Description
The Sewee or "Islanders" were a Native American tribe that lived in present-day South Carolina in North America. Their territory was on the lower course of the Santee River and the coast westward to the divide of Ashley River, around present-day Moncks Corner, South Carolina. Ethnologist John Reed Swanton estimated there were 800 Sewee in 1600. In 1670, the English founded the coastal town of Charleston in the Carolina Colony on land belonging to the Etiwan people and neighboring tribes like the Sewee. Sewee and other native peoples began participating in the Deerskin trade shortly thereafter.
Language
No words of their language have survived, but the Sewee are regarded as Siouan on strong circumstantial grounds
Culture
The Sewee hunted, processed, and exchanged deer hides for manufactured goods and glass beads from the English. However, they felt that English traders had become middlemen. Noting that the English ships always landed at the same location, the Sewee believed that by rowing to the point on the horizon where the ships first appeared, they could reach England and establish better trading prices. Therefore, the Sewee nation decided to construct canoes with woven mat sails for their expedition.