de la Bandera's Spanish relación for "Tanasqui" word for word; Eastern Band / Cherokee Nation language sources on the meaning. Connects: P166, P180, P861–P864.