The captivity of Mary Draper Inglis (Ingles) is a third person account of her captivity and eventual escape. Mary was captured by Shawnee Indians along with her two sons, and sister-in-law from Draper’s Meadow in 1755. She eventually made her escape, along with another dutch woman, a few months later. This is her story.
The Indians all over this continent had names, traditions, religions, ceremonies, feasts, prayers, songs, dances all, more or less, with symbolism and allegory, adapted to circumstances, just as all other races of mankind. But the world has become so familiar with the continued and ridiculous publications in regard to everything touching upon that race of people that a universal doubt has long since been created and established as to the possibility of refinement of thought and nobleness of action ever having existed among the North American Indian race, ancient or modern; and so little of truth has also been learned … Read more
James Smith, pioneer, was born in Franklin county, Pennsylvania, in 1737. When he was eighteen years of age he was captured by the Indians, was adopted into one of their tribes, and lived with them as one of themselves until his escape in 1759. He became a lieutenant under General Bouquet during the expedition against the Ohio Indians in 1764, and was captain of a company of rangers in Lord Dunmore’s War. In 1775 he was promoted to major of militia. He served in the Pennsylvania convention in 1776, and in the assembly in 1776-77. In the latter year he was commissioned colonel in command on the frontiers, and performed distinguished services. Smith moved to Kentucky in 1788. He was a member of the Danville convention, and represented Bourbon county for many years in the legislature. He died in Washington county, Kentucky, in 1812. The following narrative of his experience as member of an Indian tribe is from his own book entitled “Remarkable Adventures in the Life and Travels of Colonel James Smith,” printed at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1799. It affords a striking contrast to the terrible experiences of the other captives whose stories are republished in this book; for he was well treated, and stayed so long with his red captors that he acquired expert knowledge of their arts and customs, and deep insight into their character.
New Mexico Land Patents – Catawba Tribe
A recent publication of the Smithsonian Institution (” Siouan Tribes of the East,” by James Mooney) asserts that the origin and meaning of the word Catawba are unknown. In 1881, the Bureau of Ethnology collected a vocabulary of 10,000 words from the tribe of Indians bearing this name, and, after critical examination by experts, their language was pronounced unmistakably of Siouan stock. The home of the Sioux family is believed to have been at one time in the upper Ohio valley, from whence one branch migrated east and the other west, and Mr. Mooney says that linguistic evidence indicates that … Read more
“A treaty entered into at the Nation Ford, Catawba, between the Chiefs and Headmen of the Catawba Indians of the one fart and the Commissioners appointed under a resolution of the Legislature, passed December, 1839, an acting under Commissions from his Excellency Patrick Noble, Esq., Governor of the State of South Carolina, of the other part; “ARTICLE FIRST. The Chiefs and Headmen of the Catawba Indians, for themselves and the entire nation, hereby agree to cede, sell, transfer, and convey to the State of South Carolina, all their right, title, and interest to their Boundary of Land lying on both … Read more
Scarcely more than one hundred years ago the hoof prints of the buffalo became scarce in South Carolina, and it would, perhaps, have been well for the Catawba Indian had he followed him to the distant West; for the exterminating greed of the white man has almost driven him, too, from the boundless regions in which he used to roam, cruel legislation has allowed his lands to be sold and his money squandered, and, after all, he is in not much better condition morally, socially, or financially than when he was a savage in the woods, with God-given ability to … Read more
The reservation of the Catawba Indians was at one time in the remotest backwoods of South Carolina, but within the last twenty years the signs of civilization have been rapidly creeping toward it. Since the South began to draw Northern capital a few years ago, the development of this section of Carolina has been phenomenal. The nearest town of consequence to the reservation is Rock Hill, nine miles distant. Fifteen years ago there were scarcely half a dozen farm houses in the town today, Rock Hill is an important city with a number of cotton factories and a population of … Read more
Perhaps, after the Catawbas have become extinct, some one might ask who was responsible. Let us not wait until then to place the responsibility where it belongs. If it is South Carolina’s duty to cherish and guard with a fostering care the last vestige of her aboriginal inhabitants; if she owes anything to her earliest benefactors; if she owes anything to a disinterested people who have fought her battles a people who were courted when they were strong, but are now scorned because they are weak; if she owes anything to a people whose territory she has absorbed without due … Read more
Catawba Tribe: Significance unknown though the name was probably native to the tribe. Also called: Ani’ta’guă, Cherokee name. Iswa or Issa, signifying “river,” and specifically the Catawba River; originally probably an independent band which united early with the Catawba proper. Oyadagahrcenes, Tadirighrones, Iroquois names. Usherys, from iswahere, “river down here”; see Issa. Catawba Connections. The Catawba belonged to the Siouan linguistic family, but Catawba was the most aberrant of all known Siouan languages, though closer to Woccon than any other of which a vocabulary has been recorded. Catawba Location. In York and Lancaster Counties mainly but extending into the neighboring … Read more
Catawba Indians, Catawba Nation. The most important of the eastern Siouan tribes. It is said that Lynche creek, South Carolina east of the Catawba territory, was anciently known as Kadapau
The origin and meaning of Catawba are unknown. It is said that Lynche creek hi South Carolina, east of the Catawba territory, was anciently known as Kadapau; and from the fact that Lawson applies the name Kadapau to a small band met by him southeast of the main body of the tribe, which he calls Esaw, it is possible that it was originally applied to this people by some tribe living in eastern South Carolina, from whom the first colonists obtained it. The Cherokee, having no b in their language, changed the word to Atakwa, or Anitakwa in the plural. The … Read more
Early Location, Character, and Numbers of Indians of the Southern States
Catawba Indian Tribe of South Carolina: Condition and history of the once powerful tribe of Catawba Indians who resided on the banks of the Catawba River, South Carolina.