Yamasee War

Native Uprisings Against the Carolinas (1711-17)

In 1957 University of Georgia archaeologists, under the leadership of Dr. Joseph Caldwell, were working on several archaeological sites on the tributaries of the Savannah River that were to be flooded by Lake Hartwell.  The best known of these town sites are Tugaloo and Chauga. Because they were last occupied by Lower Cherokees in the early 1700s, the archaeologists assumed that excavation of their mounds would prove that the Cherokees built all the mounds in the Southern Highlands. The archaeologists were shocked to find that the Cherokee occupation of both sites was very brief and much smaller than the ancestors … Read more

Wateree Tribe

Wateree Indians (perhaps from Catawba wateran, ‘to float on the water.’ Gatschet). One of the early tribes of the Carolinas, probably Siouan. As described by Juan de la Vandera in his account of the expedition of Juan de Pardo in 1567, they then lived at a great distance from the coast, near the Cherokee frontier. In 1670 Lederer, whose statement is doubtful, places them apparently in North Carolina, on the extreme upper Yadkin, far to the north west of their later habitat, with the Shoccore and Eno on the north east and the Cheraw on the west. In 1700 they … Read more

Waxhaw Tribe

Waxhaw Indians. A small tribe that lived in the 17th century in what is now Lancaster County, South Carolina, and Union and Mecklenburg Counties, North Carolina. They were connected with the neighboring Sugeree, and both were apparently related to the Catawba, and therefore were Siouan. The custom of flattening the head, practiced by the Waxhaw, was also mentioned as a custom of the Catawba. Lederer (1672) says they were subject to and might be considered a part of the Catawba. Lawson visited the Waxhaw in 1701 and was hospitably received. He mentions two of their villages situated about 10 miles … Read more

The Yamasee War

In 1715 the Yamasee war broke out, the most disastrous of all those which the two Carolina settlements had to face. The documents of South Carolina show clearly that the immediate cause of this uprising was the misconduct of some English traders, but it is evident that the enslavement of Indians, carried on by Carolina traders in an ever more open and unscrupulous manner, was bound to produce such an explosion sooner or later. The best contemporary narratives of this revolt are to be found in “An Account of Missionaries Sent to South Carolina, the Places to Which They Were … Read more