Message #109544

[Bianca]

A Brief History of the Catawba



The Catawba were one of the Siouan-speaking tribes that occupied the upper Piedmont area during
the time of the early Spanish expeditions into South Carolina during the mid 16th century. They were apparently closely related to the Issa (Ysa, Iswa) that were encountered during Pardo’s expedition
into the South Carolina interior in 1566-67. When John Lederer entered the North Carolina interior
from Virginia in 1670, he too met the Catawba, referring to them as Ushery (Lederer 1672; Alvord and Bidgood 1912). What little is known regarding the Catawba way of life shortly after the arrival of the English to the Carolinas is derived largely from the writings of John Lawson (1709), who explored the Piedmont territory and visited the Catawba in 1701.

When Lawson encountered the Catawba (“Kadapau”) at the beginning of the 18th century, they were described as a distinct group, living less than a day’s travel from the Iswa (“Esaws”) (Lawson 1709:43) shown on Lawson’s map of the Carolinas as being located at the headwaters of the “West Branch” of the “Clarendon River” (i.e., the Catawba River); but as native populations in the Carolinas rapidly declined as a result of war and epidemic disease, the Catawba later merged with the Iswa and with the remnants of many other Siouan-speaking groups in the region. The Catawba were quick to make friends with the English, and remained faithful allies during most of the 18th century, except for a brief period in 1715 in which they joined the Yamassee in their fight against the Carolinians. Their relationships with other neighboring tribes were not as friendly, however, as they alternately waged wars against the Shawnee, Delaware, Yuchi, Iroquois, Mobile, and Tuscarora Indians before they turned to join the Yamassee during their uprising in opposition to the slave-raiding of the Carolinians in 1715.

The Yamassee, Catawba, and their other native allies (Congaree, Santee, Sugeree, Wateree, Waxhaw) enjoyed some early successes, capturing several British forts and taking the lives of an estimated 200-400 colonists (Swanton 1952:115; Steen and Braley 1994:26), but the Carolinians eventually prevailed, exacting a terrible revenge of death and enslavement that virtually eliminated many native groups.

The Catawba had sued for peace earlier than the other participating tribes (Swanton 1952:91) and therefore survived to absorb many of the remaining refugees, including the Iswa, Congaree, Santee and Wateree (Swanton 1952:93, 98, 101). Maintaining peaceful relations with the Carolinians after the Yamassee War, the Catawba nonetheless continued to suffer the attacks of their archenemies, the Shawnee and the Iroquois, despite attempts by the British to intervene and stop the fighting. Whittled down by warfare and decimated by disease epidemics in 1738 and 1759, they were able to muster only 60 warriors by the early 1760s (Swanton 1952:91-92). After they lent the English their assistance in fighting the Cherokee War (1760-1761), the Catawba were rewarded with the establishment of a small reservation along the upper Catawba River near the South Carolina border.

Almost immediately, the Catawba reservation suffered from the encroachment of the Carolina colonists, and despite assurances from the colonial government that the trespassers would be evicted, nothing was ever done. The lack of fidelity on the part of the English may have been a key reason the Catawba sided with the Patriots during the American Revolution, serving as scouts during the conflict. When the British army invaded South Carolina in 1780, the Catawba withdrew northward into Virginia and did not return until the Battle of Guilford Courthouse (March 15, 1781).

After the Revolutionary War, the South Carolina government still refused to deal with the problem of white encroachment on Catawba lands, and by 1826 almost all the reservation had been sold or leased to non-Indians (Swanton 1952:91). Finally, in 1840, the state of South Carolina agreed to purchase the Catawba’s lands and arrange for a new home for them in North Carolina. But North Carolina refused to set aside any property for such a purpose, and the Catawba were forced to return to South Carolina where a new reservation of 800 acres was eventually set aside for them, and where the main body of Catawba have remained ever since.