Catawba

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Tribal territory of the Catawba in the 17th century.
Catawba 1913

The Catawba , also Iswa , Issa or Esaw , are an Indian tribe from the Sioux language family . Their traditional tribal area was on the Catawba River on the North and South Carolina border, and their name means people from the river . In 1993, their descendants received federal recognition as the Catawba Indian Nation and a 2.6 km² reservation near Rock Hill in York County in South Carolina.

population

Before European contact, the Catawba probably consisted of two separate tribes, namely the actual Catawba and the Iswa. Overall, their population was more than 10,000 members. The first estimate by the English in 1692 was around 5,000 people. Over the next 70 years, the Catawba took in the remains of other Sioux-speaking tribes in the area. Even so, the population continued to decline as a result of European diseases to which they could not resist, permanent wars and alcohol abuse. By 1728 there were only 400 warriors left and a total population of about 1,400 members. In 1738 they lost half of them to a smallpox epidemic and after a second epidemic in 1759/60 only 400 Catawba survived. The census of 1826 showed only 110 tribesmen. According to the US census of 2010 there are currently 2,015 descendants of the Catawba in Rock Hill, a total of 3,370 were listed (descendants from one or more tribes).

Culture

The Catawba speak a Sioux dialect that differs most strongly from the language of the rest of the Sioux and is probably most similar to the Waccamaw / Woccon. The difference is so great that until the late nineteenth century scientists failed to recognize the relationship to the Sioux language.

They lived in villages with round houses built around a central pole and covered with elm bark. Public gatherings and religious ceremonies took place in consecrated temples. Men and women worked together in agriculture and produced at least two harvests a year, which consisted mainly of corn, beans and pumpkins. The vegetable diet was supplemented by collecting wild herbs, as well as hunting and fishing. The Catawba women were known for their pottery skills . They still make clay pots using the spiral bead technique of their ancestors. The decorations are created by using pitted corn on the cob, which is rolled over the still damp surface of the pots and creates original patterns.

The Iroquois called the Catawba flat heads , after their custom of flattening the forehead of male descendants in early childhood. This practice was also common among many other Sioux-speaking tribes in the region. Traditional enemies of the Catawba were, besides the Iroquois , also the Cherokee , Shawnee , Delaware and other Algonquin tribes from the Great Lakes . The Catawba warriors were feared and had a corresponding appearance. The hair was tied in a ponytail. The war paint on the face showed one eye in black and the other in white circle, while the rest of the face was painted black.

The Catawba were the most important tribe in the Carolinas along with the Cherokee. They maintained good relations with the English colonists when they established the first settlements in the region around 1660. They fought against enemy tribes and against French and Spanish troops that had invaded the country. They also helped the colonists capture runaway African slaves . It was common practice in South Carolina to show the new slaves a war-painted Catawba to prevent attempts to escape. Around 1720 the Catawba began to gradually adopt many of the customs and traditions of the English, thereby losing parts of their own culture. Only in religion did they behave passively and kept their traditional rituals until 1883. In just one year, Mormon missionaries converted almost all of the Catawba. Today, many Catawba belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints .

history

Although the area had already been visited by Hernando de Soto in 1540 , the Iswa were first mentioned by Juan Pardo's expedition in the years 1566-67. The first contact with British colonists from Virginia was in 1653. The enmity with the neighboring Cherokee existed even before the arrival of the Europeans. When large numbers of Shawnee arrived in South Carolina around 1660 fleeing the Iroquois, the Cherokee allowed them to act as a buffer between them and the Catawba. But soon a war broke out between the newcomers and the Catawba.

Colonial wars

There was also danger from the north. The Iroquois, especially the Seneca , had not forgotten the Shawnee and moved south on the Great War and Trade Path. This led from what is now New York State via Pennsylvania along the Appalachian Mountains to South Carolina. In the course of the Iroquois campaigns, which were to last almost a hundred years, they also attacked the Catawba and neighboring tribes. The Catawba therefore sought protection from the British and were equipped with European firearms. With British support, the Catawba concluded a peace treaty with the Iroquois in 1706, which, however, did not last long. The Iroquois League tried during this time to dominate the other tribes through treaties and the Covenant Chain . The Catawba refused and were again the target of Iroquois raids. In 1707 the Catawba won a victory over the Carolina Shawnee, who fled to Pennsylvania and found refuge in the Delaware there.

The Tuscarora War between the European colonists in North Carolina and the tribes living there took place from 1711 to 1713. North Carolina sought assistance from the South Carolina government, which sent 30 militiamen , aided by 500 Catawba and Yamasee , north and defeated the Tuscarora in two skirmishes in 1712. The North Carolina government refused to pay the South Carolina troops, but instead suggested that they catch a few hundred tuscarora and sell them as slaves. So they returned the next year with more than 1,000 Catawba and Yamasee warriors, defeated the Tuscarora again and sold over 400 Tuscarora as Skaven. The surviving Tuscarora fled to the Oneida in New York in 1714 and were accepted into the Iroquois League as the sixth nation in 1722 .

Many Catawba warriors had become addicted to alcohol and owed British merchants that they could not repay. Therefore, their wives and children were increasingly sold into slavery by the traders. In 1715 there was a general uprising of the American Indian population in South Carolina, the Yamasee War . At first some of the British forts fell, but the colonists were able to put down the revolt because of their better armament. The surviving Indians were forced into a peace treaty in 1717, but many a small tribe was completely wiped out or the survivors were integrated into other tribes and have since been considered extinct. The Catawba took in numerous refugees and were able to replace their losses and continue to exist as a tribe. Even so, their population had shrunk dramatically and in 1728 there were only 1,400 members who had survived seventy years of war, European disease and alcohol abuse. Another stroke of fate struck the Catawba in 1738 when a severe smallpox epidemic killed more than half of the tribe. In 1733 there was a peace treaty with the Wyandot from Ohio , but the endless war between the Iroquois League and the Catawba lasted until 1752, despite violent protests from the British government and the governors of the southern states. At that time there were only 120 warriors among the Catawba with a total population of 700 people. Finally, in 1759, a peace treaty was negotiated between the warring parties in Albany .

The Catawba were sought-after scouts in the British Army in the early years of the Seven Years War (1755–1763) , but another smallpox epidemic killed half the tribe in 1759–60, leaving demoralized survivors behind. With only 60 warriors left, the Catawba served as scouts for the British against their old enemies in the Cherokee War of 1760–61, but that would be their last important war mission. They had since left their remaining North Carolina villages in 1758 and were now entirely in South Carolina. In the Treaties of Pine Hill of 1760 and Augusta of 1761 it was agreed that an approximately 25 km² reservation on the Catawba River on the border between North and South Carolina would be established for them. However, the murder of the last important Catawba chief Haiglar , which was committed in 1763 by a group of Shawnee warriors , is generally regarded as the end of the Catawba power .

American Revolution and Reservation Time

In the American War of Independence , the Catawba supported the Americans as scouts. When the British Army invaded South Carolina, the Catawba fled to Virginia but returned after the Battle of Guilford Court House in 1781 . The reservation land allotted to the Catawba shrank noticeably because the South Carolina government was unwilling to take action against its white citizens. By 1826 almost all of the reservation land was either sold or leased to the whites. So the remains of the Catawba had to vegetate in poverty on almost four km². In the 1840 Indian Ford contract , they sold their last land to South Carolina. The Catawba moved north across the border, but North Carolina refused admission and forced them to turn back. Despite their past hostility, the Cherokee of North Carolina invited them to live on their land. But there were differences and the stay did not last. By 1847, most of the Catawba had left the Cherokee and returned to South Carolina, where they only owned 640 acres (2.60 km²) of their former reservation. There were plans in 1853 to settle the Catawba in Indian Territory , now Oklahoma, but they were discarded. In the American Civil War (1861–65) some tribesmen fought on the side of the southern states. In the US census of 1910, only 124 Catawba were counted.

Todays situation

In the meantime they were recognized as a tribe by the state of South Carolina (state recognized), but they did not get federal recognition until 1941. However, this was withdrawn from them at their own request in 1959 because they divided the remaining land among the remaining 600 tribal members wanted to. The change of heart came in 1973 when the Catawba tribal council was reorganized and recognized as a Catawba Nation by the State of South Carolina . After that, the battle for re-federal recognition began, which was finally achieved in 1993. The Catawba Nation's headquarters are in Rock Hill, South Carolina. By 2006 the tribal membership had grown to 2,600, most of whom lived in South Carolina and smaller groups in Oklahoma , Colorado , Ohio , Utah, and elsewhere. According to the US census of 2010 there are currently 2,015 descendants of the Catawba in Rock Hill, a total of 3,370 were listed (descendants from one or more tribes).

Individual evidence

  1. a b Census 2010. (PDF) Accessed December 7, 2016 .
  2. Hans Läng: Cultural history of the Indians of North America . Gondrom, Bindlach 1993, ISBN 3-8112-1056-4 .
  3. a b c d e f g Catawba History. Retrieved December 7, 2016 .

See also

literature

  • Thomas J. Blumer (Ed.): Bibliography of the Catawba (= Native American Bibliography Series. Volume 10). Scarecrow Press, Metuchen NJ 1987, ISBN 0-8108-1986-4 .
  • Raymond D. Fogelson (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Volume 14: Southeast. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 2004, ISBN 0-16-072300-0 .
  • Wilcomb E. Washburn (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians. Volume 4: History of Indian-White Relations. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1988, ISBN 0-16-004583-5 .

Web links

Commons : Catawba  - collection of images, videos and audio files