People have lived in the area since the
Paleoindian period (~10,000 B.C.). Pottery along the Catawba river corridor have been found that date to the
Woodland period. The Catawba were the people who inhabited the area when Europeans first began to settle. Catawba map of the
tribes between
Charleston (
left) and
Virginia (
right) following the displacements of a century of
disease and
enslavement and the 1715–1717
Yamasee War. The Catawba are labelled as "Nasaw". In the late 19th century, the ethnographer
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft theorized that the Catawba had lived in Canada until driven out by the Iroquois (supposedly with French help) and that they had migrated to Kentucky and to
Botetourt County, Virginia. He asserted that by 1660 they had migrated south to the
Catawba River, competing in this territory with the
Cherokee, a Southern Iroquoian language–speaking tribe who were based west of the
French Broad River in southwestern North Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, northwestern South Carolina, and northeastern Georgia. The Catawba also had armed confrontations with several northern tribes, particularly the
Haudenosaunee Seneca nation, and the
Algonquian-speaking
Lenape, with whom they competed for hunting resources and territory. The Catawba chased Lenape raiding parties back to the north in the 1720s and 1730s, going across the
Potomac River. At one point, a party of Catawba is said to have followed a party of Lenape who attacked them, and to have overtaken them near
Leesburg, Virginia. There they fought a pitched battle. Similar encounters in these longstanding conflicts were reported to have occurred at present-day
Franklin, West Virginia (1725),
Hanging Rocks and the mouth of the Potomac South Branch in West Virginia, and near the mouths of
Antietam Creek (1736) and
Conococheague Creek in Maryland. Mooney asserted that the name of Catawba Creek in Botetourt came from an encounter in these battles with the northern tribes, not from the Catawba having lived there. In 1763, the colonial government of South Carolina confirmed a reservation for the Catawba of , on both sides of the Catawba River, within the present
York and
Lancaster counties. When British troops approached during the
American Revolutionary War in 1780, the Catawba withdrew temporarily into Virginia. They returned after the
Battle of Guilford Court House, and settled in two villages on the reservation. These were known as Newton, the principal village, and Turkey Head, on the opposite side of the Catawba/Wateree River.
19th century During the Antebellum period, the Catawba began to adopt
chattel slavery of African Americans, emulating white settlers. While the number of Catawba slave owners was small due to the Catawba general population being small, the percentage of slave-owning Catawba was comparable to the percentage of slave-owning white Southerners. In 1826, the Catawba leased nearly half their reservation to whites for a few thousand dollars of annuity; their dwindling number of members (as few as 110 by an 1896 estimate) depended on this money for survival. In 1840, by the Treaty of Nation Ford with South Carolina, the Catawba sold to the state all but of their reserved by the English Crown. They resided on the remaining square mile after the treaty. The treaty was invalid
ab initio because the state did not have the right to make it, which was reserved for the federal government, and never gained Senate ratification. and did not get federal approval. About the same time, a number of the Catawba, dissatisfied with their condition among the whites, removed to join the remaining eastern Cherokee, who were based in far
Western North Carolina. But, finding their position among their former enemies equally unpleasant, all but one or two soon returned to South Carolina. The last survivor of the westward migration, an elderly Catawba woman, died among the Cherokee in 1889. A few Cherokee intermarried with the Catawba in the region. At a later period some Catawba removed to the
Choctaw Nation in
Indian Territory and settled near present-day
Scullyville, Oklahoma. They assimilated with the Choctaw and did not retain separate tribal identity. The Catawba
fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. Nineteen men enlisted with the Confederate Army and saw combat across Virginia.
Historical culture and estimated populations The Catawba are historically sedentary agriculturists, who have also fished and hunted for game. Their customs have been, and are, similar to neighboring Native Americans in the
Piedmont region. Traditional game has included deer, crops grown have included corn, and the women in particular are noted makers of pottery and baskets, arts which they still preserve. They are believed to have the oldest surviving tradition of pottery East of the Mississippi, and possibly the oldest (or one of the oldest) on the American continent. In approximately 1883, tribal members were contacted by
missionaries of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Numerous Catawba were converted to the church. Some left the Southeast to resettle with clusters of Mormons in Utah, Colorado, and neighboring western states. The Catawba on their reserve in South Carolina hold a yearly celebration called
Yap Ye Iswa, which roughly translates to "Day of the People," or Day of the River People. Held at the Catawba Cultural Center, proceeds are used to fund the activities of the center.
20th century to present The Catawba were electing their chief prior to the start of the 20th century. In 1909 the Catawba sent a petition to the United States government seeking to be given United States citizenship. During President
Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, the federal government worked to improve conditions for Native Americans. Under the
Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, tribes were encouraged to renew their governments to exercise more self-determination. The Catawba were not at that time a recognized Native American tribe as they had lost their land and did not have a reservation. In 1929
Samuel Taylor Blue, chief of the Catawba, had begun the process to gain federal recognition. The Catawba were federally recognized as a Native American tribe in 1941, and they created a written constitution in 1944. Also in 1944 South Carolina granted the Catawba and other Native American residents of the state citizenship, but did not grant them the franchise, or right to vote. Like African Americans since the turn of the 20th century, the Native Americans were largely excluded from the franchise by discriminatory rules and practices associated with voter registration. They were prevented from voting until the late 1960s, after the federal
Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed. It provided for federal oversight and enforcement of people's constitutional right to vote. In the 1950s, the federal government began to press what is known as the
Indian termination policy, based on its perception that some tribes were assimilated enough not to need a special relationship with the government. It terminated the government of the Catawba in 1959. This cut off federal benefits, and communal property was allocated to individual households. The people became subject to state law. The Catawba decided that they preferred to be organized as a tribal community. Beginning in 1973, they applied to have their government federally recognized.
Gilbert Blue served as their chief until 2007. They adopted a constitution in 1975 that was modeled on their 1944 version. In addition, for decades the Catawba pursued various land claims against the government for the losses due to the illegal treaty made by South Carolina in 1840 and the failure of the federal government to protect their interests. This culminated in
South Carolina v. Catawba Indian Tribe, Inc., where the United States Supreme Court ruled that the tribe's land claims were subject to a
statute of limitations which had not yet run out. In response, the Catawba prepared to file 60,000 lawsuits against individual landowners in York County to regain ownership of their land. On October 27, 1993, the U.S. Congress enacted the Catawba Indian Tribe of South Carolina Land Claims Settlement Act of 1993 (Settlement Act), which reversed the "termination", recognized the Catawba Indian Nation and, together with the state of South Carolina, settled the land claims for $50 million, to be applied toward economic development for the Nation. On July 21, 2007, the Catawba held their first elections in more than 30 years. Of the five members of the former government, only two were reelected. In the 2010 census, 3,370 people identified as having Catawba ancestry. Due to intermarriages with whites being common, most Catawba citizens have both Catawba and European ancestry and many may outwardly
appear white. As of 1911, Charles Davis of the Bureau of Indian Affairs had reported that most Catawba people were "full-bloods" few of whom had intermarried with white people and almost none of whom had intermarried with Black people. During the early 20th century, Catawba people sometimes appear as "Black" on census records as there were categories for white and Black but not for Native American, however, the Catawba did not view themselves as either white or Black. ==Catawba Indian Nation Land Trust==