The Last trek of the Indians by Grant Foreman
Chapter XIX, Small Tribes
P 316,
The Catawba are
said to have been the most important of the [Eastern] Siouan tribes. They were
at one time a powerful nation, living in South Carolina. . . .
P 317 –
. . . they were
constantly at war with the Iroquois, Shawnee, Delaware . . . as well as with
the Cherokee . . . the losses of the Catawba from ceaseless attacks by their
enemies reduced their numbers steadily . . . before the close of the 18th
century the great nation was reduced to a pitiful remnant. . . .
In 1738 smallpox
raged in South Carolina . . . In 1759 it reappeared, and this time it destroyed
nearly half of the tribe. In 1762 a small party of Shawnee killed the noted
chief of the tribe, [King] Haiglar, near his own village. From this time on,
the Catawba ceased to be of importance . . .
On the approach
of the British troops in 1780, the Catawba withdrew temporarily into Virginia,
but returned after the battle of Guilford Courthouse . . .
P 318 –
Because of their
location among the White people, the Catawba tribe became largely intermingled
with the Whites . . . Congress on July 29, 1848, appropriated $5,000 for the
removal of the remnants of this tribe, “now in the limits of the state of North
Carolina” to the Indian Territory (2). In his annual report for the following
year the commissioner of Indian Affairs stated that a home for the Catawba of
North Carolina had not been found west of the Mississippi. “They prefer a
residence among the Chickasaws, to whom application was made to receive them,
but to which there has been no answer.” (3) . . . but the commissioner said
every effort would be made to carry out the law providing for their removal.
At a special
session of the Chickasaw Council on September 4, 1850, it was resolved that the
Chickasaw Nation decline to receive the Catawba whom the United States was
trying to locate in their country. (4)
. . .
P 319—
By reason of
their dispersed condition, and their neglect by the federal government, the
Catawba in the west did not benefit by the co-called “Allotment Act of 1887”
and became scattered in and about the future Oklahoma, living in the manner of
the White People, whose blood many of them possessed. In an effort to improve
their condition, a convention of the Catawba was held in Fort Smith, Arkansas,
on April 25, 1895, where efforts were made to organize and present to Congress
their claims to allotments of lands. This convention was composed of
representatives of 257 persons of Catawba blood living in the Creek and Choctaw
nations and throughout Western Arkansas. Of those in attendance, 125 were from
Arkansas. Greenwood in that state was the home of 44, the largest from any
town; of the 132 living in Indian Territory, 17 claimed Checotah s their post office;
and Starr was the home of34. Perhaps most conspicuous of these Catawba was
“judge” Leblanche, who was among the Catawba Indians admitted into the Creek
Tribe and who became a prominent merchant and cattleman living near Checota,
Indian territory.
The Indians who
assembled at Fort Smith set up a permanent organization, elected officers, and
planned subordinate Catawba Associations in respective localities of members.
(8) The main convention adopted a preamble, resolutions, and by-laws. Under the
name of the “Catawba and Non-reservation Indians Convention,” with James Bain
as chairman and George E. Williamson as secretary, the proceedings were
incorporated in a memorial which was forwarded to Congress, whence in turn it
was referred to the Secretary of the Interior for investigation and report. The
Commissioner of Indian Affairs thereupon prepared the desired report, which the
Senate, on September 23, 1897, ordered to be printed, and which became Senate
Document 144 (54th Cong, 2d sess.) This report is exhaustive and contains all
the history of these Indians within the knowledge of the Office of Indian
Affairs at that time.
The Commissioner
of Indian Affairs stated in his report that “no action on the question of their
removal appears to have been taken by the government or any of the Indians on
the question of their removal to the Choctaw or other country until 1872, when
the Hon. J. C. Harper of the House of representatives from Georgia, brought to
the attention of this office the question of the removal of certain Indians in
North Carolina and Georgia. Presuming they were Cherokee, this office requested
him, on the 13th of June, 1872, to furnish a list of the names and ages of said
Indians.” In reporting the names, Mr. James McDowell of Fairmount, Georgia, in
October 1872, stated that the Indians referred to, who were asking for relief
of the government, were Catawba and eighty-four in number. Of this number,
sixty-nine were named Guy – descendants of William Guy, of Granville, Georgia,
who had served five years in the Revolutionary Army, along with Simon Jeffers,
another Catawba Indian.
The Catawba
Indians became widely dispersed, and on January 9, 1896, Senator H. M. Teller
wrote the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and enclosed a letter from P. H. Head,
a Catawba Indian of Sanford, Colorado, submitting a petition purporting to have
been signed by himself and twenty-five others, embracing six Catawba families
once resident in South Carolina but who were no longer recognized by that
state, asking to be united with the Ute Indian Tribe living on the Uintah
reservation in Utah. (9)
“1.” Handbook I,
213; reference is made to this authority for an extended account of Catawba
history.
“2.” 9 U. S.
Stat. 264.
“3.” Report of
the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1848, p. 949.
“4.” Grant
Foreman, Five Civilized Tribes, p. 122. [A called session was held September 4,
1850 where it was resolved that the Chickasaw Tribe decline to receive the
Catawba Indians living in North and South Carolina, whom the government was
trying to locate in their country.]
“5.” Ibid., p.
76. [from ”Five Civilized Tribes”, Foreman: Among the recent arrivals in the
Choctaw Nation was a party of Catawba Indians who left South Carolina in
December, 1851, and after six had died on the way, the surviving nineteen
reached the Choctaw agency in February following. They were peaceable and
inoffensive people and begged to be admitted into the Choctaw Nation (31). They
had recently made similar application to the Chickasaw Nation and had been
refused. On November 9th, 1853, the Choctaw Council passed the necessary
legislation admitting to the tribe as members the following Catawba Indians:
William Morrison, Thomas Morrison, Sarah Jane Morrison, Molly Redhead, Betsey
Heart, Rebecca Heart, Phillip Keggo, and Cynthia Keggo, Rosey Ayers, Betsey
Ayers, Juliana Ayers,, Mary Ayers, Sopronia Ayers, and Sally Ayers. (32)].
“– (31) – [in reference to"One
Hundred Red Men" Dec.6, 1849,OIA, Choctaw File] Drew to commissioner of
Indian Affairs, September, 23, 1853, ibid., D 418.
“– (32) – [in
reference to"One Hundred Red Men" Dec.6, 1849,OIA, Choctaw File]
Cooper to commissioner of Indian Affairs, January 4, 1854, ibid., D 504.
“6.” Choctaw
Laws (1869 ed.), p. 125.
“7.” Ibid., p.
153.
“8.” They had
previously met at Rocky Ridge and Ault’s Mill, Arkansas (Fort Smith Elevator,
August 16, 1839, p. 3, col. 6).
“9.” These were
probably part of a delegation that removed to Colorado and New Mexico in 1890,
some of whom joiner the Mormon Church. See an interesting article, “The Catawba
Nation and Its Neighbors,” North Carolina Historical review, Vol. XVI, No. 4.
Catawba Indian Genealogy by Ian Watson
Catawba Indian
Genealogy by Ian Watson.
Department of
Anthropology
State University
of New York at Geneseo
Geneseo, New
York 14454
Series Editor:
Russell A. Judkins
A very few
additional printed copies of this book are still available for $20 postpaid
from the Department of Anthropology, SUNY Geneseo, Geneseo, N.Y. 14454. Checks
should be made payable to the Geneseo Foundation.
from P 83 of the
book, which is P 95 of the *.pdf file --
The Catawbas and the Cheraws
The Catawbas, as
mentioned in the Introduction, are really an amalgamation of a number of South
Carolina Indian tribes which merged during the early to mid-1700s. At one
point, observer James Adair noted, there were over twenty different dialects
spoken in the Catawba Nation, each apparently representing a different group
which had become wholly or partially a member of the Catawba Nation (see Hudson
1970, 47-48). At least one larger tribe sent a migrant to the Catawbas: one
Catawba, living in 1780 and 1792, was known as Chickesaw Jammy (M02; G1792).
Prominent among the smaller South Carolina Indian tribes associated with the
Catawbas were the Cheraw (also Sara) Indians. They formed perhaps the largest
ethnic minority among the Catawbas. In 1759 they were described as “a Nation of
Indians incorporated with the Catawbas” (South Carolina Gazette, Charleston,
S.C., 2 June 1759, copy courtesy Wesley D. White); Steven G. Baker (1975, table
1) notes that fifty or sixty Cheraws were living with the Catawbas in 1768.
Three Catawba surnames can be associated with the Cheraws. We know of a man
named Cheraw George (see Brown 1966, 249), and of a man named Cheraw Robin
(McDowell 1955, 145). We also know that the Harris family was of Cheraw origin
(see Brown 1966, 218, 249). Interestingly, we find records to connect all three
of these surnames. The odd forename Pinetree belonged to two Catawbas: Pinetree
George and Pinetree Robin (M02; G1792). It could have been a forename peculiar
to Cheraws. And in the Plat Book, the George and Harris families were
associated (see PB, 135, 202, 203, 302, 303). Similarly, the George and Harris
families were prominent in Catawba affairs during the mid-1700s, but became
less important during the late 1700s and early 1800s. Starting in the 1840s,
both families became increasingly important in Catawba history, becoming
probably the two largest families on the Reservation in the late 1800s. The
continued association between the George and the Harris families, both probably
of Cheraw origin, leads me to conclude that ethnic diversity continued to
divide the Catawbas into factions long after the Catawbas were nominally
unified.
[note 1:
Surnames mentioned – Blue, Brown, Canty, Clinton, Cook, Gordon, Harris, Heart,
Joe, Kegg, Kennedy, Morrison, Mursh, Nettles, Owl, Patterson, Sanders, Stephens
,Wahoo (Screech Owl), Williams. At the bottom of the *.pdf file are a couple of
dozen other surnames, not mentioned above.]
[note 2: a list
of great source material is found in this *.pdf file, I have left a link to it
at the top of this posting.]
No comments:
Post a Comment