[Note: This is a single part of what will be, by myclassification, about 240 compact tribal histories (contact to 1900). Itis limited to the lower 48 states of the U.S. but also includes thoseFirst Nations from Canada and Mexico that had important roles (Huron,Micmac, Assiniboine, etc.).This history's content and style are representative. The normal processat this point is to circulate an almost finished product among a peergroup for comment and criticism.
Using the Internet, this can be more inclusive. Feel free to commentor suggest corrections via e-mail. Working together we can end some ofthe historical misinformation about Native Americans. You will findthe ego at this end to be of standard size. Thanks for stopping by. Ilook forward to your comments...Lee Sultzman.]
Catawba River near the North and South Carolina border extending west toBroad River, their boundary with the Cherokee.
Before contact, the Catawba were probably two separate tribes: theCatawba proper and the Iswa. Together, they may have numbered as many as10,000, but when the first British estimates were made in 1692, theirpopulation was about 5,000. During the next 70 years the Catawbaabsorbed remnants from other Siouan-speaking tribes in the region.Despite this, their population declined rapidly from the combination ofdisease, war, and alcohol. By 1728 they had 400 warriors and apopulation of about 1,400. They lost half of these to smallpox epidemicduring 1738. A generation later (1759-60), smallpox again took halfleaving a total of 400. The census of 1826 found only 110 Catawba.Presently, about 1,200 descendants are living in the vicinity of RockHill, SC. Total tribal membership lists 2,600. The Catawba arerecognized as a tribe by the federal government and the State of SouthCarolina.
Catawba means "river people," and only came into common use inthe Carolinas after 1715. The name used by themselves was Iyeye (people)or Nieye(real people). Early Spanish records refer to them as the Iswa(also spelled: Esaw, Isaw, Issa, and Ysa). 17th century Virginiacolonists used a variation of this: Usheree(or Ushery, Usi). Alsocalled: Anitagua (Cherokee), Cuttawa, Flathead, Oyadagahroene(Iroquois), Tadirighrone (Iroquois), and Tetes-Plattes (French).
Siouan. Catawba is the most aberrant of all known Siouan languages. Itsonly close relationship is to Woccon. In fact, Catawba is so differentthat scholars did not recognize its relationship to the Siouan languagefamily until the late 1800s.
Originally composed of two separate tribes that merged as the Catawba:Catawba proper and Iswa. By 1760 the Catawba are believed to haveabsorbed parts of at least 20 other Siouan-speaking tribes in theregion. Originally there were many villages, but few names havesurvived. In 1728 there were six villages, all on the Catawba River, themost northerly of which was Nauvasa. In 1781 Newton and Turkey Head werethe main settlements, also on Catawba River.
The original homeland of the Catawba before contact is uncertain. DeSoto's expedition apparently went directly through
They lived in villages of circular, bark-covered houses, and dedicatedtemple structures were used for public gatherings and religiousceremonies. Agriculture, for which men and women both sharedresponsibility, provided at least two crops each year and was heavilysupplemented by hunting and fishing. The Iroquois called the Catawba"flatheads" because they, as well as many of the otherSiouan-speaking tribes of the area, practiced forehead flattening ofmales infants. Besides the Iroquois, traditional Catawba enemiesincluded the Cherokee, Shawnee, Delaware, and several members of theGreat Lakes Algonquin allied with the French. Catawba warriors had afearsome reputation and an appearance to match: ponytail hairstyle witha distinctive war paint pattern of one eye in a black circle, the otherin a white circle and remainder of the face painted black. Coupled withtheir flattened foreheads, some of their enemies must have died fromsheer fright.
A proud people and dangerous enemy, the Catawba immediately attachedthemselves to the interests of the English colonists after the beginningof settlement in the Carolinas during the 1660s. Their loyalty waveredonly briefly during 1715. Otherwise, they fought other Native Americansfor the British and protected the Carolina colonies from encroachment bythe French and Spanish. They also helped the colonists find runawayslaves when required. It was a common practice in South Carolina toforce new slaves to pass in front of a Catawba warrior in warpaint todiscourage escape attempts. To a limited extent, their service wasappreciated. It is difficult to think of another Native American groupfor which South Carolina tried to establish a reservation so they couldstay. By 1720 the Catawba had started to adopt many of the ways ofEnglish colonists but were losing their own culture in the process. Forthe most part, they remained very traditional about religion until 1883.Within a year Mormon missionaries were able to convert almost all ofthem. Presently, most of the Catawba belong to the Church of JesusChrist of the Latter Day Saints.
Although the area was visited by De Soto in 1540. Pardo's expeditionduring 1566-67 was the first to mention the Iswa, a branch of what wouldlater become known as the Catawba. Contact by British colonists fromVirginia with the Ushery was made in 1653. Hostility with theneighboring Cherokee existing from a period before the Europeans. Whenthe a large number of refugee Shawnee arrived in South Carolina afterfleeing the Iroquois during 1660, the Cherokee gave them permission tosettle as a buffer between them and the Catawba. The Catawba and Shawnee(or Savannah) were soon at war each other. At almost the same time, theYuchi entered the area from the Cumberland basin, and the Catawba alsofought with them.
Worse yet, the Iroquois had not forgotten the Shawnee. Seneca warparties, sometimes accompanied by Delaware allies, followed the"Warriors Path" from western New York travelling down theSusquehanna River in Pennsylvania and then into the foothills of theAppalachians to South Carolina. Iroquois raids against the Shawneefrequently struck the Catawba and other neighboring tribes instead. Thefighting was not localized, and Iroquois warriors were often forced intoa hasty retreat with angry Catawba warriors in hot pursuit all the wayto Pennsylvania. The Seneca did not always win the race. With the suddeninflux of so many new native enemies, the Catawba turned to the British.They found what they were looking for ...firearms. The colonists alsofound what they were looking for ...an ally.
Warfare between the Iroquois and Catawba continued with very fewinterruptions for almost 100 years. Since both tribes were Britishallies, the British wanted an end to it. The Iroquois, however, sawthings differently. They were allies of New York. Whether thisautomatically made them allies with Virginia, the Carolinas, or theirnative allies was a different matter. With British encouragement, theCatawba arranged a peace with the Iroquois in 1706. This achievement wasonly temporary. The League was in its imperial phase by this time anddetermined to dominate other tribes through treaty and the covenantchain. The Catawba still hated the Iroquois and were too stubborn andproud to submit. Eventually, the peace collapsed, and Seneca raidsresumed. Against the Yuchi and Shawnee the Catawba were more successful.Well-armed, the Catawba kept the Yuchi at bay and eventually drove themsouthwest into the arms of the Creek Confederation. A Catawba victoryover the Shawnee in 1707 forced most Carolina Shawnee north toPennsylvania where they found a refuge among the Delaware and Iroquois(strange as it seems). The remaining Savannah retreated west to theprotection of the Creek. Meanwhile, while the Catawba were defendingthemselves from the Iroquois and Shawnee, they rendered service to theBritish against the new French presence on the Gulf of Mexico. In 1703Catawba warriors attacked the French outpost at Mobile Bay. Five yearslater, they joined the Cherokee and Alibamu in fighting the Mobile, theprimary French trade middleman in the area. However, these efforts didnot go unnoticed by the French, and shortly afterwards, the Catawbabegan receiving regular visits by war parties from French allies nearDetroit. By 1711 the Iroquian-speaking Tuscarora had endured so muchabuse from the North Carolina colonists that there was a generaluprising. Joined by other tribes, the Tuscarora War (1711-13) expandedbeyond North Carolina's resources, and they called on South Carolina forassistance.
While the Iroquois threatened and Virginia procrastinated, SouthCarolina sent a force of 30 militia with 500 Catawba and Yamasee. Theyentered North Carolina and defeated the Tuscarora in two battles during1712. After a truce, the South Carolina army prepared to return home,but problems arose when North Carolina refused to pay for theirexpenses. The South Carolina solution was to capture several hundredTuscarora and sell them as slaves. For obvious reasons, the truce endedright there. The following year the South Carolinians returned, thistime with more than 1,000 Catawba and Yamasee, and the Tuscarora werequickly crushed by the onslaught. Many prisoners were tortured to death,while another 400 were sold into slavery. During 1714 the Tuscarora leftenmass for the Oneida in New York and by 1722 had become the sixthmember of the Iroquois League. They never forgot the part the Catawbahad played in their defeat, and the Iroquois had another good reason topunish the Flatheads.
After the Tuscarora had left, the Catawba and Yamasee found they weresubject to the same abuse that forced the Tuscarora to fight. Britishtraders routinely seized the wives and children of Catawba warriors andsold them as slaves to pay for debts (usually whiskey). For this reason,the Catawba joined the general uprising of 1715 in the Carolinas(Yamasee War). Several British forts fell at first, but the colonistsbrutally repressed the revolt. The survivors were forced to make peaceduring 1717, but so many small Carolina tribes disappeared completely inthis conflict, they will not be listed(See Southeastern Siouan). TheCatawba, however were not one of these. They absorbed many of therefugees and, perhaps because of past service and legitimate grievances,were soon back in the good graces of South Carolina.
Despite their incorporation of other tribes, the Catawba population wasin a precipitous decline. Only 1,400 were left in 1728 after 70 years ofwarfare, whiskey and disease. A terrible blow came in 1738 when a severesmallpox epidemic killed over half of them. A peace concluded with theOhio Wyandot (French allies) in 1733 brought some relief, but despiteall attempts by the British government and protests by southerngovernors, the protracted war with the Iroquois League continued until1752. By this time the Catawba could only field 120 warriors from apopulation of 700. The Catawba had escaped Iroquois domination but hadpaid dearly. Peace with the Iroquois was reconfirmed at Albany in 1759,but the Shawnee remained a dangerous enemy.
The Catawba were used as scouts by the British army during the firstyears of the French and Indian War (1755-63), but a second smallpoxepidemic (1759-60) once again took half of them leaving the survivorsdemoralized. With only 60 warriors left, the Catawba served as scoutsagainst their old enemies during the Cherokee War (1760-61), but thiswas their last important contribution. During 1758 they had abandonedtheir last towns in North Carolina and now lived entirely within SouthCarolina. Through the treaty of Pine Hill (1760) and Augusta (1763), afifteen mile square reservation was established for them along theCatawba River near the North/South Carolina border, but the murder ofthe last important Catawba chief Haiglar(or Hagler) by a Shawnee warparty during 1763 is generally regarded as the end of Catawba power.
From the beginning, the Catawba reservation suffered from encroachmentby white colonists. Between 1761 and 1765, many simply ignored theboundaries and moved in. A Catawba protest to South Carolina in 1763 wasanswered with a promise to evict the trespassers, but nothing was everdone. Despite this the Catawba supported the American cause during theRevolution serving as scouts. When a British army invaded SouthCarolina, the Catawba withdrew north into Virginia but returned afterthe Battle of Guilford Court House (1781). With the South Carolinagovernment unwilling to move against its white citizens, the Catawbaland base continued to shrink. By 1826 virtually all of the reservationhad been either sold or leased to whites. Crammed into the last squaremile, 110 Catawba lived in poverty.
In 1840 the Catawba sold their land to South Carolina at the Treaty ofIndian Ford. This was a state, not federal, treaty and probably was aviolation of the Nonintercourse Act. The Catawba moved north across theborder, but North Carolina refused to provide land for them, so manywere forced to return. Despite past differences, the North CarolinaCherokee generously invited the Catawba to join them. Many did, but thisdid not last. By 1847 most of the Catawba had left the Cherokee andreturned to South Carolina. All that remained for them Catawba was 600acres of their old reservation, and obviously this could not supportthem. The possibility of moving to the Choctaw section of Oklahoma wasexplored but ultimately rejected A second attempt to relocate theCatawba west to the Choctaw in Oklahoma also failed during 1853. Stillresidents of South Carolina, Catawba soldiers fought for the Confederacyduring the Civil War, but the census of 1910 could only locate 124Catawba. Although recognized by South Carolina, the Catawba did notreceive federal recognition until 1941. In 1959 they petitioned Congressto terminate their tribal status, and tribal landholdings weredistributed among the membership during 1962. The final tribal role callof that year gave a population of a little over 600. After termination,many Catawba emigrated to the Choctaw in southeast Oklahoma. After achange of heart in 1973, the Catawba tribal council was reorganized andrecognized by the state of South Carolina. During 1994, the Catawbaregained federal recognition after a lengthy court battle.