Cheraw

Cheraw Indians

Cheraw Tribe: Significance unknown.  Also called: Ani’-Suwa’II, Cherokee name. Saraw, Suali, synonyms even more common than Cheraw. Xuala, Xualla, Spanish and Portuguese forms of the word, the x being intended for sh. Cheraw Connections. The Cheraw are classed on circumstantial grounds in the Siouan linguistic family though no words of their tongue have been preserved. Cheraw Location.-The earliest known location of the Cheraw appears to have been near the head of Saluda River in Pickens and Oconee Counties, S. C., whence they removed at an early date to the present Henderson, Polk, and Rutherford Counties. Cheraw Villages. The names given … Read more

Cheraw Tribe

Cheraw Indians. An important tribe, very probably of Siouan stock, formerly ranging in central Carolina, east of the Blue ridge, from about the present Danville, Va., southward to the neighborhood of Cheraw, S. C., which takes its name from them. In numbers they may have stood next to the Tuscarora among the North Carolina tribes, but are less prominent in history by reason of their almost complete destruction before the white settlements had reached their territory. They are mentioned first in the De Soto narrative for 1540, under the name Xuala, a corruption of Suali, the name by which they … Read more

The Sara Indians

While we know nothing positively as to the linguistic affinity of the Sara, all the evidence goes to show that, like most of the tribes of the central region of Virginia and Carolina, they were of Siouan stock. Their name is probably from the Catawba word sara, signifying a place of “tall grass or weeds” (Gatschet). While the Siouan tribes treated in the foregoing consolidated, after their decline, and joined the Iroquois in the north, most of the remaining people of that stock, including the Sara, migrated southward and merged with the Catawba tribe in South Carolina. The history of … Read more