These were primarily the tribes of different language families: the Iroquois, who ranged south from the Great Lakes area and New York the Algonquian Shawnee and Lenape (Delaware) and the Iroquoian Cherokee, who fought for control over the large Ohio Valley (including what is in present-day West Virginia). The Catawba were among the East Coast tribes who made selective alliances with some of the early European colonists, when these colonists agreed to help them in their ongoing conflicts with other tribes. They were once considered one of the most powerful Southeastern tribes in the Carolina Piedmont, as well as one of the most powerful tribes in the South as a whole, with other, smaller tribes merging into the Catawba as their post-contact numbers dwindled due to the effects of colonization on the region. Their territory once extended into North Carolina, as well, and they still have legal claim to some parcels of land in that state.
Their current lands are in South Carolina, on the Catawba River, near the city of Rock Hill. The Catawba, also known as Issa, Essa or Iswä but most commonly Iswa (Catawba: Ye Iswąˀ – 'people of the river'), are a federally recognized tribe of Native Americans, known as the Catawba Indian Nation.
