Catawba

CATAWBA

CATAWBA. Indians have been living beside the river of that name in the Carolina Piedmont since long before the first Europeans visited the region in 1540. The secret of the Catawbas' survival in their homeland is their ability to negotiate the "new world" that European and African intruders brought to America. Strategically located, shrewd diplomats, Catawbas became known as good neighbors. Even as their population fell from several thousand in 1540 to about 200 in the nineteenth century and rebounded to 2,600 by the end of the twentieth century, Catawbas kept their knack for getting along. Losing much of their aboriginal culture (including their Siouan language), they nonetheless maintained a native identity amid a sea of strangers. Some of that identity can be traced to enduring pottery traditions and a series of colorful leaders. Some is grounded in their land base, obtained from a grateful Britain after the French and Indian War, only to be lost and partially regained again and again over the next 250 years. Besides these visible traditions and this contested ground, in modern times Catawbas coalesced around the Mormon faith. A landmark 1993 agreement with state and federal officials assured governmental assistance that opened still another chapter in Catawba history.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Blumer, Thomas J. Bibliography of the Catawba. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1987.

Hudson, Charles M. The Catawba Nation. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1970.

Merrell, James H. The Indians' New World: Catawbas and their Neighbors from European Contact Through the Era of Removal. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

James H. Merrell

See also Tribes: Southeastern ; and picture (overleaf) .

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