Secotan
The Secotan were an Indian tribe whose tribal area was on the east coast of what is now the state of North Carolina in the United States . Linguistically they can be assigned to the small group of the North Carolina Algonquin . The Secotan were among the first tribes of North American Indians who had contact with English colonists in 1584/85. There is a wealth of information about them from this period, including numerous watercolors by the artist John White . Surveyor John Lawson was the next but last author of vivid details from the life of the Indians on the North Carolina coast. In his report from 1709, however, the name Secotan no longer appears.
Residential area and environment
At the time of their first contact with the Europeans around 1584, the Secotan lived in villages on the peninsula formed by the Albemarle and Pamlico Sound . The two banks on the lower reaches of the Pamlico River, an estuary , were also part of their settlement area. There their main village was Secoton on a bay on the south bank, of which a watercolor by John White exists. The peninsula has an almost flat surface with many lakes, extensive swamps and sand dunes. The coastline consists of deeply cut creeks and estuaries. The mostly sandy soil is covered with hard grass, marsh vegetation and evergreen forests. The climate is humid and subtropical and allows an annual growth period of around 250 days. Freshwater and saltwater fish, oysters, and edible clams are in abundance in this coastal region, which is also densely populated by water birds. Deer , foxes , squirrels , possums , rabbits and, in earlier times, bears and pumas live here .
Way of life and culture
Ethnologists suggest that the tribe separated from the Virginia Algonquins in prehistoric times and moved south. This is probably one of the last Algonquin migrations that moved south along the Atlantic coast.
history
During the first Raleigh expedition in the summer of 1584 and after the founding of the Roanoke colony on August 17, 1585, English colonists explored the remaining islands and the mainland on the east coast of what is now North Carolina. They visited the Secotan villages, including Secoton, Seco and Secotaoc on the Pamlico River and Aquascogoc . Two members of the Secotan, Manteo and Wanchese , were brought to England to instruct the English in the language and culture of the Indians. The Secotan were among the first Indians to have long-term contact with whites. A great deal of information was gathered by the English in a short period of time between 1584 and 1586. Arthur Barlowe's account and John White's watercolors from this period are the earliest documents describing the North Carolina Algonquin in some detail. Three hand-drawn maps, which were made between 1585 and 1586, are the earliest sources of information about the residential areas of the tribes and the location of their villages.
The initially good relations between the English and Secotan deteriorated noticeably when the supplies the colonists had brought with them were consumed. The Indians' generosity understandably ended when they ran out of food themselves. In addition, previously unknown diseases broke out among the indigenous people, and many died from them. In 1590, the Roanoke Colony was finally abandoned, and it has been known as the Lost Colony since then . Another epidemic, caused by European diseases, struck the Secotan and their neighbors in 1596, killing more than 25% of the Indian population. Over 70 years passed before the coastal regions of North Carolina were colonized by white colonists. At the beginning of the 18th century, John Lawson provided more information about the North Carolina Algonquin, which by that time had already shrunk in population size. Of the estimated 7,000 people at the time of the first contact, only an estimated 620 tribesmen were still alive around 1709. In the Secotan residential area, Lawson had noted different tribal names, such as Machapunga , Hatteras and Bear River . Today it is not always possible to define these terms as synonyms for names used in the past.
See also
List of North American Indian tribes
literature
- Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15: Northeast. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1978. ISBN 0-16004-575-4
- Alvin M. Josephy Jr.: 500 Nations. Frederking & Thaler GmbH, Munich 1996. ISBN 3-89405-356-9
- Klaus Harpprecht / Thomas Höpker: America - The history of the conquest from Florida to Canada , GEO im Verlag, 1986. ISBN 3-570-07996-1
- Urs Bitterli : The discovery of America. From Columbus to Alexander von Humboldt. Verlag CH Beck, Munich, 1992. ISBN 3-406-35467-X
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 15. Northeast. Christian F. Feest : North Carolina Algonquians , 272.
- ^ Machapunga Indians of North Carolina , accessed February 15, 2011
- ↑ a b Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 15. Northeast. Christian Feest: North Carolina Algonquians , 281.
- ↑ Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 15. Northeast. Christian Feest: North Carolina Algonquians , 280.