Jordan Oocumma grew up hearing stories of the mound.
His grandparents imbued his childhood with tales about the strip of land at the center of a Cherokee town built by their ancestors more than a thousand years ago. But for about two centuries, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians — the federally recognized tribe with ancestral ties to the mound — has not held the deed to it.
The Cherokee were forced out of the town in the 19th century, setting off a spate of land ownership disputes in what is now Franklin, North Carolina. For generations, the mound was passed between non-Native private citizens and the town government.
Now, that’s changing.
On Monday, the Franklin Town Council voted unanimously to start the transfer of the mound’s deed to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. For decades, tribal members have been stewards of the mound, helping erect a kiosk beside it that tells visitors about its ancestral ties.
“It’s good to go back to the people,” said Oocumma, the mound’s groundskeeper. “Everybody’s excited.”
The land, called the Noquisiyi Mound, is storied.
The earthwork’s exact age is a mystery, but it was probably constructed around A.D. 1000, according to the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. A Franklin-based nonprofit that oversees the mound says it appeared on maps as early as 1544, and British colonial records first referenced it by name in 1718.
It was one of about 30 mounds that existed in the region. They were hearths of the earliest Native American communities in North Carolina, centers of ancient towns that were used for burials, ceremonies and tribal council meetings.
The Noquisiyi mound, also known as the Nikwasi mound, remained the physical and spiritual center of a Cherokee town — until the settlers arrived.
“It can be a poster child of the history of land being taken from Native American people,” said Elaine Eisenbraun, executive director of the Noquisi Initiative, the nonprofit created to help safeguard the mound.
In 1776, American militia members destroyed the town.
The Cherokees tried to rebuild. They lived there until the settlers ultimately forced them out in 1819, the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources said. With the ouster, the tribe lost ownership of the mound it held sacred.
For decades, non-Native owners of the mound repurposed it. At one point, it became a green space with a gazebo atop it where people could picnic, Eisenbraun said. At another, it was farmed for corn.
In 1946, the then-owner wanted to let a developer bulldoze the land. When townsfolk caught wind of his plans, they raised the funds to keep the sacred mound, already worn and shrunken over time, from being completely flattened. The town had yet to fully understand what the mound meant to the Cherokees, but it knew it would be disrespectful to raze a property that had stood the test of time, Eisenbraun said. Children across the county collected pennies and nickels to help the town buy the deed.
For more than 65 years, the town took care of the mound.
But in 2012, Eisenbraun said, a town employee sprayed herbicide all over it, so a new type of grass could be cultivated on it. She said the local government made the move, which turned the mound brown, to reduce mowing costs. Fury followed. Members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, including the tribe’s principal chief at the time, said it was disrespectful and insensitive.
It was the start of a years-long conflict over the mound’s ownership. The tribe wanted to buy the land, but the town wouldn’t sell, and the groups argued over who was the rightful owner. They reached a compromise in 2019, when the town transferred the deed to the Noquisi Initiative, then a young nonprofit, thereby giving the tribe partial ownership.
Oocumma moved to Franklin shortly after that decision, just as the nonprofit began considering how to preserve the mound and teach its ancient history to visitors. Eisenbraun found Oocumma, who owns a landscaping business, online and asked whether he would become the mound’s groundskeeper — one of several management changes the nonprofit helped shepherd.
When he accepted, Oocumma became the first enrolled tribe member to take care of the land since the Cherokees lost it about two centuries ago.
“That was amazing,” he said. “I was very honored.”
The nonprofit also embarked on the process to fully transfer the deed to the tribe. The deed’s language prevented the group from simply handing it over — the town council would have to vote on the issue again before a new deed could be drawn up giving the tribe full ownership, Eisenbraun said. So attorneys for the nonprofit, the town and the tribe worked together to find a legally sound way to move forward.
On Monday, about 200 years after their tribe lost ownership of the mound, the Franklin government green-lit the wish of generations of Cherokees.
“Maybe a property can go home as much as people can go home,” Eisenbraun said. “We feel like the mound is going home to its family.”
Once a new deed is written, it will be presented to the tribal council for review — a group that once would have met atop the mound.
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