Cusabo Indians. A collective term used to designate the Combahee, Coosa, Edisto, Etiwaw, Kiawaw, St Helena, Stono, Wapoo, and Westo Indians, formerly living between Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah River. Their territory was the Chicora of Ayllon and other early Spanish adventurers, and it is probable that some, if not most of the tribes mentioned, belonged to the Uchean stock. They early became reduced through the raids of Spanish slavers and the connivance of the colonists. In Jan., 1715, they were reported to number 295 inhabitants in 4 villages, but during the Yamasi war in that year they and other tribes were expelled or exterminated.
For Further Study
The following articles and manuscripts will shed additional light on the Cusabo as both an ethnological study, and as a people.
- Mooney, Siouan Tribes of the East, Bull. B. A. E. 86, 1894.