Cherokee Indians get local support for giving Tennessee's highest peak, Clingmans Dome, its original name: Kuwohi

Map from ResearchGate by Thomas Lavery, adapted by The Rural Blog

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians wants the federal government to give Tennessee's highest mountain the name their ancestors gave it thousands of years ago: Kuwohi, or “the mulberry place.” And they're getting local support.

The government named the peak Clingmans Dome in 1859 for U.S. Sen. Thomas Lanier Clingman of North Carolina, who helped explore and survey the Great Smoky Mountains. (The peak, on the state line, is near the center of the national park named for the mountains.) In 1861, the Senate expelled Clingman, who later served as a Confederate general, for absence, reports Ben Benton of the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Tribal employee Lavita Hill told Benton that the mountain is spiritually important to the Cherokee, but its most important role may have been as a hideout for tribal members during the Trail of Tears in 1837-38. The Eastern Band “would not even be here today if not for Kuwohi,” Hill said. The Great Indian Removal does not define the Eastern Band, Benjamin Hedin writes for The Oxford American.

Principal Chief Richard Sneed told Benton, “For our tribe and tribes in general, having the recognition that this was ancestors’ land, our land, this is our home, is what this is about. It’s about restoring the dignity for tribal nations. . . . We’re not trying to make this an attack on Clingman, but rather an acknowledgment that there were names for this place already when these places were surveyed.”

Benton reports, "Hill said Clingman family members have reached out to the Cherokee to show their support for restoring the mountain’s original name." Commissioners of Swain County, which has 42 percent of the park, unanimously supported the idea Sept. 8, the Smoky Mountain Times reports.

"Other neighboring North Carolina governments have also joined in support," Benton reports, "and so far there has been no political-party divide" as there has been in some similar cases.

The decision is up to the U.S. Board of Geographic Names, or to the secretary of the Interior Department if the board doesn't act in a reasonable time. In 2015, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell restored the historic name of Denali to North America's highest peak, which had been named Mount McKinley for the Republican president who died in 1923. Congress had renamed the surrounding national park in Alaska for Denali in 1980 but Republicans fought renaming the mountain.