English: Title: Bulletin

Identifier: bulletin3011907smit Year: 1901 (1900s) Authors: Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology Subjects: Ethnology Publisher: Washington : G. P. O. Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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Text Appearing Before Image: 214 CATAWBA [I Indian allies about the year 1660, does not agree in any of its main points with the known facts of history, and, if genu- ine at all, refers rather to some local in- cident than to a tril)al movement. It is well known that the Catawba were in a chronic state of warfare with the northern tribes, whose raiding parties they some- times followed, even across the Ohio. The first notice of the Catawba seems to be that of Vandera in 1579, who calls

Text Appearing After Image: BENJAMIN P. HARRIS, A CATAWBA them Issa in his narrative of Pardo's expedition. Nearly a century later, in 1670, they are mentioned as Ushery by Lederer, who claims to have visited them, but this is doubtful. Lawson, who passed through their ter- ritory in 1701, speaks of them as a "pow- erful nation" and states that their vil- lages were very thick. He calls the two divisions, which were living a short dis- tance apart, by different names, one the Kadapau an<l the other the Esaw, un- aware of the fact that the two were syno- nyms. From all accounts they were for- merly the most populous and most im- portant tribe in the Carolinas, excepting the Cherokee. Virginia traders were already among them at the time of Lawson's visit. Adair, 75 years later, says that one of the ancient cleared fields of the tribe extended 7 m., besides which they had several smaller village sites. In 1728 they still had 6 villages, all on Ca- tawba r., within a stretch of 20 m., the most N. being named Nauvasa. Their principal village was formerly on the w. side of the river, in what is now York CO., S. C, opposite the mouth of Sugar cr. The known history of the tribe till about 1760 is chiefly a record of petty warfare between themselves and the Iro- quois and other northern tribes, through- out which the colonial government tried to induce the Indians to stop killing one another and go to killing the French. With the single exception of their alli- ance with the hostile Yamasi, in 1715, they were uniformly friendly toward the English, and afterward kept peace with the United States, but were constantly at war with the Iroquois, Shawnee, Dela- wares, and other tribes of the Ohio valley, as well as with the Cherokee. The Iro- quois and the Lake tribes made long journeys into South Carolina, and the Catawba retaliated by sending small scalp- ing parties into Ohio and Pennsylvania. Their losses from ceaseless attacks of their enemies reduced their numbers steadily, while disease and debauchery introduced by the whites, especially several epi- demics of smallpox, accelerated their de- struction, so that before the close of the 18th century the great nation was reduced to a pitiful remnant. They sent a large force to help the colonists in the Tusca- rora war of 1711-13, and also aided in exi^editions against the French and their Indian allies at Ft Du Quesne and else- where during the French and Indian war. Later it was proposed to use them and the Cherokee against the Lake tribes under Pontiac in 1763. They assisted the Americans also during the Revolution in the defense of South Carolina against the British, as well as in Williamson's expedition against the Cherokee. In 1738 smallpox raged in South Carolina and worked great destruction, not only among the whites, but also among the Catawba and smaller tribes. In 1759 it appeared again, and this time destroyed nearly half the tribe. At a conference at Albany, attended by delegates from the Six Nations and the Catawba, under the auspices of the colonial governments, a treaty of peace was made between these two tribes. This peace was probably final as regards the Iroquois, but the western

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