The 16th state admitted to the US was Tennessee on June 1st, 1796. It was not one of the original 13 colonies because North Carolina refused to protect Tennessee and other counties from indigenous counter attacks. By first showing they had more than the required population count through a census, then receiving votes from the citizens, and finally writing a constitution, they were able to apply for statehood and get approval from Congress. Knoxville was the first state capital. Tennessee is nicknamed "The Volunteer State" because of the 20,000 troops of volunteers that fought in the War of 1812, and the 30,000 Tennesseans enlisted in the Mexican-American War in 1846. The capital today is Nashville. The state tree is the Tulip Tree. The state flower is the Iris. The state bird is the Mockingbird.
Bones and artifacts have turned up in Tennessee that are over 14,000 years old. The early indigenous tribes of Tennessee were the Yuchi, Creek, and Shawnee, and others that were not recorded. The earliest recorded indigenous were the Cherokee of the southeast, and the Chickasaw of the west. The name "Tennessee" came from "Tanasi", which was named after a Cherokee village. By 1818, the Chickasaws ceded their land away to the State of Tennessee by treaty. For over 100 years, Natives and Europeans coexisted and traded deer and beaver pelts In the 1830's, some hid in the mountains, but most of the Cherokee Indians that were living in Tennessee were either killed by smallpox, measles, and venereal diseases or forced to go to what was called "Indian Territory", which is now part of Oklahoma. This was due to the Indian Removal Act created by President Andrew Jackson. Today, there are no Tennessee indigenous tribes recognized in the state.
Hernando de Soto, a Spanish explorer, was the very first European settler to land in Tennessee in 1540. In 1754, during the French and Indian War, the French and English fought to control the land. In 1763, the British won control of all the land east of the Mississippi River, which included Tennessee. East Tennesseans broke away from North Carolina due to frustration with its insensitivities to create the state of "Frankland", or Franklin where parts of Tennessee are today. It began operating as an independent state and incited the Indian raids. North Carolina created policies and internal divisions within the state that finally led to this new state passing out of existence in 1788. In 1796, Tennessee joined the Union, only to withdraw at the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, and then rejoined as the first state to come back in 1866.