Map of the Country belonging to the Cherokee and Creek Indians, from the original drawing in the War Department (J. Melish, del., c. 1814)
John Melish’s map, from a War Department drawing, of the Cherokee and Creek country at the time of the Creek War: the Upper and Lower Creek towns on the Coosa, Tallapoosa and Chattahoochee, the Cherokee towns, the Federal Road and General Jackson’s route of 1813–14.
Source
| Map | Map of the country belonging to the Cherokee and Creek Indians : from the original drawing in the War Department / J. Melish, del., Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library Rare Map Collection, Hargrett Library |
|---|---|
| Author | John Melish, 1814 |
| Archive | Digital Library of Georgia |
| Rights | Public domain. Published 1814 — before 1931, so public domain in the United States. Evidence |
| Accuracy | About 41 km (RMS 9.1 km at 8 control points). Placed by hand in a map-queue session and approved by a person. If something sits in the wrong place, members can fix it with Fix placement on the map. |
| Method | Placed by hand: a smoothing thin-plate spline through 8 river junctions, forts and towns. The sheet’s own graticule is not used: Melish drew the Tennessee Valley about a degree west of where his longitudes put it. See the methodology. |
| Version | 1.0.1, updated 2026-10-06 |
| Covers | Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee |
Downloads
- Google Earth overlay (KMZ) — free (2.6 MB)
- GeoTIFF, tinted trails, EPSG:4326 (6967 × 5608; QGIS, ArcGIS) — free (4.3 MB)
- Print sheet over today’s map (3600 × 2200 PNG) — free (4 MB)
Project Homeland
This map is open for tracing into Project Homeland, one map of the trail network melded from every traced source. Members trace a trail by clicking along it: Trace a trail on the map.
Changelog
- 1.0.1 (2026-10-06): Fix: place names re-placed where the map draws them (they had been set by an approximation of the warp: median 0.9 km, up to 2 km off).
- 1.0.0 (2026-10-06): First release: placed by hand at 8 places. From the Native Routes sources register; Digital Library of Georgia (Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia).
Credits
- From the Native Routes sources register; Digital Library of Georgia (Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia)
- Georeferencing: Native Routes
- Scan: Digital Library of Georgia
Control points
The full list of control points with residuals is in control-points.geojson. Historic names indexed for search: names.geojson.
Something on this map sits in the wrong place? Members can show where with Fix placement on the map — confirmed fixes are tested against the map’s other control points each night and credited here. For anything else, report a problem.
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