KIOUA 

 MOON 



^4y] SARA EARLY HISTORY. 57 



Sara, raigratert southward and merged with the Catawba tribe in South 

 Caroliiin. 



The history of the Sara goes back to the earliest Spauisli period. 

 In 1540 De Soto, after leaving- Cofachiqiii (identified as Silver blufton 

 the Savannah, in Barnwell county, South Carolina), advanced along 

 the border of the Chalaciue (Clierokee) country, meeting- several small 

 villages of that tribe, and after traveling through a pleasant country 

 for about 50 leagues, equal to about 150 miles, reached the province of 

 ^'Xuala." (In writing Indian names the early Spanish authors used x 

 as the equivalent of sh- Xuala of the Spaniards is Suala of Lederer, 

 Suali of the Cherokee, and Saura and Cheraw of later writers.) From 

 the narrative of Garcilaso the Sara must then have lived in the pied- 

 mont region about the present line between South Carolina and North 

 Carolina, southeast of Asheville, North Carolina. On the De I'lsle map 

 "Chouala" is marked west of the upper Santee. From personal inves- 

 tigation among the Cherokee I learn that the correct name of the 

 Swannanoa gap through the Blue ridge, east of Asheville, is Suwali- 

 Nii"nAhi, or "Suwali trail," that being the pass throug:h which ran 

 the trail from the Cherokee to the Suwali, or Ani-Suwali, living: 

 east of the mountains. The name of the Suwali tribe is still familiar to 

 the Cherokee yet. living in North Carolina. Lederer in his narrative 

 states that the tribe, wliicli he usually calls Sara, was called Suala, 

 Sualy, or Sasa in the "Warrennuucock" dialect (Lederer, 7). The 

 interchange of 1 and r, it may be remarked, is one of the most common 

 in Indian dialects. 



G-arcilaso in 1540 describes the village of Xuala as situated on the 

 slope of a ridge in a pleasant hilly region, rich in corn and all the other 

 vegetables of the country. In front of the village flowed a swift stream 

 which formed the boundary between the Xuala tribe and that of Cofa- 

 chiqui. This may have been either Broad river or the Pacolet. Both 

 tribes are said to have been subject to the same queen, which, if true, 

 would indicate that the Cofachiqui were perhaps of kindred stock and 

 that even at this early period there was a close connection among the 

 tribes which long afterward consolidated under the single name of the 

 Catawba. After stopping here five days the Spaniards journeyed 

 through a country of mountains and swift small streams into Guachule 

 and thence down into Georgia. From the length of their stay it is evi- 

 dent that this first meeting between the Sara and the white race was 

 a friendly one (Garcilaso, 1). 



That the Sara were an important tribe is evident from the persist- 

 ence of the name to a very late period. As they lay so far remote from 

 the settlements and rather back from the general route of the traders, 

 little was knowti of them by English settlers and travelers until after 

 their removal into eastern South Carolina. It would probably be 

 found, however, if the records could be searched, that De Soto was not 

 the only Spanish leader who explored the country in search of gold in 

 the early days of the colonization period. It was the jealous policy of 



