Iswa

Iswa, meaning “river,” was the name of the Catawba River and of the people who lived along it. The Catawba were a powerful people of the Carolina Piedmont, and their territory extended from the river's headwaters in the north toward the country where it becomes the Wateree. Smaller neighbouring communities joined them as war, disease and colonial expansion diminished their own numbers.

In the eighteenth century the Catawba fought northern raiding parties and negotiated with colonial officials and the Haudenosaunee. Smallpox struck in 1738 and again in 1759, causing devastating losses. In 1763 South Carolina confirmed a reservation on both sides of the Catawba River. Despite the pressures on their land and population, the Catawba remained a community in their ancestral river homeland.

The later city of Charlotte lies here.