Cusabo
Arawakan speakers[3] |
The Cusabo were a group of American Indian tribes who lived along the coast of the
Five of the groups were recorded by the settlers as having spoken a common language, although one distinctly different from the major language families known nearby, such as
Political divisions
Subtribes of the Cusabo included the Ashepoo (Ishpow), Combahee, Cusso (also spelled Coosaw, Coosawa, Cussoe, or Kussoe; not the same people as the earlier
Language
Cusabo | |
---|---|
Region | South Carolina |
Extinct | 18th century |
unclassified | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | None (mis ) |
Glottolog | cusa1237 |
Although in the 1930s, American
There is evidence that at least five tribes on the coast, in the territory from the lower Savannah to the
The place names do not seem to be related to the
John R. Swanton thought that the bou or boo element, presumably the same bou in the Cusabo word Westo boe meaning "Westoe River", which occurs in many coastal place names, is related to the Choctaw word -bok (river). He speculated that Cusabo was related to the Muskogean family. Later scholars of the 21st century think this relation of sounds might have been a coincidence without meaning, especially since the older Choctaw form was bayok (meaning small river, river forming part of a delta). They believe that Cusabo was from a different language family altogether.[6]
History
The names of many subtribes of the Cusabo and Catawba people may be recognized among the provinces that were described by Francisco de Chicora, a native who was kidnapped from the Pee Dee River area by Spanish in 1521. He was taken by the expedition back to Spain, where he learned Spanish. His Testimony of Francisco de Chicora was recorded by the court chronicler Peter Martyr and published in 1525. n 1526, Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón's party visited this area and recorded some names.
The English colony of South Carolina was founded in the midst of Cusabo land, and the loose group of tribes became closely tied to the colony. In the first decade after the founding of Charles Town in 1670, there was conflict and warfare between some of the Cusabo and the English colonists. The Kussoe (Coosa) subtribe was the first to come into violent conflict; Carolina declared war against them in October 1671. The Kussoe went into hiding but remained in the area. In the early years of the colony, the Indians could "lie low" if they wanted. For three years, colonial records make no mention of the Kussoe or the war.[5]
In 1674 records note an alleged Kussoe attack in which three colonists were killed. During the same year the Stono, a Cusabo subtribe, fought with the colony. This conflict (not to be confused with the later
One of South Carolina's first powerful Indian allies was the
By the turn of the eighteenth century, the Cusabo had become fairly integrated into South Carolina's colonial society. They retained their tribal identities and lived in their own villages. A relationship developed between the two groups, with the Indians serving as a kind of police and security force in exchange for trade goods, weapons, and money. The colony paid the Cusabo for killing "vermin", major predators such as wolves, "tigers" (cougars), and bears. The Cusabo also hunted game animals and sold the meat to colonists. But their chief service was in capturing fugitive enslaved Africans. South Carolina colonial authorities tried to encourage hostility between the two groups to avoid an alliance between them. They passed laws to reward Indians for capturing runaway slaves, and absolved them of liability if runaways were killed in the process. In contrast, Africans were punished severely for attacking Indians. As late as 1750, reportedly more than 400 "ancient native" (or Settlement Indians) lived within South Carolina, with their "chief service" being "hunting Game, destroying Vermin and Beasts of Prey, and in capturing Runaway slaves."[5]
During the
In 1712, South Carolina granted Polawana Island, near
During the Yamasee War of 1715, the Cusabo were one of the few Indian groups who sided with the colony of South Carolina. The Catawba territory extended into western North Carolina and the upper Catawba River valley.
Notes
- ^ Wright, J. Leitch (1981). The Only Land They Knew: The Tragic Story of the American Indians in the Old South. Free Press. p. 150.
- ^ Mooney, James (1894). "The Siouan Tribes of the East". Bulletin. Smithsonian Institution Bureau of Ethnology: 86.
A few months later came the Yamasi war, the most terrible in the history of colonial South Carolina, resulting before the end of the year in the expulsion and 'utter extirpation' of the Yamasi and several other tribes, including the Cusabo.
- ^ a b Rudes, Blair A. "Pre-Columbian Links to the Caribbean: Evidence Connecting Cusabo to Taino", paper presented at Language Variety in the South III conference, Tuscaloosa, AL, 16 April 2004.
- ^ a b c "Cusabo", South Carolina Indians, South Carolina Information Highway
- ^ ISBN 0-300-10193-7.
- ^ Goddard, Ives. (2005). "The indigenous languages of the Southeast", in Anthropological Linguistics, 47 (1), 1-60.; Martin, Jack. (2004). "Languages", in R. D. Fogelson (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians: Southeast (Vol. 14, pp. 68-86). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.; Waddell, Gene. (2004). "Cusabo", in R. D. Fogelson (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians: Southeast (Vol. 14, pp. 254-264). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
- ^ Worth, John E. (2000), "The Lower Creeks: Origins and Early History", in Bonnie G. McEwan (ed.), Indians of the Greater Southeast: Historical Archaeology and Ethnohistory, Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, p.17
- ^ Bowne, Eric E. (2000), "The Rise and Fall of the Westo Indians", Early Georgia: Journal of the Society for Georgia Archaeology 28 (1): 56–78, OCLC 1567184
- ^ Bowne, Eric E. (2005), The Westo Indians: Slave Traders of the Early Colonial South, Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press