Sewee

Last updated
Sewee
Sewee
Total population
extinct as a tribe
Regions with significant populations
South Carolina
Languages
Eastern Siouan [1]
Religion
Native American religion
Related ethnic groups
Catawba, [2] merged with the Wando people [3]

The Sewee or "Islanders" were a Native American tribe that lived in present-day South Carolina in North America.

Contents

Their territory was on the lower course of the Santee River and the coast westward to the divide of Ashley River, around present-day Moncks Corner, South Carolina. [1]

History

Ethnologist John Reed Swanton estimated there were 800 Sewee in 1600. [4]

In 1670, the English founded the coastal town of Charleston in the Carolina Colony on land belonging to the Etiwan people and neighboring tribes like the Sewee. [5] Sewee and other native peoples began participating in the Deerskin trade shortly thereafter. The Sewee hunted, processed, and exchanged deer hides for manufactured goods and glass beads from the English. However, they felt that English traders had become middlemen. Noting that the English ships always landed at the same location, the Sewee believed that by rowing to the point on the horizon where the ships first appeared, they could reach England and establish better trading prices. Therefore, the Sewee nation decided to construct canoes with woven mat sails for their expedition. [6]

English land surveyor John Lawson, having heard the story from a Carolina trader, described the process in his book A New Voyage to Carolina:

It was agreed upon immediately to make an addition of their fleet by building more canoes, and those to be of the best sort and biggest size as fit for their intended discovery. Some Indians employed about making the canoes, others to hunting – everyone to the post he was most fit for, all endeavors towards an able fleet and cargo for Europe. [7]

Eventually the Sewee had completed their navy of canoes, and they filled the vessels with hides, pelts, and provisions. Most able-bodied Sewee men boarded the boats and took to the sea, while children, the sick and the elderly stayed home. As the Sewee entered open ocean, an abrupt storm engulfed their canoes and caused many to drown. The survivors were picked up by a passing English slave ship and sold into slavery in the West Indies. [6] [7] [3]

The surviving Sewee settled with the Wando people, with whom they later intermarried. [3]

Language

Sewee
Extinct 17th century?
unclassified (Siouan?)
Language codes
ISO 639-3 None (mis)

The Sewee language is poorly attested and unclassified. Some Sewee words were recorded in 1670 [8] by Nicholas Carteret and William Owen. [9] [10] :1639

Based on the geographical location of the Sewee people, Zamponi (2024) hypothesizes that that the Sewee language may have been a Siouan language, although no he could not find any evidence of Siouan morphemes in any attested Sewee words and phrases. [10]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 Swanton, 98
  2. Swanton, 99
  3. 1 2 3 Olexer, Barbara (2005). The Enslavement of the American Indian in Colonial Times. Joyous Pub. p. 116. ISBN   9780972274043.
  4. Swanton, John Reed (1952). The Indian Tribes of North America. Genealogical Publishing Com. p. 99. ISBN   9780806317304 . Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  5. Butler, Nic (November 19, 2021). "The First People of the South Carolina Lowcountry". Charleston County Public Library. Retrieved March 10, 2023.
  6. 1 2 Merrell, James H. (2009). The Indians' New World: Catawbas and Their Neighbors from European Contact through the Era of Removal (2nd ed.). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. pp. 49–50. ISBN   978-0-8078-7142-3.
  7. 1 2 Lawson, John (1709). A New Voyage to Carolina. University of North Carolina: London. pp. 11–12. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
  8. Waddell, Gene. 1980. Indians of the South Carolina lowcountry 1562–1751. Columbia, SC: Southern Studies Program, University of South Carolina.
  9. Cheves, Langdon (ed.). 1897. The Shaftesbury papers and other records relating to Carolina and the first settlement on Ashley River prior to the year 1676. (Collections of the South Carolina Historical Society 5). Charleston: South Carolina Historical Society.
  10. 1 2 Zamponi, Raoul (2024). "Unclassified languages". The Languages and Linguistics of Indigenous North America. De Gruyter. pp. 1627–1648. doi:10.1515/9783110712742-061. ISBN   978-3-11-071274-2.

Related Research Articles

The Waccamaw people were an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, who lived in villages along the Waccamaw and Pee Dee rivers in North and South Carolina in the 18th century.

The Cape Fear Indians were a small, coastal tribe of Native Americans who lived on the Cape Fear River in North Carolina.

The Winyaw were a Native American tribe living near Winyah Bay, Black River, and the lower course of the Pee Dee River in South Carolina. The Winyaw people disappeared as a distinct entity after 1720 and are thought to have merged with the Waccamaw.

The Mosopelea, or Ofo, were a Siouan-speaking Native American people who historically lived near the upper Ohio River. In reaction to Iroquois Confederacy invasions to take control of hunting grounds in the late 17th century, they moved south to the lower Mississippi River. They finally settled in central Louisiana, where they assimilated with the Tunica and the Siouan-speaking Biloxi. They spoke the Ofo language, generally classified as a Siouan language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saponi</span> Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands

The Saponi are a Native American tribe historically based in the Piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia. They spoke a Siouan language, related to the languages of the Tutelo, Biloxi, and Ofo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pedee people</span> Indigenous people of the southeast United States

The Pedee people, also Pee Dee and Peedee, were a historic Native American tribe of the Southeastern United States. Historically, their population has been concentrated in the Piedmont of present-day South Carolina. It is believed that in the 17th and 18th centuries, English colonists named the Pee Dee River and the Pee Dee region of South Carolina for the tribe. Today four state-recognized tribes, one state-recognized group, and several unrecognized groups claim descent from the historic Pedee people. Presently none of these organizations are recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, with the Catawba Indian Nation being the only federally recognized tribe within South Carolina.

The Santee were a historic tribe of Native Americans that once lived in South Carolina within the counties of Clarendon and Orangeburg, along the Santee River. The Santee were a small tribe even during the early eighteenth century and were primarily centered in the area of the present-day town of Santee, South Carolina. Their settlement along the Santee River has since been dammed and is now called Lake Marion. The Santee Indian Organization, a state-recognized tribe within South Carolina claim descent from the historic Santee people but are not presently federally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waccamaw Siouan Indians</span>

Waccamaw Siouan Indians are one of eight state-recognized tribes in North Carolina. They are also known as the "People of the Fallen Star." Historically Siouan-speaking, they are located predominantly in the southeastern North Carolina counties of Bladen and Columbus. Their congressional representative introduced a failed bill for federal recognition in 1948. North Carolina recognized the group in 1971.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tutelo</span> Historic Indigenous tribe of the Eastern Woodlands

The Tutelo were Native American people living above the Fall Line in present-day Virginia and West Virginia. They spoke a dialect of the Siouan Tutelo language thought to be similar to that of their neighbors, the Monacan and Manahoac nations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cheraw</span> Indigenous tribal group of southeastern North America

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

The Wateree were a Native American tribe in the interior of the present-day Carolinas. They probably belonged to the Siouan-Catawba language family. First encountered by the Spanish in 1567 in Western North Carolina, they migrated to the southeast and what developed as South Carolina by 1700, where English colonists noted them.

The Congaree were a historic group of Native Americans who once lived within what is now central South Carolina, along the Congaree River. They spoke a language distinct from and not mutually intelligible with other local Siouan languages. The language today is generally considered unclassified, though, some linguists believe that the language was related to Catawba. The tribe joined the Catawba Nation in company of the Wateree several years after temporarily migrating to the Waccamaw River in 1732. During the middle of the eighteenth century, Congaree was considered one of the languages spoken within the Catawba Nation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cusabo</span> Group of American Indian tribes

The Cusabo were a group of American Indian tribes who lived along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean in what is now South Carolina, approximately between present-day Charleston and south to the Savannah River, at the time of European colonization. English colonists often referred to them as one of the Settlement Indians of South Carolina, tribes who "settled" among the colonists.

The Waxhaw people were a tribe native to what are now the counties of Lancaster, in South Carolina; and Union and Mecklenburg in North Carolina, around the area of present-day Charlotte. The Waxhaw were related to other nearby Southeastern peoples, such as the Catawba people and the Sugeree. It is speculated that they were culturally influenced by the Mississippian culture.

The Eno or Enoke, also called Stuckenock, was an American Indian tribe located in North Carolina during the 17th and 18th centuries that was later absorbed into the Catawba tribe in South Carolina along with various other smaller tribal bands.

The Wando were a tribe of Native Americans of the Cusabo group who lived in South Carolina on the banks of the Cooper River.

The Sissipahaw or Haw were a Native American tribe of North Carolina. They are also variously recorded as Saxahapaw, Sauxpa, Sissipahaus, etc. Their settlements were generally located in the vicinity of modern-day Saxapahaw, North Carolina on the Haw River in Alamance County upstream from Cape Fear. They are possibly first recorded by the Spaniard Vendera in the 16th century as the Sauxpa in South Carolina. Their last mention in history is that the tribe joined the Yamasee against the English colonists in the Yamasee War of 1715. Some scholars speculate that they may have been a branch of the Shakori due to being so closely associated with that tribe but others disagree with this assumption.

Woccon was one of two Catawban languages of what is now the Eastern United States. Together with the Western Siouan languages, they formed the Siouan language family. It is attested only in a vocabulary of 143 words, printed in a 1709 compilation by English colonist John Lawson of Carolina. The Woccon people that Lawson encountered have been considered by scholars to have been a late subdivision of the Waccamaw.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neusiok</span> Extinct Native American tribe in North Carolina

The Neusiok were an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Wooodlands in present-day North Carolina. They were also known as the Neuse Indians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keyauwee Indians</span>

The Keyauwee Indians were a small North Carolina tribe, native to the area of present day Randolph County, North Carolina. The Keyauwee village was surrounded by palisades and cornfields about thirty miles northeast of the Yadkin River, near present day High Point, North Carolina. The Keyauwee village was vulnerable to attack, so the Keyauwee constantly joined with other tribes for better protection. They joined with the Tutelo, Saponi, Occaneechi, and the Shakori tribes, moving to the Albemarle Sound with the last two for a settlement that would later be foiled. The Keyauwee would move further southward along with the Cheraw and Peedee tribes, close along the border of the two Carolinas, where they conducted deerskin trade with Charleston traders and allied with the Indian neighbors in the Yamassee War. Eventually, their tribe name vanished from historical records, and with time, they were absorbed by the Catawba tribe.

References