Catawba people
The county, formed in 1842 from Lincoln County, was named for the Catawba River. The word "catawba" is rooted in the Choctaw sound "kat'a pa", loosely translated as "to divide or separate, to break." However, scholars are fairly certain that this word was imposed from outside. The Native Americans known as the Catawba people, a tribe of indigenous people who once inhabited the region, were considered one of the most powerful Southeastern Siouan-speaking tribes in the Carolina Piedmont. They now live along the border of North Carolina near the city of Rock Hill, South Carolina. German and Scots-Irish colonial immigrants first settled in the Catawba River valley in the mid-18th century. An official history of the German and Scots-Irish settlement was documented in 1954 by Charles J. Preslar Jr, and more recently by a series of three books by Gary Freeze, called The Catawbans.