King Yanabe Yalangway

King Yanabe Yalangway was the eractasswa (chief) of the Catawba Indian Nation, sometime around the 1740s. Not much is known about him other than the fact that he preceded King Hagler as chief. His training was evidently under "king" Whitmannetaughehee's leadership.

As a warrior he served during a longstanding state of warfare with northern tribes, particularly the Iroquois Seneca, and the Lenape.

In 1738, a smallpox epidemic broke out in South Carolina. It caused many deaths among the Anglo-Americans, the Catawba and other related tribes. After this epidemic, Yanabe Yalangway became the leader or Eractasswa of the Catawba people, not necessarily as Whitmannetaugheehee's direct successor. The Sissipahaw, Shakori, Enoke and possibly some other small tribes were absorbed into the Catawba people to survive themselves and to strengthen Yanabe Yalangway's people.

Yanabe Yalangway was the Eractasswa of the Catawba people when, in 1744, the Treaty of Lancaster, made at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, renewed the Covenant Chain between the Iroquois and the colonists and the governor of Virginia, who had not been able to prevent settlers going into Iroquois territory, offered the tribe payment for their land claim. The peace was probably final for the Iroquois, who had established the Ohio Valley as their preferred hunting ground by right of conquest, but the more western tribes continued warfare against the Catawba, who were now so reduced as for their own number that they could raise little resistance. In 1744 the Natchez and Pedee attacked and killed several Catawba people and the Catawba drove them into European settlements. During "King George's War" (1744-1748) the Shawnee and, eventually, the Cherokee (but southern Shawnee were sometimes called "Cherokee") made their attacks against the Catawba and, when the Catawba tried to find a refuge in the Carolinian settlements, against these settlements too. "King" Yanabe Yalangway had to deal with these very difficult years and led the Catawba through a crucial period.

He was murdered in 1750 by a band of Iroquois, during a period of conflict with the Iroquois from the North. He was on his way home from Charleston following a conference with South Carolina's Colonial Governor James Glen.