Our Mission 

Nikwasi Initiative preserves, protects, and promotes culture and heritage in the original homelands of the Cherokee people.

​

Our Vision:

Intercultural understanding is universal!

 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.