Podcast Appalachia: Early Appalachian Explorers and Settlers

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello, I’m John Norris Brown, and you’re listening to Podcast Appalachia, a podcast dedicated to the study and understanding of the Appalachian region.

In my last podcast, I attempted to define the geographic boundaries of Appalachia. Today, I want to look at some of the early history of the Appalachian region, including exploration and settlement, as well as the often tragic conflict between Europeans and Native Americans.

Appalachia is a unique region and is considered by some to be America’s “first frontier.” Over the millennia it has been “discovered” many times and has seen more than its share of conflict, tragedy, and bloodshed. In order to fully appreciate this long history, we must travel back in time long before written history to an almost forgotten people.

The first settlers in the Appalachian region came over 14,000 years ago. There are no written records, so much about them remains a mystery. However, it is known that the ancestors of the Iroquois and Cherokee people migrated into the Appalachian Mountains from the west in about 12,000 BC. They then split into two separate and distinct societies: the Iroquois in the north, and the Cherokee in the south.

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