Sautee Nacoochee trip planner

Sautee Nacoochee is an unincorporated community in White County, Georgia, United States, near Sautee Creek in the Appalachian foothills of northeast Georgia, approximately 95mi north of Atlanta. The nearest incorporated town is the tourist destination of Helen.GeographySautee Nacoochee is located at longitude -83.68094,latitude 34.67994.Origin of namesSautee Nacoochee's name combines two place names of Muscogee origin. Sautee is the Anglicization of a branch of the Creek Native Americans, known as the Sawate, which means "Raccoon People." Nacoochee is the Anglicization of the Cherokee pronunciation of the Creek word, Nokose, which means "bear."A state historic marker states that the location was visited by Hernando de Soto in 1540 AD. However, a study of the route taken by De Soto by a team of Southeastern university professors in the 1980s placed his route far to the north.In 1646, the Governor of Spanish Florida ordered the construction of a trading post on the Chattahoochee River, somewhere in the vicinity of Sautee-Nacoochee. The 1693 Map of North America by Robert Morden labels Sautee as "Apalache." This may be the name of a Spanish gold mining village, because the 1721 Map of South Carolina, drawn by Colonel John Barnwell, names the Native American village at that location, Itsate. The Itsate were a branch of the Creek Indians that today are commonly called Hitchiti. Apparently, the valley was soon captured by the Cherokees, because subsequent maps of the Cherokee Nation show the village being named Chote, Chotee or Chota. In 1754, all Cherokee villages were burned in northeast Georgia by the Koweta Creeks in their successful campaign to end the 40 year long Creek-Cherokee War. The 1755 map of North America by John Mitchell labels all Cherokee villages in the northeast tip of Georgia and extreme western North Carolina as being "deserted." The site was reoccupied by Native Americans after the American Revolution, but oddly the small village had a Creek name of Sawate, sometimes called "Santee." The land that village sat on was sold in 1722 to families from Burke County, NC and thereafter ceased to be occupied by Native Americans.

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