USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods 1584 1783, Volume I > Part 24
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The presence of powerful Indian tribes on their western frontier gave the governments of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia many common problems which drew them into closer relations with each other. Unfortun- ately these relations were not always of a friendly character. Speaking broadly, and with respect only to their relations to the English colonies, there were two classes of Indian nations. First there were those who had been reduced to the position of tributaries to the whites; secondly, those whose territory had not yet been violated by the feet of white settlers and who were still sufficiently numerous and powerful to main- tain their independence. Each of the colonies had taken cer- tain of the former class under its protection, was keenly jealous of its authority over them, eager to engross their trade, and quick to resent any encroachments upon their rights and interests. Indian affairs in general, however, came within the activities of the Board of Trade which exercised a general supervision over them and determined the broad lines of policy to be followed.
In 1730 the board instructed Burrington to make a report
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on the several tribes in North Carolina and their numbers. In Eastern North Carolina he found representatives of six na- tions. One of these had formerly been tributary to Virginia but had recently, by the running of the Carolina-Virginia boundary line, been brought within the jurisdiction of North Carolina. The other tribes were the Hatteras, the Mattamus- keets, the Pottasketes, the Chowanocs, and the Tuscarora. None of them, except the Tuscarora, exceeded twenty fam- ilies. They were indeed but miserable remnants of the once powerful tribes of the ancient lords of the forest. The greater part of the Tuscarora had been driven out of the province as a result of the wars of 1711-1713, and that nation, formerly so formidable and warlike, whose power had been all but suffi- cient to destroy the English colony, was now reduced to about 200 fighting men who had been preserved only through the timid and treacherous policy of their chief, Tom Blunt. In 1730 these nations all lived within the English settlements on reservations set apart for them by the provincial government. After the Tuscarora War the Assembly, in 1715, passed an "Act for Restraining the Indyans from molesting or Injureing the Inhabitants of this Government and for Secureing to the Indyans the right and property of their lands." Commenting on this act after fifteen years of trial, Burrington said, "This Law has proved very convenient to prevent any irregularities and misunderstandings with the Tributary Indians that live among us who have ever since behaved peaceably and are now excepting the Tuscaroras decayed and grown very inconsid- erable. "
Over the affairs of these tributary nations, in their rela- tions with the whites and with each other, the provincial gov- ernment exercised complete control. The Indians could sell no land without the approval of the governor in Council; they were forbidden to hunt beyond the bounds of their reserva- tions without special license; their commercial dealings with white traders were subjected to rigid supervision. These re- strictions were imposed upon them less to restrain their free- dom than to protect them against injustice from their white neighbors. In 1741 the Council took the precaution to have the bounds of the Tuscarora reservation surveyed and recorded in the secretary's office "to prevent any Incroachments or dis- putes with the white people who live round about them." If a tribe wanted to sell any of its land, its chiefs were called into the presence of the governor and Council, the deed was read and explained to them, and upon their acknowledgment that
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they had received the money and were satisfied, the governor approved the sale. To protect them from the machinations of unscrupulous traders, the Council in 1731 appointed five com- missioners of Indian affairs to supervise their commercial dealings with the whites. An illustration of the eare with which the Council guarded these commereial transactions oe- curred at its session on October 14, 1736, when a petition was presented on behalf of Susanna Everard, executrix of Sir Richard Everard, "setting forth that the Tuskarrora Indians are indebted to the said Susanna £203 in Drest Deer Skins and praying that they may be compelled to discharge the same." The Council refused to act on the petition but referred it to the commissioners for Indian affairs and to prevent frauds from being practiced upon the Indians passed an order that "for the future the Indians Traders do not presume to trust or give any credit to the Indians and that the aforesaid Com- missioners take care to see this Order observed." How eom- plete was the government's authority over these tributary tribes appears from the act of the Tuscarora in 1739 in peti- tioning the governor for permission to choose a "king." The governor granted the petition, fixed the time and place of elec- tion, and directed that the Indians "present to his Exeellency for his approbation such Person as they shall agree upon and make choice for their King."
The government's control over the Indians'. inter-tribal relations was necessary to the preservation of peace in the set- tlements, for while these tributary tribes were subdued by the whites they still nourished their hereditary enmities among themselves which might at any time involve the whites as well as the red men. The Tuscarora were particularly hard to hold in the leash. They could not forget that in the days of their power they had domineered over the surrounding tribes, nor altogether forego that pleasure in the days of their de- cline. In 1730 they fell upon "the Saponies and other petty Nations associated with them," in Virginia, and drove them to seek refuge among the Catawba. For the Catawba they cher- ished a consuming hatred. In their life-and-death struggle against European eivilization in 1711-1713, Catawba warriors had gone to the aid of their enemies, and half a century later, when Bishop Spangenberg passed through their reservation on his way to the Catawba country they sent by him a message of defiance to their enemies asking him to tell them "that there were enough young men among them who knew the way to the Catawba Town." In 1732 Burrington wrote that "there hap-
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pens small acts of Hostility now and then in hunting on the upper parts of Cape Fear River between our Indians and the Cataubes of South Carolina, which we look to be for our ad- vantage, thinking Indians love and will be doing a little mis- chief, therefore had rather they should act it upon their own tawny race than the English."
But Burrington overlooked the danger of this policy to the whites, arising from the jealousy with which each colony guarded the interests of its tributary tribes. In 1730 the Vir- ginia government protested vigorously to the North Carolina government against the attacks of the Tuscarora on the Sapo- nies and trouble between the two colonies was averted only by Burrington's prompt action in demanding redress from the Carolina Indians. The mutual hostility between the Tusca- rora and the Catawba continually stirred up ill feeling between the two Carolinas. The Catawba dwelt along the waters of the Catawba River and were well known to the Carolinians as allies in the Tuscarora War and as enemies in the Yamassee War. When John Lawson passed through their country in 1701 he found them a "powerful nation." They then num- bered perhaps 7,000 people, were able to call 1,500 warriors to battle, and dwelt in numerous towns scattered over an ex- tensive territory. Thirty years later continuous warfare with the more powerful Tuscarora and Cherokee nations, small- pox, and various forms of debauchery introduced by white traders had decreased their number to less than 500 warriors, reduced their towns to six miserable villages, and contracted their territory to a narrow strip along the Catawba River not more than twenty miles in length. Except in 1715, when they joined the Yamassee conspiracy, they had been constant and loyal friends of the English. . South Carolina asserted juris- diction over them and, as we have seen, in her boundary line agreement with North Carolina, stipulated that the line should be so run as to throw their reservation wholly within her ter- ritory.
The Catawba were hereditary enemies of the Tusca- rera, who constantly raided their possessions in South Carolina. Unfortunately in these raids they were often joined by warriors from the Five Nations who seized or destroyed horses, cattle, slaves, and other property with- out inquiring whether they belonged to their enemies or to the whites. These raids finally became so numerous and so destructive that in 1730 the settlers complained to Governor Johnson and Johnson sent William Wattis as his agent to the
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Tuscarora to demand satisfaction for their past conduct and guarantees for the future. At his request Burrington sum- moned the Tuscarora chiefs to a conference with himself and the Council and in their presence Wattis presented South Carolina's complaints and demands. He sought to frighten the Tuscarora chiefs into compliance by telling them that if they refused "our Governor would look on them as Enemys and send the Cherokees and Catawbos to cut them off." His charges they met with denial of guilt, and his threat they re- ceived with scorn. The only interest they showed in it was to ask whether any "white men would come with the Catawbos to war," and to demand "why could we not let them that were Indians alone make war against Indians without med- dling with it."
South Carolina's threat alarmed Burrington much more than it did the Tuscarora. The latter, having received as- surances of support from the Five Nations, told Burrington that while they desired to keep the peace with the whites, yet if South Carolina sent white men against them "it may bring on a Warr with the English in General, and may be a matter of consequence to the Country." Burrington knew this was no idle threat but was unable to impress the seriousness of the situation on Governor Johnson. He therefore turned to the Board of Trade to which he wrote: "We expect our In- dians will be attackt by those of South Carolina. The North- ern Indians called the Five Nations are in Alliance and Amity with ours and have promised to assist them with a Thousand men part of which are already come into this Province." The Board of Trade fully appreciated the gravity of the matter and wrote at once to both Burrington and Johnson to hold their Indians in check and directed Governor William Cosby of New York "to interpose his authority with the five Indian Nations" to keep them quiet. It thought the situation so grave that it appealed to the queen, then acting as regent in the absence of the king, to use her personal authority with the governors of the Carolinas to prevent a war that would certainly "be of the most fatal Consequences to both these Colonies."
South Carolina therefore did not carry out her threat, but the situation strained her relations with North Carolina for a long time. Although the Catawba were allies of the English, and tributaries to a sister colony, they offered every obstacle in their power to the settlement of the region in North Caro- lina along the upper Pee Dee and Catawba rivers which the
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governors of South Carolina, particularly Governor Glen, in- sisted ought to be given to that colony. About 300,000 acres of the McCulloh grant were within this region and were "claimed by the Catauboe Indians and which they will by no means permit any white Settlers thereon." Again, in 1749, "several wicked and evil disposed Persons in Anson County * had the boldness and Insolence to declare that the present Settlers in that County had no right to the Lands by them possessed and that even his Majesty had no right to those Lands. Which declaration was made to and in presence of the Catawba Indians to the apparent disturbance of the said settlement of Anson County and tending to breed and foment a misunderstanding between his Majesty's said sub- jects and the said Catawba Indians." The North Carolinians believed-and during the administration of Governor Glen, 1743-1756, had grounds for their belief-that these activities were instigated and supported by officials of the South Caro- lina government.
To the west of the Catawba dwelt their powerful and in- veterate enemies, the Cherokee. With the exception of the Five Nations, the Cherokee were historically the most im- portant Indian nation in American history. They were, as already stated, "the mountaineers of the South, holding the entire Allegheny region from the interlocking headstreams of the Kanawha and Tennessee southward almost to the site of Atlanta, and from the Blue Ridge on the east to the Cumber- land Range on the west, a territory embracing an area of about 40,000 square miles, now included in the states of Vir- ginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama." 2 Those who dwelt in the Keowee Valley in South Carolina were known as the Lower Cherokee, those on the Little Tennessee as the Middle Cherokee, and those on the Holston as the Upper Cherokee. According to the best authorities they had in 1735 "sixty-four towns and villages, populous and full of children," with a total population of not less than 17,000 of whom 6,000 were fighting men. Four years later an epidemic of small-pox, brought to Carolina in a slave ship, swept away nearly half their number. The awful mor- tality was due largely to their ignorance of this new and strange disease. Knowing no proper remedy for it, the poor savages sought relief in the Indian's universal panacea for
2 Mooney, James: Myths of the Cherokee. (Nineteenth Annual Report of American Bureau of Ethnology, Part I, p. 14.)
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all "strong" sickness, viz., cold plunge baths in the running streams. No worse treatment could have been devised. The pestilence swept unchecked from town to town. Despair fell upon the nation. The priests, losing faith in their ancient ordinances, threw away their sacred paraphernalia. Hundreds of warriors on beholding their frightful disfigurement com- mitted suicide. In spite of these losses, however, the Chero- kee remained strong in numbers and in geographical position. Before 1730 they treated with the white man on terms of equality and had never bowed to his yoke; while both French and English eagerly sought alliance with them in their strug- gle for the mastery in North America.
The French, after planting their first permanent settle- ment in the South at Biloxi Bay, in 1699, had made rapid advances upon the back country of the Carolinas. By 1714 they had reached the Coosa River on which, a few miles above the site of Montgomery, they had built Fort Toulouse, known to the English as "the fort at the Albamas." They were so much more successful in their dealings with the Indians than the English that by 1730 most of the tribes between the settle- ments of the European rivals were either in active alliance with them or strongly disposed in their favor. In 1721 the Board of Trade in a report to the king described the situa- tion as follows: "The Indian Nations lying between Carolina and the French settlements on the Mississippi are about 9,200 fighting men of which number 3,400 whom we formerly Traded with are entirely debauched to the French Interest by their new settlement and Fort at the Albamas. About 2,000 more Trade at present indifferently with both, but it is to be feared that these likewise will be debauched by the French unless proper means be used to keep them in your Majesty's Interest. The remaining 3,800 Indians are the Cherokees, a Warlike Nation Inhabiting the Apalatche Moun- tains, these being still at enmity with the French might with less difficulty be secured, and it certainly is of the highest consequence that they should be engaged in your Majestys In- terest, for should they once take another part not only Caro- lina but Virginia likewise would be exposed to their Excur- sions."
Recognizing the wisdom of this advice, the royal govern- ment immediately after the transfer of the Carolinas to the Crown, dispatched Sir Alexander Cumming on a secret mis- sion to the Cherokee. The king's envoy met the Cherokee chiefs and warriors at their ancient town of Nequassee, the
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present Franklin, North Carolina, in April, 1730. His bold bearing so impressed the red men that they conceded all of his demands and agreed to an alliance with the English. In order to cement this alliance, Cumming persuaded them to . send a delegation of seven chiefs to England. At Whitehall these grim savages of the New World were received by the king with great solemnity, and there in the name of their people, did homage to him by laying at his feet the "crown" of their nation which consisted of four scalps of enemies and five eagle tails, the "feathers of peace." On September 9, 1730, they concluded with the Board of Trade a treaty in which they stipulated: To live together with the English "as the children of one Family whereof the Great King is a kind and loving Father;" to be "always ready at the Governor's com- mand to fight against any Nation whether they be white men or Indians who shall dare to molest or hurt the English;" to "take care to keep the trading path clean and that there be no blood in the path where the English white men tread;" not "to trade with the white men of any other Nation but the English nor permit white men of any other Nation to build any Forts, Cabins, or plant corn amongst them;" to appre- hend and deliver "any Negro slaves [who] shall run away into the woods from their English masters;" to leave to punishment by due process of English law any Indian who should kill an Englishman, and any Englishman who should kill an Indian. This treaty was confirmed with solemn cere- mony by both the contracting parties. The English as a token of friendship gave the red men a substantial supply of guns, ammunition, and red paint, while Chief Scalilasken Ket- augusta, in behalf of his colleagues, concluded an eloquent harangue by "laying down his Feathers upon the table," and saying, "This is our way of talking which is the same to us as your letters in the Book are to you, and to you Beloved Men we deliver these feathers in confirmation of all we have said and of our Agreement to your Articles." Soon after this ceremony the chiefs took ship for Carolina where they ar- rived, wrote Governor Johnson, "in good health and mightily well satisfied with His Majesty's bounty to them."
The relations of the colonies with the great Indian nations, such as the Iroquois, the Cherokee, and the Creeks, grew in importance as the rivalry between the French and the English grew in intensity. These tribes occupied such vast stretches of territory which touched upon so many colonies, that it soon became apparent that questions growing out of their rela-
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tions could not be considered merely as provincial questions. In 1757, the North Carolina Assembly declared that the "many flagrant Frauds and Abuses" committed by white traders in their commercial relations with the Indians, "cannot but tend to alienate their Affections, and give the French the greater opportunity of insinuating themselves and carrying on their destructive Schemes against the British Colonies." Both the mother country and the colonies, therefore, came to see that all such Indian affairs were really imperial questions, and the king acting upon the advice of the Board of Trade decided to take them under the immediate supervision of the Crown. In 1757, therefore, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia were erected into a southern department for Indian affairs and Edmund Atkins was commissioned by the Crown "Agent for and Superintendent of the Affairs of the several Nations or Tribes of Indians inhabiting the Frontiers of [those provinces] and their Confederates." The object aimed at, as Governor Dobbs said, was "to connect all our Indian Allies in one Interest in Conjunction with the other provinces in which the Indians reside." Its success of course depended upon the sympathetic co-operation of the several colonies. In December, 1757, therefore, the North Carolina Assembly passed an act which placed trade with the Catawba, Cherokee and other "Western Indians within the limits of this Province" completely under the supervision of Atkins and his successors, and clothed them with ample power to en- force their authority. In 1763 Atkins was succeeded by Cap- tain John Stuart who continued in office until after the Revo- lution had removed the British government as a factor in In- dian affairs.
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Vol. 1-17
CHAPTER XV
COLONIAL WARS
In their political and commercial affairs the colonies felt their connection with the mother country chiefly in its bur- dens and restrictions, but they found some compensation in the protection which their connection with the British Empire assured them. Their peace and safety were constantly threat- ened from three allied sources. First there were enemy In- dians whose presence was an ever threatening danger. Then the southern colonies in particular were never free from the menace of the Spaniards in Florida for, as Fiske graphically puts it, Carolina was "the border region where English and Spanish America marched upon each other." But greater than the danger from either Indians or Spaniards was the danger from the French. In 1608, one year after the found- ing of Jamestown, Champlain founded Quebec and secured for France the region drained by the St. Lawrence; in 1682 La Salle, inspired by dreams of a great continental empire, seized the mouth of the Mississippi and established the su- premacy of France over all the region drained by the Father of Waters. Between these two distant heads, stretched the vast empire of New France. The interests of New France clashed with those of New England everywhere along their far-flung frontiers, and these clashing interests brought the two colonial empires into a century-long life-and-death strug- gle for supremacy in North America. The several stages of this contest were marked by four wars known in American history as King William's War (1689-1697), Queen Anne's War (1702-1713), King George's War (1744-1748), and the French and Indian War (1754-1763).
For North Carolina and South Carolina, the proximity of the Spanish and French settlements held a three-fold dan- ger. There were, first, the danger of a direct attack upon their unprotected coast towns ; second, the danger of an indirect at- tack through the Indians; and, third, the danger of being cut
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off entirely from farther westward expansion. The two colo- nies were fully alive to the seriousness of their situation and as we have seen freely assisted each other in meeting it. But they also realized that the menace was not to them alone, but to the whole of British-America and they long sought in vain to impress the home government with this view. St. Augus- tine afforded the enemy an excellent base for operations against the Carolinas both by land and by sea. In 1686 a Spanish force from St. Augustine invaded South Carolina and destroyed the colony at Port Royal. In 1702, upon the out- break of Queen Anne's War, South Carolina sent an expedi- tion against St. Augustine, but it ended in disaster. Four years later a combined French and Spanish squadron attacked Charleston, but was beaten off with heavy losses. During these wars, according to Governor Burrington, parties from French and Spanish privateers and men-of-war "frequently landed and plundered" the coast of North Carolina, and the colony was put to "great expenses" in "establishing a force to repell them." Two of the Lords Proprietors, declared, "That in 1707 when Carolina was attacked by the French it cost the Province twenty thousand pounds and that neither His Majesty nor any of his predecessors had been at any charge from the first grant to defend the said Province against the French or other enemies."
It was, however, by their indirect attacks through the In- dians that the Spaniards and the French inflicted the greatest losses upon the Carolinas. In 1715 they organized the great Indian conspiracy that resulted in the Yamassee War. These rival and generally hostile tribes, said a group of South Caro- lina merchants in a petition to the king for aid, "never yet had policy enough to form themselves into Alliances, and would not in all Probability have proceeded so far at this time had they not been incouraged, directed and supplied by the Spaniards at St. Augustine and the French at Moville [Mobile] and their other Neighbouring Settlements." In a let- ter to Lord Townsend, the king's principle secretary of state, Governor Craven declared that if South Carolina were de- stroyed, as at one time seemed not improbable, "the French from Moville, or from Canada, or from old France" would take possession and "threaten the whole British Settlements." The Carolina officials could not make the home government understand that the attack was not merely a local Indian out- break, aimed at South Carolina alone, but that it was a phase of the general policy of the French in their struggle for su-
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