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M. L
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
.
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02418 8341
,
MEMORIALS
OF
NORTH CAROLINA.
BY J. SEAWELL JONES,
OF SHOCCO.
NEW-YORK :
1838.
NEW-YORK : Printed by SCATCHERD & ADAMS, No. 38 Gold Street.
1192445
TO THE
HONORABLE WM. COST JOHNSON,
AS A SLIGHT BUT MOST SINCERE TOKEN OF ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENIUS,
RESPECT FOR HIS CHARACTER,
AND GRATITUDE FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP, THIS WORK
IS INSCRIBED,
BY HIS OBLIGED AND AFFECTIONATE SERVANT,
SHOCCO.
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PREFACE.
THE chapters comprised in this volume were pub- lished some years ago in the literary Gazettes of the day, and are all, excepting the one signed "PACI- FICATOR," from the same pen. They all relate to periods of the history of North Carolina, which, un- til a few years ago, were buried and forgotten ; and they are now published to keep alive the memory of those times. The bitterness of controversy has at least the good effect of signalizing historical events ; and many a hurried student will perhaps pause to observe in what great matter it is that the skepti- cism of an Irving or a Jefferson is deemed vicious and reprehensible.
MEMORIALS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
CHAP. I.
THE LANDING OF SIR WALTER'S COLONY.
" They were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea."
COLERIDGE.
ON the 4th of July, 1584, two English ships hove in sight of the coast of North Carolina, somewhere about Cape Fear. They were the vessels of Sir Walter Raleigh, and were on a voyage of discovery, to take possession of some portion of the new world in the name of the crown of England. The day on which they first beheld the shores of our country has since become the great political holiday of the age, and is now distinguished as the anniversary, not of the origin, but of the downfall of the authority of Eng- land over the United States. The commanders of these two ships were Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe; and the ceremony which they performed upon the coast of North Carolina, and which I am now about to celebrate, is perhaps one of the most memorable events in the history of mankind. The fortunate results of the dominion of England over
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MEMORIALS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
the territory of our Union are as innumerable as are the stars; and the free Anglo-American, in whatever forests he may be found, will turn reverently to the spot consecrated as its birth-place. The two ad- venturers loitered along the coast of North Caro- lina, in full view of the shore as it sweeps in a curve from Cape Look Out to Cape Fear. There was scarcely wind enough to ruffle the plumage of the two ships as they lay their gentle course, and the mild land-breeze was so fragrant, that the voyagers exclaimed that they seemed to be in the midst of some delicate garden, abounding with all kinds of odoriferous flowers. Thus making their liquid way, on the 13th of July, 1584, we find the two ships at anchor in the roads of Ocracock inlet, within a few hundred yards of the island which lies to the south, and which the Indians called Wokokon. And this is the spot, of all the fair lands of our wide-spread country, which was first occupied by old mother England !
About mid-day on the 13th, when there was not a film of a cloud in the heavens, nor a breath of air to break the sea; when the tides were still, and the sunshine danced along the glittering sand-banks from Hatteras to Look Out; when the whole scene was so intensely tranquil, that those ships looked like " painted ships," and that ocean a " painted ocean ;" when the crew stood about the decks in si- lent wonderment at the vast and solitary world be- fore them-no scudding skiff, no rising smoke, no distant sound : at this hour, when solitude was most
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awful and most sublime, the sound of prayer broke the enchantment, and the first words of Christian suffrage were uttered in returning thanks to God that the lion flag of old England was about to be planted upon the coast of the new world. The boats were then manned, and the two captains, at- tended by the most notable gentlemen of the expedi- tion, were pulled toward the shore ; and as the boats grated upon the sand, they sprang upon the beach, and Captain Amadas shouted in a loud voice :-
" We take possession of this land in the right of the queene's most excellent majestie, as rightfull queene and princesse of the same, to be delivered over to the use of Sir Walter Raleigh, according to her Majestie's grant and letters patent, under her highnesse's great seale."
This, then, was the birthday, and here, then, was the birthplace, of our great Anglo-American empire ! And how fortunate was it for the cause of civil and religious freedom all over the world that England, and not Spain, France, or Portugal, colonized our splendid domain ! Look to the South American states, already in the decrepitude of old age; their moral, intellectual, and physical condition alike un- improved ; their governments unsteady and tyran- nical ; their private estates insecure; and the very liberty which, but a few years ago, they so proudly achieved, already degraded into popular despotism. Spanish blood corrupted the new world. The seeds of civil and religious despotism were sown, broad cast, from the city of Mexico to Cape Horn ; and
2
.
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MEMORIALS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
after a revolution of three hundred years, Spanish America can boast of but little that is either grand or sublime, in all her history, excepting the monu- ments of Montezuma's magnificence and the victo- ries of Bolivar.
But how different has been the career of the An- glo-American race! The seed which was planted on Wokokon Island has given birth to a new genus of men. Another and a hardier race than even the Anglo-Saxon has sprung into existence, and are now bearing onward to the Pacific, as they leap from the Alleghany to the Rocky mountains, the language and the liberty of their forefathers. The great principles of human government have been simplified ; the liberty of the people, and their right to self-government, immoveably established ; a free, happy, and powerful republic, under the con- stitution and laws of which the rights of individuals are as inviolably sustained as is the glory of the na- tional faith, now covers the fairest portions of the new world; and, what is the proudest result of all, this new-born nation, in the purity of its government and in the happiness of its people, is now sending back, across the sea, to regenerate and to reform the old world, the sublime lessons of her own experience. Happy, proud Anglo-America! She has given to the world the great principle of a free government. She has extended the provinces of liberty, civiliza- tion, and of law. " The lightning of the heavens could not resist her philosophy, nor the temptation of a throne seduce her patriotism."
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MEMORIALS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
Let us now return to the voyagers. As soon as they had performed the ceremony of occupation, the company penetrated a few miles into the interior, and, on reaching the summit of an eminence, they dis- covered that they were on an island, and not on the continent. "They behelde the sea both sides of them to the north and to the south, having no end any of both ways." They were on an island clad with vines, which reeled so full of grapes, "as that the very beating and surge of the sea had overflowed them, of which we found such plentie, as well there as in all places else, both on the sand as on the green soil, on the hills as in the plains, as well as on every little shrubbe, as also climing towardes the tops of high cedars, that I thinke in all the worlde the like abundance is not to be found." From the eminence which they had gained, they beheld the valleys replenished with goodly cedar trees, and having discharged their harque-buz shot, a flock of cranes (the most part white) arose under them, with such a cry, redoubled by many echoes, as if an army of men had shouted all together." The island is again described as having " many goodly woods, full of deer, conies, hares, and fowle, even in the midst of summer, in incredible abundance. The woods are not such as you find in Bohemia, Moscovia, or Hercynia-barren and fruitless, but the highest and reddest cedars in the world, far better than the cedars of the Azores, of the Indies, or of Lybanus."
The extracts which I have made, are taken from the report of the two captains, Amadas and Barlowe,
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MEMORIALS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
made to Sir Walter Raleigh on their return to Eng- land. The description is not too highly wrought, for we must remember that the ravages of man and of the ocean have, for more than two centuries, desolat- ed and changed Wokokon Island. The beautiful name of Virginia was first applied to the islands of North Carolina, and I have seen in the earliest maps and charts of the state at present bearing that name, Roanoke and Wokokon Islands laid off to the south, under the somewhat boasted title of " Old Virginia." This, at least, was the Virginia of Sir Walter Raleigh, and of the Fairy Queen of England. His name is identified with no other section of our Union, and the name of the capital of North Carolina best be- tokens her proud remembrance of the character of her founder.
The two captains, after having surveyed Wokokon Island, returned to their ships, and there remained for two days before they encountered the natives. It is not my design in this number to follow them in their adventures among the savages; I would rather ask the reader to come with me to the consecrated spot, and see how it now looks after a revolution of two hundred and fifty years.
I have myself stood upon such an eminence on Wokokon Island as that described by the voyagers, but I sought a more poetical hour than mid-day, and I had, too, the benefit of a blustering March wind, which threw the waters all into a rage, and brought down the waves of the Pamlico all the way from Roanoke Island, as heavy as if they had been born
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MEMORIALS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
in the Gulf Stream. It was a clear, cold day; and with the history of these voyagers fresh in my me- mory, I had wandered about the island, and at sunset I placed myself as near as possible on the very emi- nence on which they had stood centuries ago. The view before me was indeed wild and startling. The glorious sunset gilded the crested waves of the Pam- lico, as they broke in boundless succession afar to the west and to the north, and the narrow island that curves around to the north-east from Ocracock to Hat- teras, all covered as it was with the mellow teints of the sun, resembled a rainbow resting on the face of the sea. The opposite towns of Portsmouth and Ocra- cock, and old Shell Castle, stood before me amid the noisy waves, as if they had arisen to earth from the convulsive throes of the excited sea, and then there was the narrow island, with its naked woods and vines, and the waves bursting and thundering upon its shores, combing their foam higher and higher on each return, as if in the wantonness of their strength they would clap their hand over the very spot on which I stood. To me there is something especially fascinating in the scenery about Ocracock Inlet. I love it for its very bleakness; and historical associa- tion, too, hallows it in my memory. It is indeed a place of storms, for nature has there provided every- thing which can give fury to the winds, and, come from what quarter they will, they bring noise and strife. An easterly wind arouses the whole Atlantic, and the waves dash through the narrow straits, re- treating from the fury of the storm ; and then a west-
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MEMORIALS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
erly wind arises, and, sweeping over the Pamlico, sends them all back to their ocean mother. A north- east gale will bring down from the banks of Hatteras sand enough to create an island; and oftentimes a ship riding at her anchorage, is enveloped in a whirl- pool of sand, and lifted high and dry out of the sea ; but then a southern storm will send its ministers to the rescue, and the briny waves will soon ply their strength, undermine it, and sweep the ship away.
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MEMORIALS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
CHAP. II.
" The gentle children of an isle, Who knew but to worship and to love."
RUSSELL.
FOR two days our adventurous voyagers saw no signs of man. The vine-clad and flowery isle before them seemed to have bloomed away its existence un- enjoyed by man, and their minds were filled with the sublime thought-that in this virgin world the cla- mour of war had never been heard, nor the silence of its shores ever violated, save by the thunders of the waves and of the clouds of heaven. On the third day, however, this dream was broken. A solitary boat, with three savages, turned the northern point of Wokokon, and gliding into an indenture in the shore, one of the party sprang upon the beach, and coming directly opposite the anchorage of the ships, he walked up and down along the water's edge, seem- ingly in wonder at what he saw. When Captain Amadas and three other gentlemen approached him in a boat, he made them a speech of much length, in his own barbarous tongue, and then firmly step- ping into their boat, he manifested by signs his de- sire to visit their ships. How brave is innocence ! It goes wheresoever it will, and triumphs where guilt
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MEMORIALS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
would fall. It has survived the fiery furnace, and once walked upon the stormy sea, as upon the plains of the earth.
The name of this Indian was Manteo; and the whole domestic history of England cannot boast a more perfect character. He was alike the firm friend of the English, and the stern patriot and defender of his tribe; and whenever a strife arose among them, he held out the olive-branch, and made peace upon the principles of justice. His savage birth and life were indeed but additional embellishments of his character; and while he restrained the inhuman vices of his tribe, he checked the not less odious avarice of his new and more civilized associates. On some future occasion I shall celebrate his hu- manity, his generosity, and his valour. At present I have only space thus briefly to introduce him to the reader, and to announce the more astonishing cir- cumstance of his life-that he was honoured with the reverence, the obedience, and the gratitude of the whites.
On reaching the ships, Manteo wandered about the decks, examining every part of them with the curio- sity of ignorance; and having tasted of their meat and of their wine, and received a present of a hat and some other trifles, he departed again to his own boat and attendants. He then put off into the water and " fell to fishing, and in less than half an hour he had laden his boat as deep as it could swim;" and then he came back to the shore, divided his fish between the two ships, and departed.
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MEMORIALS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
The next day Granganameo, the king's brother, with a fleet of canoes, entered Ocracock inlet; and leaving his boats, as Manteo had done, in a small cove, he came down to the water's edge near the ships. He was attended by forty or fifty men, " very hand- some and goodly people, and in their behaviour as man- nerly and civil as any of Europe;" and they spread down upon the sea-shore a long mat or carpet, upon which Granganameo was seated, and " at the other ende of this matte four others of his company did the like-the rest stood about him somewhat afar off."
He showed no signs of fear or mistrust as the English, dressed in full array of armour, approached ; but he sat perfectly unmoved, and bade them, by signs, to be seated near him, and then he made them " all figures of joy and welcome-striking on his breast and on his head, and afterwards on ours, to shew we were all one-smiling and making shewe the best he could, of all love and familiaritie." Af- ter this welcome, Granganameo made them a long set speech, to which Captain Amadas replied by presenting him with divers things, which he joyfully received ; and during the whole ceremony none of the company of attendants spoke a word audibly, but each in the other's ear very softly.
During this visit the voyagers learned that the coun- try was called Wingandaceo, and that the king was named Wingina, and that his majesty had recently had a fight, in " which he was shot in two places through the body, and once clear through the thigh
3
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MEMORIALS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
-by reason whereof, and for that he lay at the chief town of the country, which was five days' journey off, they saw him not at all." Thus, by the illness of the king, Granganameo was in authority, and when the Captain went around making presents to the company of attendants, he rose from his seat and took them all away, and indicated to the voyagers that all things should be given to him, and that the men around were but his servants and his followers.
In a few days the voyagers commenced trading with the savages for skins, and such other commo- dities as they possessed ; and on showing all their merchandise, the article that most took the fancy of Granganameo was a large, bright tin dish, which he seized, and " clapt it before his breast, and after made a hole in the brim thereof and hung it about his neck, making signs that it would defend him against his ene- mies' arrows; for these people maintain a deadly and terrible war with the people and king adjoining. They exchanged the tin dish for twenty skins, worth twenty crowns, and a copper kettle for fifty skins, worth fifty crowns."
A few days after this, the captains gave a collation on board the ships, and Granganameo came with all his retinue, and they drank wine and ate of their meat and of their bread, and were exceedingly pleased ; and in a few days more he brought his wife, his daughter, and two or three children on board the ships. His wife is represented as having been a most beau- tiful and modest woman. She wore a long black cloak of leather, with the fur-side next to her skin ;
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MEMORIALS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
her forehead was surmounted with a band of white coral, and from her ears swung, even down to her waist, bracelets of precious pearl. Her raven hair was streaming down from her coral crown, and in- tertwisting itself with her ear-rings of pearl, flowed gracefully back over her jetty robe in wild and un- shorn luxuriance. Granganameo, too, on this occa- sion, was dressed in state. A crescent of unpolished metal, much resembling gold, surmounted his head ; and this he would neither remove for their inspec- tion, nor would he even stoop or bend that they might touch it. A band of white coral ran around his head, passing over his forehead immediately at the bow of the crescent, as if it had been its border ; and this, with the tuft of hair on the summit of his scalp, completed his head-dress. His body was robed in a black cloak similar to the one worn by his wife, and this seemed to be the uniform of those whom the voyagers denominated the nobles of the land. 'The young daughter of Granganameo was distinguished by an extraordinary cluster of ear pendants, an un- commonly beautiful head of richly flowing auburn hair, and a pair of bright chestnut eyes. Such were the fashions of the savages of North Carolina.
The civility and kindness of the voyagers were well appreciated by Granganameo and his wife; and they spread around the country such reports of their good-will, that " a great store of people" came down to Wokokon to see the strangers, and to trade away skins, pearls, coral, and dyes. During all this intercourse nothing occurred to give dissatisfaction on
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either side, and in a few days we find Captain Bar- lowe, with seven comrades, at Roanoke Island on a visit to Granganameo. The particulars of this visit deserve to be specially detailed, to illustrate not more the manners and customs, than the hospitality of the uncorrupted American savage.
On the north point of Roanoke Island there stood an Indian village of nine houses. Several were very large and commodious dwellings, being built of the best cedar, and containing as many as five rooms. The town was fortified by a circle of pickets, and the entrance through this, into the interior of the vil- lage, was over a turnpike-path, which wound around from the water's edge, and entered the fortification through an avenue of these picketed trees. This was the town of Granganameo; and as Captain Barlowe and his company approached it in their boats, the wife of the good savage, being in the entrance near the water's edge, saw and welcomed them cheer- fully and friendly.
Granganameo not being at home, the civilities of the tribe devolved upon his wife-and generously did she acquit herself. She ordered a number of men to draw the boats out of the water, others she appointed to carry the voyagers on their backs, and when they were brought in the outer room, she gave them seats around a large fire. Their outer gar- ments, which had been wet in a rain, were taken off, quickly washed and dried, and the women of the village came and brought warm water and bathed their feet. My reader, I have drawn this picture
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MEMORIALS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
not from my imagination, but from history; nor have I purloined from classic annals a description of the Golden age, and thrown it amid the scenery of Roa- noke Island; but this good Indian woman deserves to live renowned in the history of North Carolina as the good Samaritan, who ministered to the sorrows of the weary and distressed.
But Granganameo's wife was not satisfied even with these cordial attentions. She had prepared, in the words of Captain Barlowe, " a solemn banquet," wherewithal to refresh them; and as soon as they had dried themselves, and reassumed their outer gar- ments, they were ushered into an inner room to en- joy the feast. The tables were set all around against the walls of the house, and on them were placed " some wheate like furmentie; venison, sodden and roasted; fish sodden, boiled and roasted; melons, rawe and sodden; roots of divers kinds, and divers fruites." Their drink was wine, made of the grapes of the island, and ginger-cinnamon and sassafras- water. Captain Barlowe exclaims-" We were en- tertained with all love and kindness, and with as much bountie, after their manner, as they could possibly devise. We found the people most gentle, loving, and faithful, and such as live after the man- ner of the Golden age."
The house of Granganameo comprised five rooms. The hall in which the voyagers first entered, the ban- quet-room, and then came two sleeping-chambers, and in the rear of them all was the sanctum, in which they kept an idol to bend before and to wor-
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ship, and " of whom they spoke incredible things." The feast went off gloriously. The voyagers gave many signs of their pleasure and gratification, and the good woman implored them to tarry for the night; but the prudent Captain Barlowe preferred lounging in an open boat near the shore during a rainy night, lest there might be some miscarriage. She, however, sent them mats to cover with, and brought down to the boat, with her own hands, some supper put in pots ; and Captain Barlowe concludes his account of the feast by declaring, that a more kind or loving people cannot be found in the world.
Let us now see what information, as to the geo- graphy of the country, these voyagers acquired. The Indian name of the Albemarle Sound was Occam, and into it flowed a river called Nomopana, and near the mouth of this river was a town called Cho- wanook, and the name of the king thereof was Poo- neno. The Pamlico shores of the county of Carte- rek were called Secotan, and those of Craven, Po- monick. Secotan was under the king of Wingan- daceo, and Pomonick under an independent king, named Piamacum. In the interior, toward the set- ting sun, the country was called Newsiok, and through it coursed the river Neus. The king of this country was in alliance with Piamacum, and had aided him in a war against the Secotans. The jour- nal of Captain Barlowe speaks, too, of a river called Cipo, which flowed into the Occam, in which were found " great store of muscles" producing pearls, and constant allusion is made to a great town call-
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MEMORIALS OF. NORTH CAROLINA.
ed Shicock, which was said to be five days' journey from the banks of the Occam.
There was a tradition about Secotan, that, some years before the arrival of the voyagers, a ship had been wrecked on the coast, and the unfortunate strangers had been preserved by the savages. They remained ten days on the southern cape of Wokokon Island, and afterwards ·put to sea in a rudely-con- structed craft, and were seen no more. Some weeks after their boat was found wrecked on a contigu- ous island, and these were the only people " well apparelled and of white colour" of whom the Indians had ever heard.
I will here conclude my notices of the voyage of Captains Amadas and Barlowe. The report which they made to Sir Walter Raleigh gave a powerful impulse to the adventurous spirit of the whole British nation, and was distinguished at that day as the very beginning of the authority of Eng- land over the present territory of the United States. A rich bracelet of pearl was carried home and worn by Sir Walter as an emblem of his new dominions ; and Manteo and Wauchese, two of the native sava- ges, were passengers back to England, where they became the companions of the noble Lord Proprie- tor of Virginia.
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