SWANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 205 



WATEREB 



The home of this tribe when the Spanish explorer Juan Pardo 

 met them in 1566 on his return from his first expedition to the Cheraw 

 Indians (Xoara) is in doubt. He evidently reached the tribe, which 

 he calls Guatari, by detouring to the east, and probably found them 

 on the Wateree River, though it may have been the Broad. Here 

 he had a conference with more than 30 chiefs and a great number of 

 Indians besides, and, at their request, he left them a priest and 4 

 soldiers. Two days later, on his way back to Santa Elena, he came 

 to a place called Guatariatiqui, where he again held a council. On 

 his second journey, he went sufficiently out of his way to visit Guatari- 

 atiqui, but did not go to the main Wateree settlement. He returned 

 through it, however, spent 16 or 17 days there, and built a fort, which 

 he left in charge of a corporal and 17 soldiers. The Wateree were 

 then ruled by two chief tainesses who exercised considerable authority 

 and had both male and female servants to wait upon them. This, like 

 the other forts established by Pardo and his lieutenant Boyano, was 

 soon afterward destroyed by the Indians. We hear of them next 

 through the narrative of John Lederer, who in 1670 seems to have 

 found them a considerable distance to the north on the upper Yadkin. 

 By 1701, however, they were on the Wateree below the present 

 Camden and there they remained until the end of their career as an 

 independent people. Here Lawson met them and he also met a tribe 

 of Little Wateree, "Wateree Chickanee," who may correspond to the 

 Guatariatiqui of Pardo. The Wateree took part in the Yamasee War 

 in 1715, and a note in the colonial archives of South Carolina says 

 that Wateree Jack was believed to be the author of most of the mis- 

 chief done by the Catawba and the other small nations near them. 

 Like so many other tribes, they obtained guns from the Cheraw, who 

 very likely got them from Virginia. In 1740 they laid claim to the 

 lands of Fredericksburg township (letter of Governor Glen). Early 

 in 1744 Thomas Brown, a trader of the Congarees, bought from this 

 tribe "the neck of land between the Wateree and Congaree rivers as 

 far up as 'the Catawba fording place.' " In a letter dated September 

 22, 1744, we learn that certain Natchez and Wateree had killed some 

 Catawba Indians by treachery, but that James Glen had persuaded 

 the Natchez "king" to punish the offenders. Shortly afterward it is 

 probable that the remainder of the Wateree settled permanently with 

 the Catawba Indians and presently lost their identity in the larger 

 tribe. 



Wateree population. — They appear to have been more numerous than 

 most of the other Siouan tribes of the east except the Catawba (see 

 Rivers, 1874), and Mooney estimated their numbers at 1,000 in 1600. 



