The Tuscarora were an Iroquoian-speaking people whose ancestors had migrated from the Great Lakes area to the Piedmont (upper North Carolina), long before European contact. White settlement began in earnest in North Carolina in 1653. For many decades, the Tuscarora lived in peace with the Settlers. But the usual problems began. Settlers encroached on Tuscarora land, epidemics spread among the Native people, and colonists began capturing Natives as slaves to supplement Black labor. Meanwhile, two groups of Tuscaroras began coalescing around their respective leaders. Tom Blount, who took his name from a local White family in what is now Bertie County, established peaceful relations with the Settlers. A southern group under Chief Hancock took the brunt of White incursion and disease. Fed up, the Southern Tuscarora sought alliances with neighboring people, such as the Pamplico, the Coree, the Mattamuskeet and others. They began attacking plantations along the Roanoke, Neuse and Trent Rivers and the towns of Bath and New Bern in September 1711. They killed several colonists and wild stories began spreading of Native cruelty to prisoners. The Colonial Governor of North Carolina called out the militia and sent for aid to South Carolina, which also sent a body of militia under Col. John Barnwell. Barnwell's army met up with Southern Tuscarora forces in Craven County. More than 300 Tuscarora warriors were killed. Women and children taken prisoner were shipped as slaves to the Caribbean.
The Settlers made terms with Tom Blount of the Northern Tuscarora, who captured Hancock and turned him over to the Whites to be executed. Other leaders took up the fight in and in 1713, the Southern Tuscarora lost their main town of Fort Neoheroka, in Greene County. 950 people were killed or captured and sold into slavery in the Caribbean or shipped to New England. By this time, the Settlers had enlisted Yamasee and Cherokee allies, who did most of the fighting. The remaining Southern Tuscarora decided to migrate back to the Great Lakes, where they joined the Five Nations of the Iroquois, becoming the Six Nations in 1722. Embittered at the Northern Tuscarora who remained in North Carolina, their leader declared that anyone who hadn't migrated to New York was no longer considered a Tuscarora and member of the tribe. The remaining Northern Tuscarora signed a treaty in 1718 giving them control over their land in Bertie County. In the next few decades, a series of land swindles deprived these remaining Tuscarora of even this piece of earth. Most of them had no choice but to relocated to New York and try to survive there.
While the Settlers were successful in putting down the Tuscarora, they soon had to turn to an even larger threat on their hands from the Yamasee and their other erstwhile allies. The Tuscarora War is considered the lead up to the larger Yamasee War, which began in 1715. We'll cover that conflict tomorrow.
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