When Spanish explorers first visited Tennessee , led by Hernando de Soto in 1539 – 43 , it was inhabited by tribes of Muscogee and Yuchi people . Possibly because of European diseases devastating the Native tribes , which would have left a population vacuum , and also from expanding European settlement in the north , the Cherokee moved south from the area that is now Virginia . As British American colonists spread into the Province of Carolina , the native populations were forcibly displaced over time to the south and west , including all Muscogee and Yuchi peoples , the Chickasaw , and Choctaw . From 1838 to 1839 , nearly 17,000 Cherokees were forced to march from " emigration depots " in Eastern Tennessee , such as Fort Cass , to Indian Territory west of Arkansas . This came to be known as the Trail of Tears , as an estimated 4,000 Cherokees died along the way
Trail of Tears
Trail of Tears
Elizabethton, Tennessee