Cheraw

The Cheraw people, also known as the Saraw or Saura, were a Siouan-speaking tribe of indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, in the Piedmont area of North Carolina near the Sauratown Mountains, east of Pilot Mountain and north of the Yadkin River. They lived in villages near the Catawba River. Their first European and African contact was with the Hernando De Soto Expedition in 1540. The early explorer John Lawson included them in the larger eastern-Siouan confederacy, which he called "the Esaw Nation."

After attacks in the late 17th century and early 18th century, they moved to the southeast around the Pee Dee River, where the Cheraw name became more widely used. They became extinct as a tribe, although some descendants survived as remnant peoples.

Name

Originally known as the Saraw, they became known by the name of one of their villages, Cheraw. They are also known as the Charáh, Charrows, Charra, Charaws, Charraws, Chara, Sara, Saura, Suali, Sualy, Xualla, and Xuala. The name they called themselves is lost to history but the Cherokee called them Ani-suwa'ii and the Catawba Sara ("place of tall weeds"). The Spanish and Portuguese called their territory Xuala (or Xualla).

Cheraw, South Carolina

Cheraw (/tʃəˈrɔː/ chə-RAW, local /ʃəˈrɔː/ shə-RAW) is a town on the Pee Dee River in Chesterfield and Marlboro counties, South Carolina, United States. The population was 5,851 at the 2010 census. It has been nicknamed "The Prettiest Town in Dixie". The harbor tug USS Cheraw was named in the town's honor.

History

Origins

When the first Europeans arrived in the area it was inhabited by the Cheraw and Pee Dee American Indian tribes. The Cheraw lived near the waterfall hill, near present-day Cheraw, but by the 1730s they had been devastated by new infectious disease inadvertently carried by the European traders. Survivors joined the Catawba Confederacy for safety and left their name in history. Only a few scattered Cheraw families remained by the time of the American Revolution. A few European settlers entered their territory in the 1730s, forced upriver when the Welsh came to claim the Welsh Baptist lands granted by the English government in the area around Society Hill. Many of the early settlers of the 1740s in Cheraw were ethnic English, Scots, French Huguenots, or Scots-Irish.

Cheraw (YTB-802)

Cheraw (YTB-802) was a United States Navy Natick-class large harbor tug named for Cheraw, South Carolina.

Construction

The contract for Cheraw was awarded 2 May 1968. She was laid down on 12 March 1969 at Slidell, Louisiana, by Southern Shipbuilding Corp and launched 20 September 1969.

Operational history

Cheraw was delivered to the Navy on 29 January 1970.

Stricken from the Navy List 29 February 1996, ex-Cheraw (YTB-802) was transferred to the Army Corps of Engineers 29 December 1996 at Buffalo, New York and renamed Cheraw.

References

External links