The first known Cherokee contact with Europeans was in late May 1540, when a Spanish expedition led by Hernando de Soto passed through Cherokee country near present-day Embreeville, Tennessee, which the Spaniards referred to as Guasili [REF].
In 1673, two Englishmen, James Needham and Gabriel Arthur were sent to Overhill Cherokee county in 1673 by fur-trader Abraham Wood from Fort Henry (modern Petersburg, Virginia).