Native Americans

Also known as Little Carpenter, he was an influential leader of the Cherokees in the mid-1700s.

Catawba women have made pottery for hundreds of years, and archaeologists credit them with sustaining the tribe through this traditional pottery, which is the oldest art form still produced in South Carolina.

Ayllón’s colony did not succeed, but his efforts contributed much to European interest in and knowledge of the southeastern coast of North America.

Chief Samuel Blue was the driving force behind the political revival of the Catawba tribe. It was during his second administration that the Catawba finally became a federally recognized tribe and recovered parts of their original reservation.

Among the Catawba Indians in present-day York County, an unbroken chain of pottery production has helped preserve a cultural identity that was nearly lost after European settlement.

Catawba legend relates that the tribe arrived in South Carolina, near present-day Fort Mill, from the north a few hundred years before European contact.

In addition to the scenic vistas of Table Rock, Hogback, Caesars Head, Glassy, Sassafras, and numerous smaller mountains, the Cherokee Foothills Scenic Highway passes many of the region’s major waterways.

The Cherokee Path was one of the most important trade networks of early Carolina, connecting the city of Charleston with the Cherokee Indians of South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

The conflict that led to war began in Virginia in late 1758, when settlers attacked and killed several Cherokee warriors returning from battles against the French. The Cherokees retaliated in North Carolina in spring 1759, and the conflict spread southward.

By the fall of 1776 the major campaign of the war had concluded. The Cherokees lost as many as two thousand killed and, despite continued British support, could fight no longer.

Stable villages were possible because of the Cherokees’ reliance on agriculture, especially corn. Agriculture was the domain of Cherokee women, and women retained important positions in Cherokee decision-making and politics.

Francisco was a youth or a young man in 1521, when Spanish slave raiders captured him with a group of sixty men and women from a land whose name the Spaniards understood to be “Chicora.”

On arriving at Cofitachiqui, De Soto was met by a young woman the Spanish called the “Lady of Cofitachiqui.” According to her, the province had suffered a great pestilence, and she ruled following the death of a male relative.

Colonoware is most closely associated with Native Americans and African Americans, but associations vary considerably. Although the pottery was a distinctive local creation, it had roots and influences that came from Europe and Africa as well as North America.

In 1707 the Commons House of Assembly created the Board of Indian Commissioners to regulate the traffic between Indian traders and nations such as the Cherokees, Creeks, and Catawbas.

De Soto entered the territory of present-day South Carolina in search of the chiefdom of Cofitachiqui, reported to contain great wealth. Indians in present Georgia confirmed the account De Soto had heard but warned him of the great wilderness that lay between them and this powerful chiefdom.

At trading posts the Catawbas, Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws exchanged dressed deerskins for blankets, firearms, shot, gunpowder, cloth, axes, hoes, and brass kettles.

At the time of English colonization, the Edisto Indians were a tribe living between the Savannah and Edisto Rivers.

From the 1680s to the early twentieth century, South Carolina, especially the lowcountry, had a deserved reputation as an unhealthy place.

The fort’s garrison included seventy-eight regular British soldiers and thirty-six Loyalists under the command of Lieutenant James McKay. With the strong garrison, the abatis, and the cleared land around the fort, Marion and Lee realized that a frontal assault to take the fort would be too costly.