Cheraw

For other uses, see Cheraw (disambiguation).

The Cheraw people, also known as the Saraw or Saura, were a Siouan-speaking tribe of Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, in the Piedmont area of North Carolina near the Sauratown Mountains, east of Pilot Mountain and north of the Yadkin River. They lived in villages near the Catawba River.

Cheraw
Saraw

Cheraw once lived at the confluence of the Pee Dee and Yadkin Rivers
Total population
1,000 (1600 CE), now extinct as a tribe, mostly merged into Catawba
Regions with significant populations
North Carolina, South Carolina
Languages
Siouan language
Religion
Tribal religion
Related ethnic groups
Catawba, Saponi, Waccamaw, and other Siouan peoples

Their first European and African contact was with the Hernando De Soto Expedition at the site of Joara in 1540. The early English explorer John Lawson included them in the larger eastern-Siouan confederacy, which he called "the Esaw Nation."

After attacks in the late 17th century and early 18th century, they moved to the southeast around the Pee Dee River, where the Cheraw name became more widely used. They became extinct as a tribe, although some descendants survived as remnant peoples.

Name

Originally known as the "Saraw", they became known by the name of one of their villages, Cheraw. They are also known as the Charáh, Charrows, Charra, Charaws, Charraws, Chara, Joara, Juada, Sara, Saraw, Saura, Suali, Sualy, Xualla, Xualae, and Xuala. Xuala and Xualla were Spanish and Portuguese spellings of their name.

The name they called themselves is lost to history, but the Cherokee called them Ani-Suwa'li.

Territory

The DeSoto Expedition traveled through the Xuala province in 1540. James Mooney identified this as Cheraw territory.

Their site Joara was in western North Carolina. They were later recorded as living east of present-day Asheville, North Carolina. In 1670, German explorer John Lederer encountered the Cheraw further east, possibly along the Yadkin River in central North Carolina.

In 1700, the Cheraw lived along the River Dan at the Virginia border.

By the early 18th century, the Cheraw lived in present-day Chesterfield County in northeastern South Carolina. This region, which now encompasses present-day Chesterfield, Marlboro, Darlington, and parts of Lancaster counties, was known later in the 18th and 19th centuries as "The Cheraws", the "Cheraw Hills", and later the "Old Cheraws." Their main village was near the site of present-day Cheraw, close to the North Carolina border. Cheraw was one of the earliest inland towns which European Americans established in South Carolina.

History

16th century

Few historical references to the Cheraw exist. Spanish explorer De Soto likely passed through Cheraw towns, especially Joara located in present-day western North Carolina in 1540. In 1567, the Juan Pardo Expedition visited a Cherah town. Their villages were adjacent to those of the Pedee and Catawba peoples.

17th century

In 1600 CE, they may have numbered 1,000. In 1670, they left their homes near present-day Asheville to settle on the lower Yadkin River, then the Dan River in Rockingham County. By 1672, they may have moved to the Stokes County region, near the Saura Mountains.

In 1670, John Lederer, departing from Fort Henry in Virginia Colony, explored deep into North Carolina and described a large town he called "Sara", in the mountains that "receive from the Spaniards the name of Suala". He wrote that the Natives here mined cinnabar to make purple facepaint, and had cakes of salt.

James Needham and Gabriel Archer also explored the entire area from Fort Henry in 1671, and described this town as "Sarrah."

18th century

A c. 1724 annotated copy of a deerskin Catawba map of the tribes between Charleston (left) and Virginia (right) following the displacements of a century of disease and enslavement and the 1715–17 Yamasee War. The Cheraw are labeled as "Charra".

In 1700, they settled Upper Saura Village and Lower Saura Village along the River Dan.

In 1710, due to attacks by the Seneca of the Haudenosaunee from the north, the Cheraw moved southeast and joined the Keyauwee Indians tribe.

The Cheraw were recorded in The Journal of Barnwell as maintaining a village on the east bank of the upper branches of the Pee Dee River circa the Tuscarora War in 1712. Some Cheraw fought with colonizers in the Tuscarora War.

In 1712, John Barnwell led a force of 400 to 500 troops against the Tuscarora in North Carolina. Almost all his forces were Indians, organized into four companies, based in part on tribal and cultural factors. The 1st and 2nd companies were made up of Indians with strong ties to South Carolina. The 3rd company was of "northern Indians" who lived farther from Charles Town and whose allegiance was not as strong. They included the Catawba, Waxaw, Wateree, and Congaree, among others.

The 4th company was of northern Indians who lived even farther away and whose allegiance was still weaker. Among this group were the Saraw, Saxapahaw, Pedee, Cape Fear, Hoopengs, and others. This 4th company was noted for high levels of desertion.

Historian Alan Gallay has speculated that the Saura and Saxapahaw people deserted Barnwell's army because their villages were likely to be attacked by the Tuscarora in vengeance for assisting colonizers in the war. Gallay described the approximate location of the Saura homeland as "about 60 miles upriver from the Peedees", whose home is described as "on the Peedee River about 80 miles west of the coast". This puts the Saura in the general vicinity of the upper Dan and Yadkin rivers.

In 1715, Cheraw warriors joined other Southeastern tribes in the Yamasee War to fight against European enslavement of Indians, mistreatment, and encroachment on their territory. On July 18, 1715, a Cheraw delegation represented the Catawban tribes in Williamsburg, Virginia and negotiated peace. They were out of the war by October 1715.

Statue of a Sauratown woman at the North Carolina Museum of History.

In 1728, William Byrd conducted an expedition to survey the North Carolina and Virginia boundary, and reported finding two Saura villages on the Dan River, known as Lower Saura Town and Upper Saura Town. The towns had been abandoned by the time of Byrd's visit. He noted in his writing that the Saura had been attacked and nearly destroyed by the Seneca 30 years before, who had been raiding peoples on the frontier from their home in present-day New York. The Saura were known to have moved south to the Pee Dee River area.

In 1726 and 1736, the Cheraw moved near the Catawba.

When the Council of Virginia offered tribes protection in 1732, the Cheraw asked to join the Saponis. In 1738, a smallpox epidemic decimated both the Cheraw and the Catawba. In 1755, the Cheraw were persuaded by colonizer James Glen to join the Waccamaw, Pedee, and Catawba, led by King Haigler. The remnants of the tribes combined. The tribe was nearly destroyed before the middle of the 18th century and European encroachment on their old territory.

They were last noted as a distinct tribe among the Catawba in 1768. They merged into the Catawba over time, while some descendants joined the Native people living near the Lumber River. During the Revolutionary War, they and the Catawba removed their families to the same areas near Danville, Virginia, where they had lived earlier. Their warriors served the Patriot cause under General Thomas Sumter.

Population

In 1715, South Carolinian John Barnwell conducted a census of Indians in the region. The Cheraw were grouped with the "northern" or "Piedmont" peoples. This group had relatively fewer ties to South Carolina and were not counted as accurately as were the Muscogee, Cherokee, Yamasee, and others. Other "northern" Piedmont peoples named in the 1715 census include the Catawba, Waccamaw, Santee Congaree, Wereaw, and others. The Saraw are listed as living in one village with a population of 510, of which 140 were men and 370 were women and children. South Carolina probably acquired these numbers at least partially through second-hand sources and estimates.

In 1768, 50 to 60 surviving Cheraw people lived among the Catawba.

Descendants

In 1835, Cheraw descendants, who had been absorbed into the Catawba tribe, were classified as "free people of color" in local records.

The Catawba Indian Nation is now a federally recognized tribe in South Carolina.

Today, two state-recognized tribes, the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina of Robeson County, North Carolina, and the Sumter Tribe of Cheraw Indians in Sumter County, South Carolina, claim descent from the Cheraw.

Namesakes

Cheraw, South Carolina, is named for the tribe. Cheraw, Colorado was named by an early settler who was born in Cheraw, South Carolina, and migrated west. Cheraw, Mississippi was named by a contingent of passported Cheraw to Bogue Chitto Neshoba District of Choctaw land in 1810 from Dimery Settlement. Chief of Churrah, Thomas Parker, was the recipient of the re-reserve land at Honey Island Swamp on the Little PeDee and he willed that land to his nephew, John Parker.

Located in Walnut Cove, North Carolina, South Stokes High School's team mascot name honors the Native American Indian Saura tribe.

The Sauratown Mountains, located in the region the tribe inhabited, are named for the Saura.

See also

• Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands
• List of sites and peoples visited by the Hernando de Soto Expedition

References

Bibliography

• Beck, Robin. Chiefdoms, Collapse, and Coalescence in the Early American South, Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 170
• Rudes, Blair A., Thomas J. Blumer, and J. Alan May. "Catawba and Neighboring Groups." In Handbook of North American Indians: Volume 14, Southeast. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2004. ISBN 0-16-072300-0.
• Blu, Karen I. "Lumbee." In Handbook of North American Indians: Volume 14, Southeast. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2004. ISBN 0-16-072300-0.
• Demallie, Raymond J. "Tutelo and Neighboring Groups." In Handbook of North American Indians: Volume 14, Southeast. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2004. ISBN 0-16-072300-0.
• Gallay, Alan. The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South 1670-1717. Yale University Press, New Haven, 2002. ISBN 0-300-10193-7
• Swanton, John Reed (1952). The Indian Tribes of North America. Genealogical Publishing. p. 74. ISBN 9780806317304.
• Swanton, John Reed (1946). The Indians of the Southeastern United States. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 109–10.

External links

• Catawba Nation, official site
• "Handbook of North American Indians: North Carolina Indian Tribes". Smithsonian Institution, carried on Access Genealogy, Indian Tribal Records. 1906. Retrieved 2007-05-24.
• "South Carolina Indians: Cheraw". SCIway. Retrieved 2007-05-24.
• Alexander Gregg and John Julius Dargan, History of the Old Cheraws, 1905
• Stokes County, North Carolina
• History of Saura Indians