Shakori is a native name but its significance unknown, though perhaps the same as Sugari, "stingy or spoiled people," or "of the river whose-water-cannot-be drunk." Also called: Cacores, a misprint.

The Shakori belonged to the Siouan linguistic family, their closest connections being evidently with the southern division of the Siouan tribes of the East. Colonel John Barnwell identified them with the Sissipahaw.

The Shakori moved so frequently and there is so much uncertainty regarding their early history, that this is hard to give, but, as they usually kept company with the Eno, tenancy of the courses of Shocco and Big Shocco Creeks in what are present-day Vance, Warren, and Franklin Counties (North Carolina) is perhaps the location most closely connected with them in historic times. This tribe is thought to have moved south with the Eno after 1716 and to have united ultimately with the Catawba. At some prehistoric period they perhaps lived on or near Enoree River, and there is reason to think that they or a branch gave their name to the Province of Chicora in South Carolina.

It is possible that the Shakori gave their name to the province of Chicora visited by Ayllon and his companions in 1521. If so, we must suppose that they moved north later in the sixteenth century or early in the seventeenth, perhaps as a result of the Juan Pardo expeditions of 1566-67.

In 1650, Edward Blande and his associates found the "Nottoway and Schockoores old fields" between Meherrin and Nottoway Rivers, but the Indians were not there.

In 1654, Governor Yeardley of Virginia was told by a Tuscarora Indian of an inland people called the "Cacores," probably an attempt to indicate this tribe.

In 1672, Lederer found them living in a village fourteen miles from that of the Eno, and in 1701, Lawson says these two tribes (the Shakori and Eno) were in one village called Adshusheer on Eno River. The later fortunes of the Shakori were bound up with those of the Eno.

Mooney (1928) estimates the Shakori, Eno, and "Adshusheer" at 1,500 in 1600.

The two creeks, Shocco and Big Shocco, and a post office nine miles south of Warrenton, Warren County, North Carolina perpetuate the name of the Shakori. If Chicora refers to the same tribe, it appears prominently in Spanish narratives of American exploration, particularly because of the information regarding Indian customs obtained by Peter Martyr from an Indian, Francisco of Chicora.