1700s
At first relations with the Cherokee were good as both parties benefited from the trading that was taking place. But the many forces taking place at the time led to distrust and warfare. The Spanish, English and French sought comrades in the Indian Nations. The Indians themselves had conflicts not only with other tribes, but with members of their own who acted against the chief's wishes. It was destined to become a bloody time in American history.
An English fort was constructed circa 1756 near present day Vonore, Tennessee. Fort Loudon, located six miles from the Cherokee town of Chota, was rhombus shaped. Access to the site across the mountains proved treacherous with parties often managing only six miles in a day. The heavy cannons had to be lashed crossways on the backs of pack horses. Occasionally the protruding end of the cannon would catch on a tree along the narrow trails causing the animal to fall and break its neck. The exact path taken by these soldiers is unknown, but was most likely across the Unicoi Gap some 20 miles south of the Dragon. This Unicoi Trail was improved and opened to west bound settlers circa 1813. By 1820 property owners had begun collecting tolls from those using the now wagon passable roadway.
The mountain forests in the 16-1700s were nearly devoid of underbrush. The Indians had a practice of burning the forest floor to enhance hunting of wild game which included buffalo, elk, deer, wolves and even moose. By the early 1900s the forest thickets were returning with major growths of rhododendron, flame azaleas, and other shrubs.
A number of bloody incidents between the English and the Cherokee occurred in 1759-60. These escalated into all-out warfare. Many of the forts, including Loudon were attacked. Fort Loudon was abandoned in 1760. As some 200 soldiers marched in retreat, the Cherokee attacked killing twenty-nine and took the rest captive. The attack occurred about 10 miles south of the fort on the Tellico River. This route leads one to believe the access route across the mountains was at the Unicoi Gap southwest of Deals Gap.
A massive force was assembled to exact revenge on the Cherokee. Some three-thousand soldiers marched into the immediate area and burned all Cherokee towns and crops along their route. This force very likely took the Deals Gap route on the way back into North Carolina burning towns along the banks of the Tuckaseegee River. A peace treaty was finally adopted ending the Cherokee War in 1761.
New battles with the Cherokee erupted in June 1776 when war against the white man was declared by the Cherokee. Bands of Indians attacked helpless settlers across western North Carolina and northern Georgia. Retaliation was swift and merciless. Several armies were amassed and laid waste to most of the Cherokee towns including many west of the mountains. One army attacked Indian villages moving from Waynesville to Franklin near Wayah Bald Gap. Another army destroyed the Cherokee town of Stekoa (present day Stecoah), crossed the Tuckaseegee and Oconaluftee Rivers, destroying more. Most of the villages were deserted when the soldiers arrived, so there was little bloodshed.
Roads in the late 1700s were little more than trails, especially in the western parts of North Carolina. The state more or less left it up to the counties to maintain roadways. In the Blue Ridge mountain men walked or rode horses over trails that had been used by trappers and hunters.
The Botanist William Bartram explored western North Carolina in 1775 making it as far west as present day Robbinsville. The French botanist Andrea Michaux made several exploratory trips in the years of 1785-88. In 1793 he made it as far as present day Nashville. Most Europeans of this era deemed the mountains of western North Carolina as "impassable."
One of the first white men to possibly cross the Blue Ridge using present day Deal's Gap was John Sevier in March 1781. Sevier with a raiding party of 150 men on horseback "started to cross the Great Smoky Mountains over trails never before attempted by white men, and so rough in places that it was hardly possible to lead horses." History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees, James Mooney, pg 59.