The Yamasee War (also spelled Yemassee War) is a conflict between colonial South Carolina and various Native American Indian tribes including the Yamasee, Creek, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Catawba, Apalachee, Apalachicola, Yuchi, Savannah River Shawnee, Congaree, Waxhaws, Pee Dee, Cape Fear, Cheraw, and many others.

Some of these Indian groups play a very minor role while others launch attacks throughout South Carolina.

Hundreds of colonialists were killed and many settlements are destroyed.

Traders "in the field" are killed throughout the American southeast.

Much of the South Carolina's settled territory is abandoned as people flee to Charles Town where starvation sets in as supplies run low.

The survival of South Carolina itself is in question during 1715.

The tide turns in early 1716 when the Cherokee side with South Carolina and begin to attack the Creek.

The last of South Carolina's major foes withdraw from the conflict in 1717, bringing a fragile peace to a traumatized colony.The Yamasee War, one of the most disruptive and transformational conflicts of colonial America.

is one of the American Indians' most serious challenges to European dominance.

For over a year South Carolina faces the real possibility of annihilation.

About 7% of South Carolina's white citizenry is killed, making the war bloodier than King Philip's War, which is often cited as America's bloodiest.

The geopolitical situation for British, Spanish, and French colonies, as well as all the Indian groups of the southeast, is radically altered.

The war marks the end of the early colonial era of the American South.

In addition, the Yamasee War and its aftermath contribute to the emergence of new Indian confederated nations such as the Creek and Catawba.

For South Carolina especially, the Yamasee War is a pivotal event.The cause of the war as complex and differs among the many Indian groups that participated.

Commitment differs as well, with some groups fighting to the bitter end, others fighting only briefly, some divided, some changing sides.

No simple cause can be pointed out, but some of the factors involved include the trading system, trader abuses, the Indian slave trade, the depletion of deer for the deerskin trade, increasing Indian debts coupled with the increasing wealth of South Carolina, land encroachment and the spread of rice plantation agriculture, growing French power offering an alternative to British trade, long-established Indian links to Spanish Florida, the vying for power among Indian groups as well as an increasingly large-scale and robust intertribal communication network and recent experiences in military collaboration among previously distant tribes.