Note: The Newberry Library copy is a photograph of the original in the Public Record Office, London.

This is a copy (possibly prepared by a British draftsman) of a map drawn about 1721 by a Catawba Indian for Francis Nicholson, the governor of South Carolina. "Catawba" was the English name for a confederated group of separate Indian communities situated between the English colonies of Virginia and Carolina. It is thought that the map's author was a headman of the Nasaw group, who occupy a central position on this map. The map's structure and content are similar to several other maps prepared by Indians who inhabited what is now the Southeastern United States during the early colonial period, suggesting that this kind of map was common among Native Americans in that region. The Catawba map was drawn on deerskin. The narrower portion of the skin on the right side of the map was the animal's neck. Skins were commonly used for maps and other important documents during early modern times, since paper was scarce in many locations.

The Indian author depicts most of what is now the Southeastern United States, embracing all or part of the modern states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. There are few geographical points that we recognize from modern maps. The English colony of Virginia is indicated by a large rectangle at lower right, and the streets of the important port city of Charleston, South Carolina appear along the left margin. North, therefore, is roughly towards the right of the map and South to the left. At lower left, a crude drawing of a ship appears in Charleston's harbor. Nearby, is a small depiction of an Indian hunting. At center right, a large image of an Indian seems to dominate a route leading from Virginia, labeled "The English Path to Nasaw."

It is significant that the two most important Southern English colonies during the early eighteenth century are shown on the margins of the map. The map appears to have been intended to show Governor Nicholson that the Catawba/Nasaws occupied a central position among the Indian nations of the Southeast and that good relations with them was essential to communications between the English colonies. Each circle on the map gives the rough location of a particular Indian tribe or village. The largest of these, in the center of the map, depicts the Nasaw themselves, who appear at the hub of network of affiliated villages and communities. The headman also emphasized the Catawba/Nasaw's connection to two non-affiliated but powerful Southeastern tribes, the Chickasaw and the Cherokee, who appear at upper right, roughly to the west of the Nasaw's lands, their large circles reflecting their importance.

The scale of the map clearly is not uniform throughout. The geographical areas occupied by the central Catawba villages and by Charleston are relatively small compared to the rest of the map. The various lines connecting the circles may be interpreted as trading routes or roads, or simply indicate that amicable political or economic relationships exist between the communities linked by them. The map may be interpreted, therefore, both as a map of geographical and of social relationships.