Coosa River

The Coosa River is a tributary of the Alabama River in the U.S. states of Alabama and Georgia. The river is about 280 miles (450 km) long.

The Coosa River begins at the confluence of the Oostanaula and Etowah rivers in Rome, Georgia, and ends just northeast of the Alabama state capital, Montgomery, where it joins the Tallapoosa River to form the Alabama River just south of Wetumpka. Around 90% of the Coosa River's length is located in Alabama. Coosa County, Alabama and Etowah County, Alabama are located on the Coosa River.

The Coosa is one of Alabama's most developed rivers. Most of the river has been impounded, with Alabama Power, a unit of the Southern Company, owning seven dams and powerhouses on the Coosa River. The dams produce hydroelectric power, but they are costly to some species endemic to the Coosa River.

Native Americans had been living on the Coosa Valley for millennia before Hernando de Soto and his men became the first Europeans to visit it in 1540. The Coosa chiefdom was one of the most powerful chiefdoms in the southeast at the time.

Over a century after the Spanish left the Coosa Valley, the British established strong trading ties with the Muscogee Creek bands of the area around the late 17th century, much to the dismay of France, which had some early settlements on the coast, specifically Mobile. The French had traveled from there upriver and believed that the Coosa River was a key gateway to the entire South; they wanted to control the valley. The main transportation of the day was by boat. The confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers formed the Alabama River, which has its mouth at Mobile Bay, the port used by the French for travel around the Caribbean and to France. They wanted to retain control of both the Coosa and the Alabama rivers.

In the early 18th century, almost all European and Indian trade in the southeast ceased during the tribal uprisings brought on by the Yamasee War against the Carolinas. After a few years, the Indian trade system was resumed under somewhat reformed policies. The conflict between the French and English over the Coosa Valley, and much of the southeast in general, continued. It was not until after Britain had defeated France in the Seven Years' War (also known as the French and Indian War) that France relinquished its holdings east of the Mississippi River to Britain. This was part of the Treaty of Paris, signed by both nations in 1763 to mark the end of the war.

By the end of the American Revolutionary War, the Coosa Valley was occupied in its lower portion by the Creek and in the upper portion by the Cherokee peoples, who had a settlement near its origin in northwest Georgia. They were beginning to feel pressure from European-American encroachment throughout their territories.

After the Fort Mims massacre near Mobile, General Andrew Jackson led American troops, along with Cherokee allies, against the Lower Creek in the Creek War. This culminated in the Creek defeat at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. Afterward, the Treaty of Fort Jackson in 1814 forced the Creek to cede a large amount of land to the United States, but left them a reserve between the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers in northern Alabama. Even there the Creeks were encroached on by European-American settlers who began as squatters from the United States.