Our Mission
The Nikwasi Initiative, a collaboration of the EBCI and neighboring communities, is a nonprofit dedicated to preserving and promoting the culture and heritage of people and places on the landscape that was traditionally the Cherokee homeland.
Using engaged partnerships, Nikwasi Initiative focuses on developing cultural resources for diverse projects from the nationally significant Cultural Corridor along the Little Tennessee River, to restoration of heritage apple species, and widespread cultural collaboration.
Nikwasi
was a Cherokee town
situated in the heart of present-day Franklin, North Carolina.
Though its exact age remains unknown, Nikwasi appears on maps as early as 1544, and British colonial records first mention it by name in 1718.
At the center of Nikwasi, on the banks of the Little Tennessee River, the town's meeting hall once towered over the landscape, built atop a manmade mound. Today, Nikwasi Mound, the settlement's only surviving landmark, rises up from downtown Franklin.
