Catawba

The Catawba people of the Piedmont Carolinas called themselves Ye Iswa — 'People of the River.' The name Catawba came from other Siouan-speaking neighbors and meant something like 'people of the river' in their dialect, or possibly from a place name. European colonists applied the name widely, and by the 18th century Catawba referred to both the nation and the region along the Catawba River in present-day North and South Carolina.

The Catawba grape — a pinkish-bronze variety of Vitis labrusca — was identified in the early 19th century along the Catawba River. Nicholas Longworth of Cincinnati acquired cuttings in 1825 and planted them in Ohio, where the cooler climate suited the variety. By the 1840s, Longworth was producing sparkling Catawba wine in quantities that made Cincinnati the center of American wine production. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote an ode to it in 1854.

The California Gold Rush of 1849 and the subsequent boom in California viticulture eventually displaced Catawba wines. European varieties planted in California — cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay, zinfandel — outcompeted the native grape commercially. The Catawba grape retreated to the Finger Lakes region of New York, where it still produces wine.

The Catawba Nation survived removal pressure in the 19th century and retains a reservation in York County, South Carolina — among the smallest in the United States. Their federal recognition was terminated in 1959 and restored in 1993 after a 33-year legal battle. The grape named for their river outlasted the political erasure of their sovereignty.