"[3] The earliest documented European contact occurred when Hernando de Soto's Spanish expedition reached the Piedmont plateau.
The deer skin market helped the Catawba receive European goods like muskets, iron knives, kettles, and cloth[3] but also brought along disease and encroachment.
In 1747, the Province of South Carolina allotted the Catawba 15 square miles in the York and Lancaster districts.
[9] When the Civil War began, the Catawba were "an obscure enclave in a social system [southern plantation slavery] that was beginning to break down.
[14] Captain Samuel White helped to create a monument to the Catawba Indians and had the names of the brave warriors who fought in the Confederate war placed on it.
[15] The Yorkville Enquirer reported the following: "For the fourth time in the history of Fort Mill, the citizens have assembled for the purpose of unveiling a monument.
The first to the Confederate Soldier, on December 22d, 1891; the second, to the Women of the South, on the 21st day of May, 1895, when Colonel J. P. Thomas, of Columbia, delivered a scholarly address; the third, to the Faithful Slaves of the South, unveiled on the 21st day of May, 1895, when Colonel Polk Miller delivered a characteristic address.