The Catawba Indians are a federally recognized Native American tribe living in South and North Carolina and Oklahoma. They are known for their pottery and agricultural practices. The tribe’s history includes conflicts with other Native American groups and smallpox epidemics, leading to a decline in numbers. The tribe has a reservation in Rock Hill, SC, with a cultural center showcasing Catawba culture. Some Catawba Indians joined the Cherokee tribe, while others settled in Oklahoma and merged with the Choctaw. The tribe’s pottery is made with clay from the Catawba River and is hand-molded and fired in an open pit.
The Catawba Indians, also known as the Issa River, are a federally recognized Native American tribe related to the Siouan peoples and reside primarily in South and North Carolina and Oklahoma. There are more than 2,500 Catawba Indians in the United States, and the tribe’s reservation is located in Rock Hill, SC, near Charlotte, NC. The epicenter of the reservation is its cultural center where visitors can tour a variety of exhibits about Catawba culture including a traditional bark house and dugout canoe. The Catawba people are known for their pottery and agricultural practices and have historically maintained an amiable relationship with European settlers and later Americans.
The early history of the Catawba Indians is blurred, but it is known that in 1567 the tribe settled in the area around the Catawba River along the border of what is now North and South Carolina. The tribe subsisted on hunting, fishing and farming. Although the Catawba Indians enjoyed a mutually beneficial and generally peaceful relationship with the early European settlers, the tribe suffered from constant conflict with other Native American groups including the Iroquois, Delaware, and Algonquian Shawnee. Various colonial governments attempted to broker peace between the tribes, particularly between the Catawba and the Iroquois, with little success.
Military conflicts with neighboring tribes, combined with a series of smallpox epidemics in 1738, and later in 1759, contributed to the steady decline in Catawba Indian numbers throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. With the death of Catawba chief King Hagler in 18, the tribe’s prominence among other Native American groups was further eroded.
South Carolina created a small 15-square-mile (38.8 km2) reservation for the tribe along the Catawba River the following year. During the 19th century, the tribe sold and leased portions of its reservation to South Carolina and white settlers. The presence of outsiders on the reservation motivated some Catawba Indians to join the Cherokee tribe in North Carolina, but most returned soon after.
In the late 19th century, a group of Catawba Indians left the tribal reservation and settled in Oklahoma with the Choctaw. These Catawba merged completely with their new tribe and many converted to Mormonism. In the Carolinas the Catawba are best known for their pottery, an art which continues to provide an income for many members of the tribe. Catawba Indian pottery is unglazed or painted, it is made with clay dug from the banks of the Catawba River and is hand molded and fired in an open pit.
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