Waccamaw
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
 USA(  South Carolina,  North Carolina) |
|
| Languages | |
| unknown, likely a Siouan language | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Winyaw, possibly Catawba |
The Waccamaw people are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, who lived in villages along the Waccamaw River and Pee Dee River in North Carolina in the 18th century.
None of the Waccamaw language survives today, but it is believed to have been a Siouan language, possibly related to the Catawba language.
While the Waccamaw were never populous, they incurred devastating population loss and dispersal with the incursion of colonial settlers and their diseases beginning in the 16th century. Anthropologist James Mooney estimated that the combined population of the Waccamaw, Winyaw, "Hook, &c." was 900 in 1600.
According to the ethnographer, John R. Swanton, the Waccamaw may have been one of the first mainland groups of Natives visited by the Spanish explorers in the 16th century. Within the second decade of the 16th century, Francisco Gordillo and Pedro de Quexos captured and enslaved several Native Americans, and transported them back to Hispaniola. Most died within two years, although they were supposed to be returned to the mainland. One of the men whom the Spanish captured was baptized and learned Spanish. Known as Francisco de Chicora, he worked for Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón, who took him to Spain on a trip. Chicora told the court chronicler Peter Martyr about more than twenty indigenous peoples who lived in present-day South Carolina, among which he mentioned the "Chicora" and the "Duhare" — these were tribal territories that comprised the northernmost regions. The early 20th century ethnographer John R. Swanton believed that these nations were the Waccamaw and the Cape Fear Indians, respectively.
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