The Chickamauga Cherokee are a Native American group who separated from the Cherokee in March 1775 (at the beginning of the American Revolutionary War) to the early 1800s, when elderly chiefs sold more than 22 million square acres of their hunting grounds. Most of the Cherokee people who lived on the Atlantic seaboard surrounded by settlers signed peace treaties with the Americans in 1776-1777, after the Second Cherokee War. Followers of the skiagusta (war chief) Dragging Canoe who lived on the landward side of the Appalachian continental divide in proximity to Muscogees (formerly known as Creeks) moved with him down the Tennessee River, away from their historic Overhill Cherokee towns. Relocated to a more isolated area, they established 11 new towns to distance themselves from encroaching colonists.

While frontier Americans associated Dragging Canoe and his band with their new town on Chickamauga Creek, and began to refer to the band as the Chickamaugas, Wilma Mankiller, former Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, referred to them as Chickamaugans, rather than Chickamaugas. The Chickamauga moved further west and southwest into present-day Alabama five years later, establishing five larger settlements. They were then more commonly known as the Lower Cherokee, a term closely associated with the people of the five lower towns.

Dragging Canoe, the first Chicamauga chief, separated from the Upper Cherokee and accused the elderly chiefs of endangering the survival of their people. He never met with whites to negotiate a treaty again. Division among the Cherokee is indicated by a May 4, 1808 letter from Thomas Jefferson to the "Chiefs of the Upper Cherokee" in which he says, "You propose My Children, that your Nation shall be divided into two and that your part the Upper Cherokees, shall be separated from the lower by a fixed boundary, shall be placed under the Government of the U.S. become citizens thereof, and be ruled by our laws; in fine, to be our brothers instead of our children."

During the winter of 1776–77, the Cherokee followers of Dragging Canoe moved down the Tennessee River and away from their Overhill Cherokee towns. They established nearly a dozen towns in this area to distance themselves from European-American encroachment.

Dragging Canoe and his followers settled where the Great Indian Warpath crossed Chickamauga Creek, near present-day Chattanooga, Tennessee. They named their town "Chickamauga", after the creek, and the adjacent region was known as the Chickamauga area. American settlers referred to its militant Cherokee as "Chickamaugas."

In 1782, militias under John Sevier and William Campbell destroyed the eleven Cherokee towns. Dragging Canoe led his people further down the Tennessee River, establishing five Lower Cherokee towns. After the Revolutionary War, westward migration increased from the new states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

In April 1779 Evan Shelby and troops from Virginia and North Carolina destroyed Chickamaugan towns. As Dragging Canoe had many Muscogee followers and supporters, he sent his brother, Little Owl, to request permission from Muscogee chief Alexander McGillivray to live on Muscogee land. McGillivray gladly gave his consent and Dragging Canoe and his followers then established five new towns in Muscogee territory. The towns centered on Running Water Creek Whiteside, Tennessee. The other towns founded at this time were Nickajack (near the cave of the same name), Long Island (on the Tennessee River), Crow Town (at the mouth of Crow Creek), and Lookout Mountain (Lookout Mountain Town, present-day Trenton, Georgia). A sixth town was added later, founded by red-headed "half-breed" chief, Will Webber (Willstown). More towns developed to the south and west, and were also known as the Lower Towns. ^{[citation needed]}

The Chickamauga Cherokee became known for their uncompromising enmity with United States settlers who pushed them out of their traditional territory. They signed treaties with Great Britain and Spain. From the town of Running Water, Dragging Canoe led attacks on white settlements throughout the American Southeast.