Comments
on “The Catawba Nation” by Charles M. Hudson
These notes on Hudson's book are still in a state of flux. They are in the same order as Hudson placed them. Unfortunately, he didn't always place them in the correct chronological order, so this blog entry also isn't always in the correct chronological order. Eventually I'll get that all worked out. I just have a little time on weekends and after work to work on this. It'll take time.
Hudson skips back and forth in time some. If one seeks
to discover how the Eastern Siouan fortunes or misfortunes change
over time, this adds to the difficulty. I have tried to place events
in such a manner that this we can determine changes over time.
However, on the positive side, Hudson does mention the northern bands
of the Catawba far more than Blumer did. We can see a little better
what was going on with the Virginia Siouans. He mentions the Monacans
and the Monatons. I am left to wonder if these are two spellings for
the same people, just as I suspect the names of other bands are
really different names for the same people. Whereas Blumer tells
straight history, Hudson tells a little of how the people lived, and
tells short stories mentioning several of these bands. Such stories
are invaluable. However with singular unsubstantiated stories, one
can never be certain the author knew what he was viewing. These
stories are of great interest, but we must be careful in drawing any
conclusions from them.
Lederer visited the Eastern Siouans (Catawba and
Associated Bands) about 1670 and Lawson did the same about 1701.
Quoting
Hudson; Our
fullest early description of the Catawba comes to us from from the
hands of John Lawson who visited them in January 1701 while on a
journey from Charleston, South Carolina to the mouth of the Tar River
in North Carolina. Having made contact with the Sewee, Santee,
Congaree, and Wateree Nations while traveling on foot up the eastern
banks of the Santee-Wateree-Catawba River system, he came upon the
Catawba Nation situated a few miles from the present day 'Old
Reservation'. (1)
First, we must make an effort to understand the people
he is talking about. Hudson refers to the 'nations' of the Wateree,
Congaree, Sewee, Santee, and Catawba. These are all part of ONE
nation, one People, and NOT separate nations. It appears that some of
the English only had a vague notion of this concept, where the
Indians were concerned. What happens to each of these groups only
makes sense once we realize they are all part of one greater nation.
Hudson
adds; “The
Waxhaw, Esaw, and Sugaree Nations were situated near the Catawba
Nation, and all four appear to have been closely related.”
Apparently,
Lawson tells little about the Catawba proper, but he does give a
description of these other bands. Of these, Hudson tells us; Upon
arriving among the Waxsaws, Lawson was entertained in a cabin that
impressed him as being unusually large and well built. The Indians of
these four nations lived in villages scattered through an area at
about ten miles across. Each of these villages had a 'theatre' or
'stage-house' that was larger in size and different in construction
from the bark-covered houses in which they lived. In these public
buildings, ambassadors from other nations were received, political
affairs were deliberated, and rituals were performed. Each village
apparently had a government council of elders with a residing king
and war captain, the relationships among these being governed by a
personal code of etiquette.. At the same time as Lawson's visit, an
ambassador from the Saponi Nation, located 150 miles to the north
(2).
He speaks of dances performed for him, saying at the
end of the dance the young men took their “sexual license” with
as many as wanted, taking a woman for a “bed-fellow.”.
James
Mooney was first to refer to the Catawba as “Eastern Siouan”.
Hudson disagrees with some of Mooney's conclusions. In making his
case, he makes a very important observation. While quoting Sapir, he
says, “
. . . as Sapir was careful to point out, inferential evidence must
be subjected to vigorous scrutiny and methodological rigor, otherwise
it can lead to a to a badly distorted reconstruction, particularly in
the hands of someone with a “theory”.(Sapir 1951:394).
This is so very important, especially with respect to the origins of
the Melungeons, as we shall see before the end of this book. One of
the main reasons I am writing this is to explain why so many ideas
about the Melungeons are in error. It is my hope that seeing the true
origins of the Melungeons will will help develop some pride in their
American Indian heritage, and that they shall learn to reject the
many theories about their origins that are pure and utter nonsense.
In the late 19th
and early 20th
century studies were made of the Tutelo, Woccan, and Catawba
languages, three of the tribes between the Cherokee and Creek tribes
in the west and the Atlantic Ocean. All three proved to be of Siouan
origin (3)
Mooney wrote “Siouan Tribes of the East”. In 1896.
He concluded 26 of the tribes found in the Carolinas and Virginia
were Eastern Siouan; Monocan, Saponi, Occoneechi, Sara/Cheraw,
Keeauwee, Eno, Waxsaw, Sugaree, Pedee, Santee, Sewee, Wateree,
Congaree, Mahoc, Nuntaneuck, Meipontsky, Shoccori, Adshusheer,
Sissipahaw, Cape Fear, Warrennncock, Waccamaw, Winyaw, Hooks and
Backhooks, Nahyssan, and Mohetan. Notice how many of them end in the
“ee”, “i”, or “y” sound. Some end in the “aw” sound.
A couple end in the “oc” or “euck” sounds. A few end in the
“an” sound. If we delete the final “r”, “Adshusheer”
becomes “Adshushee”, that final “ee” sound of many other
bands. This is a remarkable uniformity for so many bands. Hudson saw
a flaw in Mooney's classification, as no words or vocabulary exists
for most of these bands. He saw no proof they were Eastern Siouan
ancestry. But we shall see many of them moved in with the Catawba
from time to time, I strongly suspect Mooney was right, but have to
agree with Hudson that absolute proof of it is lacking (4).
Some evidence provided by Mooney, that Hudson
downplays, however, include William Byrd's statement that the the
Monacan and Manahoac languages were similar to Tutelo and Saponi. Of
these languages, only the Tutelo is known, as Tutelo survivors moved
in with the Six Nations, and thus their language survived longer than
many of the others.
The map below shows most of these eastern Siouan bands.
They do show the Coosa and Cusabo way too close to the Catawba and
Associated Bands than I usspect they actually were. Anything named
“Coosa” is of Creek/Muscogeean origin, which I suspect the origin
of the Cusabo as well. Recall how Blumer stated there was a vast
region between the Catawba speaking peoples and the Muscogean
speaking peoples. I do not know how they come up with the date 1650
for this map, but it is a time frame about which we know very little.
If you look at the Siouan bands as part of a great nation, we see
them abandoning the northern regions of their territory between 1650
and 1700. I suspect most of Virginia was abandoned, and small parts
of it retaken after the abandonment of Fort Christanna, resulting in
the Monacan peoples in Amherst County, and the Melungeons on the
Virginia/Tennessee border.
Below is a map dated about 1650. Between 1650 and 1700
some major catastrophe must have befallen the northern Siouan bands.
The Manahoak, Saponi, Monacan, Tutelo and others flee the Western
portions of Virginia to take refuge granted by Governor Spotswood of
Virginia at Fort Christanna. There are several possible candidates
for this catastrophe. One being the Iroquois, their ancient enemy,
killed them in warfare. A second being the slave traders of South
Carolina enslaved them and sold them in the Caribbean. They used
local non-Siouan tribes on slave raiding treks to the interior. Of
course this would give other Indian traders a chance to use the
Eastern Siouans on a revenge raid against those who had raided their
villages, thus helping to depopulate the entire region of Indians,
making colonization easier for the English. A third reason would be
of course, the small pox epidemics. Small Pox was known to travel
through entire nations, wiping out half of the population at once.
But it is clear the Northern bands were cut down first, leaving only
remnants. It was in the next decade or two after their decimation
that many of the southern bands came to the same end. The end of many
Southern bands was a result of the Tuscarora and Yamassee wars. The
following three maps will bear that out. Notice the changes in these
maps, one a snapshot of about 1650, the second about 1700, and the
third about 1720. Centuries of traditions, the evolution of languages
and dialects, and of cultures, were forgotten and abandoned, erased
from the earth forever. It is amazing that such a disaster could
happen. Click on the map and it should expand.
Hudson
spends pages explaining why/why not the “hill tribes” were/were
not Eastern Siouan. He eventually concludes they lived at the
location when they first came into contact with Europeans, for a
very, very long time. He speaks of four Spanish expeditions –
Panfilo de Narvaez, Hernando de Soto, Tristan de Luna, and Juan
Pardo. These expeditions occurred between 1521 when a raid for slaves
was made on the Chicora coast and 1569 when the Spanish established a
settlement at Santa Elena and hoped to use the Indian farmers labors
as a permanent food supply. The Spanish raided the area for slaves
only rarely. Hudson mentions the slave raids might have caused the
coastal people to migrate. There is a Shakori Band of these hill
tribes a little inland that could correspond to the Chicori mentioned
by the Spanish. Mention is made by Lawson of great flocks of pigeons
between the lands of the Esaw and Sapona Indians (5). Esaw is also
called Yesah, or Iswa. If you make the “Y” sound a “W” sound
instead, you have “Wesaw”, which might correspond to “Waxsaw”.
The Esaw and Waxsaw might be the same people.
The
map above portrays the Catawba and Assiciated Bands closer to the
time of Lawson, about 1700. Here is an interesting note on Indian
slavery. Hudson tackles this topic a little more than Blumer. He
states; “While
warfare or raiding was definitely important in the Southeast, early
colonial references to continual Indian wars were often
rationalizations for enslaving the Indians. . . . we shall see
presently that in early colonial times most of this Indian warfare
was stimulated by Charleston traders as a means of acquiring slaves.”
(6)
Hudson makes comments about the hill tribes of the
Piedmont as being more backwards than their Cherokee or Creek
neighbors. But what we know of the Creek and Cherokee runs forward
from 1750 to the present, whereas all our knowledge about the Eastern
Siouan 'hill tribes' flows from 1670 only up to 1750 by which time
many of these hill tribes becomes extinct, or their numbers have been
assimilated into the local populations. We could say the same about
the colonists, that is, the colonists before 1750 were more primitive
than those who came afterwards.
Hudson
talks quite a bit about Lawson's observations of 1701. He states, “As
Lawson journeys up the Catawba River, he successfully passed through
the territories of the Waxsaw's, Esaw's, Sugaree's, and Catawba's . .
. Unlike the hill tribes, all these groups were populous. In every
village, beginning with the Waxsaw, Lawson saw a “townhouse”
.
. . Lawson said the last town house he saw was at Saponi, situated
northeast of the Catawbas, on the Upper Pedee River . . . at Saponi,
Lawson first mentions seeing protective palisades that were common in
the Northern Piedmont. At the time of Lawson's visit, the Saponi were
considering confederation with two other hill tribes, the Tutelo and
the Keyauwee. The three, being small . . .thought they should
strengthen themselves . . . and become formidable . . .
(7). Some of the Catawba tribes are said to have practiced skull
deformation. Hudson says; “.
. .the Catawba were sometimes called “Flat Heads, but this usage
was generally limited to the Iroquois, who referred to the entire
Catawba Confederacy by this designation.” (8)
Interestingly, Hudson says the Indians living on the
Catawba River were called “Esaws” until about 1710. After that
time to the present, they were called “Catawbas”. He offers no
reason for this change. Now the Esaw were also called Iswa, and
Yesah. (9). The Esaw town is always, on maps, near the Waxhaw village. Both towns dissapear about the same time. They both end in the "saw" sound.
Little
is known about the history and culture of the Piedmont Indians. Only
the Virginia traders knew them at all, and they left us very little
information about them. Hudson says that according to Lawson, the
Eastern Siouans were middle men in trade with other Indians. Hudson
says, “Lawson,
for example, met a man named John Stewart, a Virginia trader residing
with the Catawba King, who had traded there for many years.”
Quite
a bit is suspected about these traders relationships with the
Piedmont Catawba. For instance, Hudson says; When discussing Lawson
who seemed to be paraphrasing Stewart; “They
set apart the youngest and prettiest faces for trading girls. These
are remarkable for their hair, having a particular tensure by which
they are known and distinguished from those engaged to husbands. They
are mercenary, and whoever makes use of them, first hires them, e
greatest share of the gain going to the King's purse, who is the
chief bawd, exorcizing his prerogative over all the stews of the
nation, and his own cabin very often being the chiefest
brothel-house.” Not
knowing the meanings of several of these words Hudson uses, one can
make pretty good guesses from the path his words wonder through. A
court of law probably wouldn't accept the above as it is so-and-so
saying so-and-so said something. It should carry the weight of any
“gossip, meaning it may or may not be true.
I
have seen others write of the influence of the South Carolina
traders. Hudson however, speaks of the Virginia traders., saying in
the late 17th
century the Virginia traders influenced the Catawba and Piedmont
Catawba. After the Oechonocanough massacre in 1644, a serious of
forts were built in Virginia. These forts became jumping off points
for expeditions into the interior of Virginia and nearby regions by
the commanders of these forts.
Per
Hudson, Abraham Wood was perhaps the most successful of of these
explorers. He commanded Fort Henry at the falls of the Appomattox
River. It was located near present day Petersburg, Virginia. Her
Hudson, the Occaneechi Trading Path first went to Occoneechi Island
on the Roanoke River, which ran straight to the Catawba, and from
there to the Lower Cherokee towns. He also says “It
was called the Catawba Trading Path.”
If this trail was known by both names, this tells us something about
the relationship between the Occoneechi an the Catawba. Also ending
with the “ee” or “i” sound is a characteristic shared by most
of the bands of the Catawba.. Hudson speaks of a second route from
Fort Henry to the Kanawha River, then south to the Cherokee. Hudson
speaks of a report by one Edward Bland, a trader who in 1650 made a
trip to the falls of the Roanoke River, mentioned that Abraham Wood
was with him. Upon haring a musket go off, Wood's Appamattuck guide
reportedly said that it was “Wainoake spies”. If you remove the
beginning and end of that word, you have “Ainoa”, or “Eno”.
It appears these “Appamattock” Indians apparently, were NOT
affiliated with the Catawba. It is the Algonquin tribes that have
words that end in the consonant sound. All Cherokee words end ini the
vowel sound, and it appears that so do many of the Eastern Siouan words (11).
In 1670, when John Lederer pased through a Monacan
village, they were greeted by a volley of muskets, it was described
as a sign of greeting. In 1671 Batts and Fallam mentioned fire arms
were discovered in the Saponi village on the Staunton River. The same
expedition mentions the Tutelo village near present day Salem,
Virginia, gave a few shots of powder to a Mohetan Indian, stating his
people were then living on the Kanawha River. Since both the colonies
of South Carolina and Virginia forbade the sale of firearms to the
Indians at this time, the presence of all these weapons is a puzzle.
Indians at the coast had much easier access to muskets, thus making
Indians in the interior an easier victim in the slave trade.
No one has successfully explained the origin of these firearms. One
comment made by Abraham Wood. However. Might explain their origin.
Woods mentions the Tomahittan Indians of the southern Appalachians
visited him. And stated that they had about 60 guns “which
were not of English manufacture.” I
suspect these Tomahittans were actually Indians from Florida,
although many acquaint them with the Cherokee, and they might be
right. I just want to dot all my eyes, and cross all my t's. Wood
sent Gabriel Arthur to live with them as a preliminary to trade.
Apparently they forced Arthur to travel with them on raids, and he
reported reported them on a raid to a Spanish town. They spotted a
Spaniard and killed him, taking his weapons. This might account for
some of the weapons the Indians of the interior possessed, but I
suspect some South Carolina and perhaps Virginia traders also traded
illegally in weapons (12), however evidence is wanting. Hudson gives
a possible explanation for the Virginia Traders not writing about
their exploits. He says, “.
. . the Virginia traders left little or no account of their dealings
with the Indians. Their failure in this was intentional . . . they
wanted to to conceal their illegal in arms and ammunition.”
Hudson
mentions the Tuscarora wanted to be the middle men, trade wise. He
speaks of their trade with the Shoccores and Achonechy (Occoneechi).
An Occoneechi Indian named “Indian John, also known a “Hasecoll,
enroute to trade with the Tomahittans, is mentioned. It is presumed
that he killed Needham, with the murder occurred because the
Occoneechi wanted to maintain a monopoly on trade with the tribes in
the interior. The Tomahittans fled. Arthur returned to the Sara
village, and hired four Saura Indians to take their place. They would
accompany him only as far as Eno Town, for fear of the Occoneechi's.
It stated Wood went to visit the Tomahittan's and they returned to
Fort Henry, but went by an indirect route through Tutelo Town and
then to Monacan Town. From there to Fort Henry, skirting north of the
Occoneechi's. As a result of these events, Per Hudson, Wood says of
the Occaneechi; “.
. .they are but a handful of people, beside what vagabonds repaire to
them, it beeing a receptacle for rogues.”(13).
Later,
we hear of Bacon's Rebellion. No account of the history of these
Piedmont Catawba can be complete without some mention of Bacon's
Rebellion. Hudson discusses this event, but only briefly. He says,
“In
1676 the Occoneechi successfully withstood an attack by 200
Virginians, but in doing so they reportedly lost 50 men.” Hudson
reports that sometime between 1676 and1701 them moved to a location
near Hillsboro, North Carolina, where they are located as mentioned
by Lawson in that year. A decade later, they, along with the Tutelo,
Saponi and others, move to Fort Christanna (14).
After the Tuscarora and Yamassee Wars, here is a map of
the locations of the various Catawban bands about 1720. You will
notice several bands no longer exist, or have incorporated with
other bands. This is an indication that they are banding together for
strength, as their numbers have drastically fallen. I strongly
suspect this is due to the Small Pox, and constant warfare driven by
the slave trade. Notice the Saponi have moved to the northeast and
the Cheraw have moved to the southeast. Vast areas of North Carolina
are vacant of Indians, where the Tuscarora and several bands
associated with the Catawba had been. The Esaw, Waxsaw and Eno have
vanished simultaneously. We have the Saponi (really a unity of
several bands that have moved together for protection) in the north
at Fort Christanna. They represent all the bands previously in
Virginia. It is thought warfare with the Six Nations vanquished them,
but I suspect many were taken in slave raiding ventures by South
Carolina traders using Indian allies of non-Siouan origins to capture
them. Their absence clears the way for European settlement of central
and Western Virginia. In or near the coasts of South Carolina we have
the Cape Fear Indians to the north and the Settlement Indians nearer
Charleston, their original band names having been lost to time. Only
the Waccamaw are mentioned by name. Inland a ways are the Pedees,
Cheraw, and Keyauwees. Still further inland we have the Catawba and
Wateree. The Catawba are a grouping of several bands as well. There
are great areas now uninhabited whereas previously there were several
bands of Indians associated with the Catawba. The Tuscarora and
Yamassee Wars have left a great deal of both Carolinas and Virginia
uninhabited, now free and open to European colonization.
Hudson
contrasts the South Carolina traders with the Virginia traders.
“Unlike
the Virginia traders, the Charleston traders conducted a lively
business in Indian slaves. This becomes so prevalent that in
contemporary documents the statement that the Indians had gone to war
is virtually synonymous with saying they had gone to capture slaves.
. . . Sometimes the traders would force their own Indian slaves to go
out and capture ther Indians for slaves as a mans of purchasing their
own freedom.”
Often the traders would sell rum (illegally) to the Indians, and get
them into a debt that they could not repay. The traders would then
say they would forgive the debt if the Indians would go to war
against a neighboring tribe to gain slaves of them. (15). Such slave
raiding took place on a great scale. In 1715 trader Thomas Nairne
boasted that the Yamassee Indians had raided the Florida Keys for
slaves as Indians further north in Florida had for all intents and
purposes, vanished, due to all the slave raids. The Indians finally
grew tired of the South Carolina traders, and this resulted in the
Yamassee War of 1715-1716. Hudson says this war was an end to the
Santee, Sewee, Pedee, Congaree, Cusabo and Waxhaw. The survivors fled
to either the remaining Spanish Indians near Spanish towns or the
Catawba. After this war, the Catawba and Associated Bands never again
acted on their own behalf in the political realm of their being an
independent Indian Nation. All their future actions were were
determined by their being a satellite of the South Carolina Colony. By the 1730s, the South Carolinians were far more worried about
a Negro slave insurrection than an Indian revolt. Another account
mentions that until about 1717, the colony exported more slaves than
it imported. In short, there were few Indians left to enslave.
In 1735, John Thompson is called a trader with the
Cheraw Indians on the East bank of the Pedee River. Hudson names 3
other 'later' traders with the Cheraw – Samuel Armstrong,
Christopher Gadsden, and John Crawford. Hudson says Samuel Wyley was
the most important trader to the Wateree about 1751. He later became
an unofficial agent for the Catawba. Other interesting traders
throughout the 1730's and 1740's were George Haig, and it is possible
King Haigler was named for him. Thomas Brown set up his trading
business at the Congarees about 1730. He had a son named Thomas Brown
who was half-Catawba. In 1748 Haig and Thomas Brown Jr were captured
by the Iroquois. Haig was killed and the young Brown was freed after
being ransomed. A small pox epidemic in 1738 devastated the Catawba.
Robert Steil also became a trader at the Congarees (16).
Please notice that Hudson has not mentioned the
Northern Piedmont Catawba tribes in quite some time. They were all
rounded up by Virginia's Governor Spotswood, and sent to Fort
Christanna. Their numbers had been shrinking, and they needed to band
together to help them survive.
In the 1740s the government still considered the
Catawba a Nation, as opposed to the Settlement Indians. Per Hudson,
these settlement Indians were for the most part, composed of Indian
Nations that were quickly on the road to extinction, passing first by
the way of assimilation. He says; “The settlement Indians consisted
of Cheraws (Sara), Uchee's (Yuchi), Pedees, Notchees (Natchez), Cape
Fear and others. Governor James Glenn stated in 1746 the Catawba had
about 300 warriors. In 1743 Adair estimates the Catawba had abut 400
fighting men. Adair also says the Catawba Nation consists of over 20
dialects, and he lists a few of them – Katabhaw, Wateree, Eeno,
Chewah, Chowan, Cangaree, Nachee (Natchez), Yamassee, Coosah,
etc.(18).
By 1760 the Catawba were a small nation completely
surrounded by White frontiersmen. Another small pox epidemic in 1759
had killed half again, of the Catawba Nation. In 1763 King Haiglar
had been killed. In his place was elected Colonel Ayers. Hudson
suggests Ayers fell out of favor with the South Carolina government,
and Samuel Wyley, acting on behalf of South Carolina Governor Bull,
persuaded the Catawba to get rid of Ayers, and they elected King Frow
to take his place in 1765. The names of a few of his headmen exist.
They were Captain Thomson, John Chestnut, and Wateree Jenny. By the
turn of the Century, the Catawba no longer mattered. They were few in
number, surrounded by Scots-Irish settlers who barely realized there
were any Indians living in their midst (19).
And what became of the Saponi at Fort Christanna, or
the Settlement Indians in lowland South Carolina? Hudson doesn't say.
We will have to look elsewhere for the answers to these questions.
The
Catawba Nation, by Charles M. Hudson
1. p. 1
2. p. 2
3. p. 6
4. p. 7
5. p. 16-20
6. p. 21-22
7. p. 26
8. p. 27
9. p. 28
10. p. 30
11. p. 31-32
12. p. 32-33
13. p. 35-36
14. p. 37
15. p. 39
16. p. 42
17. p. 46
18. p. 47-48
19. p. 51
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