* The Catawbas spoke a language different from any of the surrounding tribes. They inhabited the country south of the Tuscaroras, and adjoining the Cherokees. In 1672, the Shawnees made settlements in their country, but were speedily driven away. In 1712, they were the allies of the white people against the Corees and Tuscaroras; but in 1715, they joined the other tribes in a confederacy against the Southern colonies. In 1760, they were auxiliaries of the Carolinians against the Cherokees, and ever afterward were the friends of the white people. Their chief village was on the Catawba, twenty-four miles from Yorkville. The following eloquent petition of Peter Harris, a Catawba warrior during the Revolution, is preserved among the colonial records at Columbia, in South Carolina. The petition is dated 1822: "I am one of the lingering survivors of an almost extinguished race. Our graves will soon be our only habitations. I am one of the few stalks that still remain in the field where the tempest of the Revolution has passed. I fought against the British for your sake. The British have disappeared, and you are free; yet from me have the British took nothing; nor have I gained any thing by their defeat. I pursued the deer for subsistence; the deer are disappearing, and I must starve. God ordained me for the forest, and my ambition is the shade. But the strength of my arm decays, and my feet fail me in the chase. The hand which fought for your liberties is now open for your relief. In my youth I bled in battle, that you might be independent; let not my heart in my old age bleed for the want of your commiseration."
This petition was not unheeded; the Legislature of South Carolina granted the old warrior an annuity of Sixty dollars.
"Our hungry eyes may fondly wish
To revel amid flesh and fish,
And gloat upon the silver dish
That holds a golden plover
Yet if our table be but spread
With bacon and with hot corn-bread,
Be thankful if we're always fed
As well, the wide world over."