by Jason Smith

Carolina archaeologists and students are unearthing evidence of log cabins along with bridle bits, pottery, and thousands of other artifacts that researchers say are part of two of the most important Indian settlements in the early history of the United States. The settlements, called Old Town and New Town — two of a chronological sequence of Catawba Indian sites dating from the mid-1700s through the early 1800s — are in rural Lancaster County, South Carolina, just south of Charlotte. Researchers hope that what they find there will expand our understanding of one of the Carolinas' most storied Indian groups.

Right: European-made glass trade beads found in a cellar pit in Old Town (c. 1770s). Photo by Research Labs of Archaeology; click to enlarge.

R.P. Stephen Davis and Brett Riggs, research archaeologists at Carolina's Research Laboratories of Archaeology, say the Catawba lived in Old Town on the eve of the American Revolution. They considered themselves professional soldiers and were among the most warlike people in the East. "The Catawbas tied their fortunes to the British colony of South Carolina, and fought as allies to the colony in every war from 1680 until the American Revolution," Riggs says.

When the revolution came, the politically astute Catawba sided with their new American neighbors against the British Crown, Riggs says. "The Catawba nation contributed, in proportion to their population, the highest rate of military service of any American community during the Revolution, and they were known as the Patriot Indians for decades."

The Catawba lived in New Town between about 1800 and 1820. They became commercial potters and landlords, leasing their reservation lands to white farmers.

"The Catawba's story is an important part of the history of both Carolinas," Davis says. "We are particularly excited about being able to contribute to the modern Catawba's understanding of their past." The team can identify probable descendants of some of the Catawba families who lived in the two towns, Davis says.

In the late 1600s, the English began referring to a diverse community of native tribes — Sugerees, Esaws, and Kadapaus and others in the middle Catawba-Wateree valley — as the Catawba Nation. By the 1700s, European diseases, Iroquois raiding, and Indian-Colonial wars had driven more than twenty neighboring tribes to seek refuge among the Catawba, where they established several towns. A smallpox epidemic devastated the entire native community in 1759. The survivors resettled in two towns near the current Carolina excavations. Riggs says the Carolina team will excavate those two sites in a few years.

Jason Smith is online designer and print production manager of Endeavors.