Tuscarora War
The Tuscarora War ( English Tuscarora War ) took place between the Tuscarora , a tribe of Native Americans and the European settlers from England , the Netherlands and Germany in what is now North Carolina in the United States of America and lasted from the autumn of 1711 to the 11th February 1715. A treaty between Indians and settlers was signed in 1718.
Prehistory of the war
The first permanent settlement of North Carolina by Europeans began in 1653. The Tuscarora lived in peace with the newcomers for over 50 years. By 1700 there were two main groups of the Tuscarora, the northern Tuscarora under Chief Tom Blunt and a southern group led by Chief Hancock. Chief Blunt occupied what is now Bertie County on the banks of the Roanoke River ; Chief Hancock lived with his group closer to New Bern , and settled the area south of the Pamplico River (now Pamlico River ). Chief Hancock's villages have been raided, his people abducted, and sold into slavery . Both groups suffered greatly from the European diseases introduced and both were robbed of land from their traditional areas by the spreading settlers. Ultimately, Chief Hancock saw no other option but to attack the settlers. Tom Blunt was not involved in the war at this point.
Course of the war
The Southern Tuscarora or Southern Tuscarora Towns under Chief Hancock combined with the tribes of the Pamlico , the Cothechnee, the Coree , the Mattamuskeet and the Matchepungoe in order to be able to attack simultaneously in a large settlement area. Main targets were the planters on the Roanoke River, the Neuse River , the Trent River and in the city of Bath . The first attacks began on September 22nd, 1711 and hundreds of settlers were killed, including some of the leading figures of the region's settlers. Many fled in the months that followed.
Governor Hyde called on the North Carolina militias to help and secured the support of neighboring South Carolina, which provided 600 militiamen and 360 Indians under Colonel John Barnwell. These troops attacked the Southern Tuscarora and other tribes in 1712 in Torhunta, then known as Fort Narhantes, on the banks of the Neuse River in Craven County . Torhunta was the largest of nine forts that were supposed to protect the area. The Indians were beaten, more than 300 of them were killed and 100 Indians, mostly women and children, were taken prisoner. The prisoners were sold into slavery. Later the important Fort Catechna at the confluence of the Neuse River and the Contentnea Creek was besieged and forced to give up.
Chief Blunt was offered to take control of the Southern Tuscarora if he would help the settlers capture Chief Hancock. He managed to capture Hancock, and he was executed by the settlers in 1712. In 1713 the southern Tuscarora lost their important base Fort Nooherooka, (mostly called "Neoheroka" by anthropologists; in Tuscarora (Ska: rù: rę ') Neyuherú · kę = "Broken Pasture") in Greene County over 900 Indians were killed or captured taken. After that, the southern Tuscarora began to flee from the settlers to the north, the destination of which was New York.
Treaty between settlers and Tuscarora
The remaining Tuscarora signed a contract with the settlers in June 1718, which gave them a piece of land on the banks of the Roanoke River. This approximately 227 square kilometers large area, which was already settled by the tribe around Chief Blunt, corresponds to today's Bertie County. Trying to adapt, the chief changed his name to Tom Blount and was recognized by the North Carolina government as King Tom Blount. The surviving Southern Tuscarora were forced to relocate to Bertie. In 1722 Bertie was chartered as a county and over the following decades the area of the Indians increasingly shrank, mostly through land sales in which the Indians were cheated.
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ North Carolina State Historical Marker - Torhunta
- ^ North Carolina State Historical Marker - Catechna
- ↑ Historical Museum and Catechna Indian Village of Grifton, NC.
- ↑ Neyuheruke 300 - Fort Nooherooka site
- ^ Rudes, B. Tuscarora English Dictionary Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999
- ^ Mapping the Tuscarora War
- ^ Coastal Carolina Indians: Fort Neheroka , PDF . Last accessed June 18, 2008