The Sissipahaw or Haw were a Native American tribe of North Carolina. They are also variously recorded as ''Saxahapaw'', ''Sauxpa'', ''Sissipahaus'', etc. Their settlements were generally located in the vicinity of modern-day

Saxapahaw, North Carolina Saxapahaw ()
from the North Carolina Collection's website at the

Haw River The Haw River is a tributary of the Cape Fear River, approximately 110 mi (177 km) long, that is entirely contained in north central North Carolina in the United States. It was first documented as the "Hau River" by John Lawson, an E ...

Alamance County Alamance County (), from the North Carolina Collection's website at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved September 18, 2012. is a county in North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 171,415. Its county seat ...

upstream from Cape Fear. They are possibly first recorded by the

Spaniard Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance ethnic group native to Spain. Within Spain, there are a number of national and regional ethnic identities that reflect the country's complex history, including a number of different languages, both i ...

Vendera in the 16th century as the ''Sauxpa'' in

South Carolina )'' Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

. Their last mention in history is that the tribe joined the

Yamasee The Yamasees (also spelled Yamassees or Yemassees) were a multiethnic confederation of Native Americans who lived in the coastal region of present-day northern coastal Georgia near the Savannah River and later in northeastern Florida. The Yamas ...

against the English colonists in the

Yamasee War The Yamasee War (also spelled Yamassee or Yemassee) was a conflict fought in South Carolina from 1715 to 1717 between British settlers from the Province of Carolina and the Yamasee and a number of other allied Native American peoples, incl ...

of 1715. Some scholars speculate that they may have been a branch of the Shakori due to being so closely associated with that tribe but others disagree with this assumption.

Name

The meaning of ''sissipahaw'' is unknown but it probably derives from a

Siouan language Siouan or Siouan–Catawban is a language family of North America that is located primarily in the Great Plains, Ohio and Mississippi valleys and southeastern North America with a few other languages in the east. Name Authors who call the entire ...

. Colonel

John Barnwell John Barnwell (born 24 December 1938) is an English former football player and manager. He was the chief executive of the League Managers Association. Career Arsenal Born in Newcastle, Barnwell first played as an amateur for Whitley Bay and ...

reported in a letter that the Sissipahaw were called Shacioes by some during the

Tuscarora War The Tuscarora War was fought in North Carolina from September 10, 1711 until February 11, 1715 between the Tuscarora people and their allies on one side and European American settlers, the Yamassee, and other allies on the other. This was con ...

. Linguist

Ives Goddard Robert Hale Ives Goddard III (born 1941) is a linguist and a curator emeritus in the Department of Anthropology of the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution. He is widely considered the leading expert on the Algonqui ...

proposed that this may be the Sissipahaw's endonym but acknowledged the impossibility of ascertaining how Barnwell actually spelled the term due his letter surviving only as a copy.

History

The Sissipahaw were possibly first encountered and recorded as the ''Sauxpa'' by the Spanish officer Vandera in 1569 as a placed visited by the explorer Juan Pardo. If true, this would imply a historic migration from coastal

. However, in the opinion of Goddard, this assumption is unfounded and primarily based on a misreading of a nineteenth century rendering of "Sauapa" which itself is likely a misrendering of "Sanapa". Regardless, the tribe is later referred to as the ''Sissipahau'' in 1701 by English explorer John Lawson, who had likely heard of them as living on the

from his guide, Enoe Will, the chief of the Shakori. Will had a Sissipahaw servant or slave, who traveled alongside he and Lawson. On January 28, 1712, during the

, an army of four hundred and fifty natives and thirty three white men are noted to have rested at a recently abandoned Sissipahaw town on the

Neuse River The Neuse River ( , Tuscarora: Neyuherú·kęʔkì·nęʔ) is a river rising in the Piedmont of North Carolina and emptying into Pamlico Sound below New Bern. Its total length is approximately , making it the longest river entirely contained in ...

. The final mention of the tribe is in 1715, when they united with other tribes of the region to fight against the English in the

. It is thought that the Sissipahaw, along with other remnants of Siouan tribes, joined the

Catawba Catawba may refer to: *Catawba people, a Native American tribe in the Carolinas *Catawba language, a language in the Catawban languages family *Catawban languages Botany *Catalpa, a genus of trees, based on the name used by the Catawba and other N ...

after the war. In 1728, the site of the former Sissipahaw village was known as the Haw old fields and was noted as being the largest body of fertile land in the region. Present-day

Saxapahaw, North Carolina Saxapahaw ()
from the North Carolina Collection's website at the

probably corresponds to the site of these old fields. Indians NW of South Carolina

Culture

Very little is known of the Sissipahaw, aside from a few notes in history. Archaeological evidence from Alamance County indicates that the Sissipahaw, much like the Shakori, lived in

wigwam A wigwam, wickiup, wetu (Wampanoag), or wiigiwaam (Ojibwe, in syllabics: ) is a semi-permanent domed dwelling formerly used by certain Native American tribes and First Nations people and still used for ceremonial events. The term ''wickiup' ...

-like structures, farmed corn and beans, and hunted the woods for turkey, venison, and bear.

Language

While the Sissipahaw were probably of the Siouan linguistic family, their language is extinct, with no words being known. Four numbers attributed to the Sissipahaw are given by the historian Sallie Walker Stockard in ''The History of Alamance'', however, these numbers appear to be taken from John Lawson's word list of "Tuskeruro" which has been identified as the first substantial documentation of the

Tuscarora language Tuscarora, sometimes called , was the Iroquoian language of the Tuscarora people, spoken in southern Ontario, Canada, North Carolina and northwestern New York around Niagara Falls, in the United States, before going into hibernation in late 20 ...

Legacy

There is no recorded history of the Sissipahaw after the

of 1715, other than to mention the tribe's participation against the English colonists. Stockard states that the tribe is remembered through local names such as

, Saxapahaw, and

Altamahaw, North Carolina Altamahaw is a census-designated place (CDP) in Alamance County, North Carolina, United States. It is part of the Burlington, North Carolina Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 347. The community was listed ...

. She also alleges the town of Ossipee, North Carolina derives its name from the tribe but the term "Ossipee" occurs in other states and has been thought to possibly derive from

Abenaki The Abenaki ( Abenaki: ''Wαpánahki'') are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States. They are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was pre ...

References

{{authority control Native American tribes in North Carolina Siouan peoples Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands Extinct Native American peoples Extinct languages of North America Languages extinct in the 18th century