South Carolina – Indians, Native Americans – Sewee

Name, Language

• Alternate spellings: Seewee, Seawee, Seewa, Sewoe
• Possible meanings: "island"
• Language family: Siouan

Current Status

• Extinct

SC Location, Territory

• Traditional: On the lower Santee River in Berkeley, Charleston, and Georgetown counties, southward toward the Wando River and westward toward present-day Moncks Corner. They were northern neighbors of the Etiwan.

Related SC Names

• Town of Awendaw in Charleston County

Population Estimates

• 1600: 800
• 1715: 57 (one village)

History

• During the 1670s, they were possibly the first natives to meet the English settlers in Sewee Bay, now Bull's Bay. They assisted the English in fighting off the Spanish and supplied them with food.

• By 1701, the Sewee had been decimated by alcohol and smallpox.

• After 1715, the remaining members probably merged with the Catawba.

Dwellings

• ?

Food

• Accounts by settlers who received food from the Sewee indicated that they grew corn, probably as their staple food.

Beliefs and Practices

• ?

Related Sewee Indian Resources

• Milling, Chapman J. Red Carolinians. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1969, pp. 206-208.
• Swanton, John R. The Indian Tribes of North America. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Instition Press, 1984, pp. 98-99.