The Tuscarora () are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands in Canada and the United States. They are an Iroquoian people, recognized as a Native American tribe in the United States and as a First Nations people in Canada. The Tuscarora Nation, a federally recognized tribe, is based in New York, and Tuscarora First Nation in Canada is part of the Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario. Prior to European contact, the Tuscarora lived in the Carolinas along the Roanoke, Neuse (), Tar, and Pamlico Rivers.F.W. Hodge, "Tuscarora", Handbook of American Indians, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1906, at AccessGenealogy, accessed 28 Oct. 2009 They were forced to migrate from North Carolina following conflicts with British colonists.American Anthropologist, American Anthropological Association, Anthropological Society of Washington (Washington, D.C.), American Ethnological Society.Davi Cusick, Ancient History of the Six Nations, 1828Recounted in Tuscarora oral tradition
Following their defeat in the 1711 to 1713 Tuscarora War at the hands of British colonists and their Indian allies, most surviving Tuscarora left North Carolina and migrated north to Pennsylvania and New York, over a 90-year period. They aligned with the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) in New York, because of their ancestral linguistic and cultural connections. In 1722, sponsored by the Oneida, the Tuscarora were accepted as the sixth nation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.J.N.B. Hewitt, "Legend of the Founding of the Iroquois League", 1892, pp. 131-48.Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1918, "A Constitutional League of Peace in the Stone Age of America", Washington, 1920, pp. 527-45
After the American Revolution, those Tuscarora who allied with the colonists shared reservation land with the Oneida before gaining their own. Today, the Tuscarora Nation of New York is a federally recognized tribe. Tuscarora who allied with the British during the American Revolutionary War resettled with other Haudenosaunee people to Ontario, where they formed the Tuscarora First Nation, part of the Six Nations of the Grand River.
Only the tribes in New York and Ontario have been recognized on a government-to-government basis by the respective national governments. After the migration was completed in the early 19th century, the Tuscarora in New York no longer considered those remaining in North Carolina as members of the tribal nation. Since the late 20th century, some North Carolina individuals claiming Tuscarora ancestry formed organizations self-identifying as tribes.
Name The Tuscaroras' autonym, , may translate to "hemp gatherers" or "shirt-wearing people".
History
Precontact to 17th century The Tuscarora people were a confederacy of three tribes, when first encountered by Europeans in North Carolina. These were the: Katenuaka (people of the submerged pine trees), Kautanohakau Akawenteaka (people of the water), Kawenteaka, Agwantega, Kauwetsaka,Hodge, p. 842 Kauwetseka Skaruren (hemp gatherers), Skarū'ren, Skuarureaka
The members of these three tribes belonged to about seven matrilineal clans: Bear (), Beaver (), Deer, Eel (), Snipe (), Turtle (), and Wolf (); however, clans may have had different subclans throughout time.
These affiliations continued to be active as independent groups after the tribe migrated to New York, and later Ontario.Cusick, History of the Six Nations, 1828, pp. 31, 34 Hodge, an early 19th-century historian, wrote that the Tuscarora in North Carolina traditionally were said to occupy the "country lying between the sea shores and the mountains, which divide the Atlantic states," in which they had 24 large towns and could muster about 6,000 warriors, probably meaning persons.
18th century
In early 18th-century North Carolina, British colonists reported two primary branches of the Tuscarora: A northern group led by Chief Tom Blunt, and a southern group led by Chief Hancock. Varying accounts around 1708–1710 estimated the number of Tuscarora warriors as from 1200 to 2000. Historians estimate their total population may have been three to four times that number. Chief Blunt occupied the area around what is present-day Bertie County, North Carolina, on the Roanoke River. Chief Hancock lived closer to present-day New Bern, occupying the area south of the Pamlico River. Chief Blunt became close friends with the colonial Blount family of the Bertie region and lived peacefully.
By contrast, Chief Hancock had to deal with far more colonists encroaching on his community. They raided his villages and kidnapped people to sell into slavery. Colonists transported some Tuscarora to Pennsylvania to sell into slavery. Both groups of Tuscarora suffered substantial population losses after exposure to Eurasian infectious diseases endemic to Europeans. Both also suffered territorial encroachment. By 1711, Chief Hancock believed he had to fight against the colonists to fight back. Chief Tom Blunt did not join him in the war.
The southern Tuscarora collaborated with the Pamlico, Cothechney, Coree, Mattamuskeet, and Matchepungoe nations to attack nearby British colonists in a wide range of locations within a short time. Their principal targets were against the colonists on the Roanoke, Neuse, and Trent Rivers, as well as the city of Bath. They attacked on September 22, 1711, beginning the Tuscarora War. The allied Indian tribes killed hundreds of settlers, including several key political figures among the colonists.
Governor Edward Hyde called out the North Carolina Militia and secured the assistance of Province of South Carolina, which provided 600 militiamen and 360 British-allied Indians commanded by Colonel John Barnwell. In 1712, this force attacked the southern Tuscarora and other nations in Craven County at Fort Narhontes, on the banks of the Neuse River. The Tuscarora were "defeated with great slaughter; more than 300 were killed, and 100 made prisoners."
The governor offered Chief Blunt leadership of the entire Tuscarora Nation if he would assist in defeating Chief Hancock. Blunt succeeded in capturing Hancock, who was tried and executed by North Carolina officials. In 1713, the southern Tuscarora were defeated at Neyuherú·kęʔ (Fort Neoheroka, formerly spelled Neherooka), with 900 killed or captured in the battle.
Following their defeat in the conflict in 1713, about 1,500 Tuscarora fled north to New York to join the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, while as many as 1500 additional Tuscarora sought refuge in the British colony of Virginia. Although some accepted tributary status in Virginia, most of the surviving Tuscarora are believed to have returned to North Carolina.Bruce Trigger, ed., Handbook of American Indians; Volume 15, 1978, pp. 287–288 In 1715, about 70 warriors of the southern Tuscarora went to South Carolina to assist colonists against the Yamasee. Those 70 warriors later asked permission to have their wives and children join them, and settled near Port Royal, South Carolina.
Under the leadership of Tom Blunt, the Tuscarora who remained in North Carolina signed a treaty with the colony in June 1718. It granted them a tract of land on the Roanoke River in what is now Bertie County. This was the area occupied by Chief Blunt and his people. The colonial governments of Virginia and North Carolina both recognized Tom Blunt, who had taken the last name Blount, as "King Tom Blount" of the Tuscarora. Both colonies agreed to consider as friendly only those Tuscarora who accepted Blount's leadership.Bruce Trigger, ed., Handbook of American Indians; Volume 15, 1978, p. 287 The remaining southern Tuscarora were forced to remove from their villages on the Pamlico River and relocate to the villages of Ooneroy and Resootskeh () in Bertie County. In 1722, the Bertie County Reservation, which would officially become known as Indian Woods, was chartered by the colony.
As colonial settlement surrounded Indian Woods, the Tuscarora suffered discrimination and other acts; they were overcharged or denied use of ferries, restricted in hunting, and cheated in trade; their timber was illegally logged, and their lands were continuously encroached upon by herders and squatters. Over the next several decades, the colonial government continually reduced the Tuscarora tract, forcing cessions of land to the encroaching settlers. They sold off portions of the land in deals often designed to take advantage of the Tuscarora.
Many Tuscarora were not satisfied with the leadership of Tom Blount, and decided to leave the reservation. In 1722, about 300 fighting men, along with their wives, children, and the elderly, resided at Indian Woods. By 1731, the population fell to 200 warriors, and by 1755, only 100 warriors remained, with a total population at Indian Woods of 301. When Moravian missionaries visited the reservation in 1752, they had noted "many had gone north to live on the Susquehanna" and that "others are scattered as the wind scatters smoke." This refers to the Tuscarora migrating to central-western New York to live with the Oneida and other Haudenosaunee nations.
In 1763 and 1766, additional Tuscarora migrated north to settle with other Iroquoian peoples in northern and western Pennsylvania and in New York. By 1767, only 104 persons were residing on the reservation in Bertie County. In 1804, the last band to leave North Carolina went to New York. By then, only "10 to 20 old families" remained at Indian Woods.
19th century In 1802, the last Indian Woods Tuscarora negotiated a treaty with the United States, by which land would be held for them that they could lease. As the government never ratified the treaty, the North Carolina Tuscarora viewed the treaty as null and void. In 1831, the Indian Woods Tuscarora sold the remaining rights to their lands. By this point, their area had been reduced to .
Although without a reservation, some Tuscarora descendants remained in the southern regions of the state, intermarrying with European settlers. In 1971, the Tuscarora in Robeson County sought to get an accounting of their lands and rents due them under the unratified treaty of 1803. At least three bands who self-identify as Tuscarora have organized in Robeson County. In 2010, they united as one group.
Migration north The Haudenosaunee Five Nations of New York had penetrated as far as the Tuscarora homeland in North Carolina by 1701, and nominally controlled the entire frontier territory lying in between. Following their discovery of a linguistically related tribe living beyond Virginia, they were more than happy to accommodate their distant cousins within the Haudenosaunee Constitution as the "Sixth Nation", and to resettle them in safer grounds to the north (The Haudenosaunee had driven tribes of rival Indians out of western New York to South Carolina during the Beaver Wars several decades earlier, not far from where the Tuscarora resided).
Beginning about 1713 after the war, contingents of Tuscarora began leaving North Carolina for the north. They established a main village at present-day Martinsburg, West Virginia, on what is still known as Tuscarora Creek. After White settlers began to pour into the area from around 1730, the Tuscarora continued northward to join those in western New York. Another group stopped in 1719–1721 in present-day Maryland along the Monocacy River, on the way to join the Oneida nation in western New York.Wayne E. Clark, "Indians in Maryland, an Overview", Maryland Online Encyclopedia, 2004–2005, accessed 22 Mar 2010 Other Tuscarora bands sojourned in the Juniata River valley of Pennsylvania, before reaching New York.