spmd1994@aolcom
Save Moccasin Bend National Park!
the -whole- 956 contiguous acreage, not just 911 acres of disconnected pieces.

What is Moccasin Bend? depending on your race and wealth, Moccasin Bend means different things to different people. 1. if you're red and poor, it's a cultural site of the Muscogee (Creek) and Yuchi people, and Southeastern indians who lived here for literally thousands of years. 2. if you're white and poor, it's the site of a couple gun emplacements used by the northern Federal army to shell the southern Confederate army on Lookout Mountain. 3. if you're white and wealthy, looking down on Chattanooga, it's a viewshed of river and trees seen from up on Lookout and Elder Mountains - home sites of the local very wealthy. 4. if you're white and into making more money in Chattanooga, it's an indian area that's going to be a National Park that can be capitalized on by building the necessary Second Major Tourist Attraction in Chattanooga: an Indian Museum HB 980: Bill status | Bill text

http://www.ibsgwatch.imagedjinn.com/sites/moccasinbend1.htm

If you are interested in making this happen the -right- way, send your individual phone message, e-mail or letter.
Request a Senate Oversight Hearing with -all- parties involved, including federally-recognized tribes and
Native Americans living in Chattanooga and Tennessee, regarding the land balkanization (exemption of the MB Golf Course) and land use issues.

write to the
Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
United States Senate
838 Hart Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-2251 		Chairman
Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii
(202) 224-5852
email form		 Vice Chairman
Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado
(202) 224-3934
email form

For more information, contact the Chattanooga InterTribal Association.

aerial view of Moccasin Bend

M o c c a s i n . B e n d

One of CITA's constant efforts is working at preserving our Native American cultural heritage and burial grounds out on Moccassin Bend, just west of downtown Chattanooga.

There have been several plans proposed to develop Moccassin Bend as a tourist attraction, fancy residential area, or national park. Our hope is that the burial grounds will remain as sacred and inviolate as Euro-American cemeteries, while remaining accessible to Native Americans for ceremonial use.

    Historical Significance
  • Paleo (Stone Age) Indian sites (12,000-8,000 bce)
  • Early Archaic and Middle Archaic Sites (8,000 - 4,000 bce)
  • Late Archaic sites (4,000 - 1,000 bce)
  • Early and Middle Woodland sites (1,000 bce - 600 ce)
  • Late Woodland burial mound complex (600 - 900 ce)
  • Mississippian Indian and Spanish contact site (900-1650 ce)
  • Creek occupation
  • Cherokee and Chickamauga towns (1776 - 1838 ce)
  • Civil War Battle of Chattanooga fortifications, bivouacs, camps water batteries (1863)
      Recognition
    • 1984 National Register of Historic Places - Archaeological District
    • 1986 National Historic Landmark
    • 1993 Native American Burial Ground by CITA -
      the Chattanooga InterTribal Association
    Importance
  • One of the most important Native American sites inside any major U.S. city
  • Represents the historical Native essence of Chattanooga
  • The last vestige of Native American culture in the area since the Removal of the Five Civilized Tribes on the Trail of Tears in 1838.

The Chattanooga InterTribal Association (CITA)

  1. supports absolute preservation and protection of the cultural and natural resources of Moccasin Bend.

  2. believes that Moccasin Bend will not be safe from local development plans until it becomes US federal property and thereby protected by US federal laws such as the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA 1990); the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA 1978); the Archaeological Resource Protection Act (ARPA 1979); the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA 1966); the Executive Orders for Protection and Enhancement of the Cultural Environment; the Executive Order for Indian Sacred Sites; the Archeological and Historic Preservation Act (AHPA 1974); and the Environmental Policy Act (EPA 1969).

  3. supports the US National Park Service efforts towards collaboration with Native nations in preserving and protecting the cultural and natural resources of Moccasin Bend.

  4. opposes any new construction insofar as it would extend or change the existing buildings' footprint on Moccasin Bend.

resources:

CITA uktena to Save the Bend ©CITA 2000 ACTION:  Marches to Save the Bend, april-october 2000
Moccasin Bend to downtown Chattanooga.

Moccasin Bend
in the news

CITA does not necessarily endorse the perspectives of these newspaper articles but provides them here for educational purposes only.

Kevin Smith's listing of articles on Moccasin Bend at Tennessee Archaeology in the News also used.

other sordid info ...

  • an Interview with Jack Lupton, heir of a local Coca-Cola fortune, and
    the money behind Chattanooga's commercial development on Native grave sites.

  • simple questions and simple answers on the Chattanooga RiverPark
    development that encompasses Moccasin Bend.

  • an interesting letter from the TN Outdoor Drama Association (TODA) that wants to follow through with the MasterPlan's directives to construct an outdoor amphitheater to put on Civil War dramas to you tourists in the summers. (followed by a CITA member's commentary).

    • contact: cita@chattanooga.net