Waxhaw

The Waxhaw people lived in the Carolina Piedmont near the creek that bears their name. Their towns stood in a landscape of fields and woodland, among other Indigenous communities of the interior. When John Lawson visited in 1701, he described large houses and a gathering place for leaders, as well as food prepared for visitors and a remarkably large iron cooking pot acquired through trade.

Epidemic disease and warfare brought severe losses in the early eighteenth century. Waxhaw warriors were among the Indigenous allies who accompanied John Barnwell's expedition against the Tuscarora in 1711–1712. The Yamasee War soon followed, further disrupting the peoples of the wider region. Survivors sought safety among other neighbouring communities; some travelled south with the Yamasee to Florida.