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IndiansIndian Forayd on the Yadkin, April 1759. South Carolina Gazette, May 12, 1759 Charleston, May 12th. Accoding to letters received yesterday from gentlemen of repute in Rowan County, in North Carolina, upon the northern borders of this Province, dated the 28th of April, & 1st, 3rd & 5th instant, many horrid murders have been committed by Indians on the Yadkin & Catawba rivers. The number of people killed in some letters, are said to be 13 or 14, in others 17 or 18; and the murderers are supposed to be Cherokees, though they may as well be Shawanese, or those Indians who were prevailed on to quit the Ohio with the French garrison of Fort Duquesne. Among the killed are named John Snap, Thomas Ellis, Thomas Adams, Daniel Holsey and Joseph Rentford, in the upper branch of the Yadkin; John Hannah and his family, supposed to be seven in number, near Fort Dobbs; and Conrad Mull, on the Catawba River. The Catawba Nation was greatly exasperated on this occasion, and as soon as they heard of the murders, sent out 30 of their best warriors under Capt Matthew Tool, in pursuit of the enemy. In the meantime all the frontier inhabitants are very much alarmed; many of them have desisted planting, and others are exporting themselves. However alarming these accounts may be, we are not without hopes, that if the murderers are even Cherokees, the Little Carpenter will, by keeping his promise, restrain, if not effectively put a stop to such violences for the future. Some Creeks are come to town this week whose errand seems to be mysterious. So. Carolina Gazette, May 19, 1759 Charleston. By some accounts received since our last, there is hardly any room to doubt, that they were the Lower Cherokees who committed the late horrid murders in Rowan County, North Carolina. " nWIE CO. PUBUC UVMA'V MOCKSVIU-E; NO Indian Forays on the Yadkin April 1759 " Charleston, May 12th. 7 N--D1A NS South Carolina Gazette, May 12, 1759 Acc A ing to letters received yesterday from gentlemen of repute in Rowan County, in North Carolina, upon the northern borders of this Province, dated the 28th of April, & 1st. 3rd & 5th instant, many horrid murders have been committed by Indians on the Yadkin & Catawba rivers. The number of people killed in some letters, are said to be 13 or 14, in others 17 or 18; and the murderers are supposed to be Cherokees, though they may as well be Shawanese, or those Indians who were prevailed on to quit the Ohio with the French garrison of Fort Duquesne. Among the killed are named John Snap, Thomas Ellis, Thomas Adams, Daniel Holsey and Joseph Rentford, in the upper branch of the Yadkin; John Hannah and his family, supposed to be seven in number, near Fort Dobbs; and Conrad Mull, on the Catawba River. The Catawba Nation was greatly exasperated on this occasion, and as soon as they heard of the murders, sent out 30 of their best warriors under Capt Matthew Tool, in pursuit of the enemy. In the meantime all the frontier inhabitants are very much alarmed; many of them have desisted planting, and others are exporting themselves. However alarming these accounts may be, we are not without hopes, that if the murderers are even Cherokees, the Little Carpenter will, by keeping his promise, restrain, if not effectively put a stop to such violences for the future. Some Creeks are come to town this week whose errand seems to be mysterious. v So. Carolina Gazette, May 19, 1759 Charleston. By some accounts received since our last, there is hardly any room to doubt, that they were the Lower Cherokees who committed the late horrid murders in Rowan County, North Carolina. " Davie County Public Library v Mucksville, NC 0 v h .. A M. N 00 V 09 A (� �"� .A.. 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C W ;3rOn w • M N q •1. �. > ' O O arc• ��,,.���. �' o'vA' �•a 0 �• to o. C h a 'ti •, a.. 9 ... • n O o o a•• �. M. 00 w bd A O ate- n Q' a h �. �: a• S' n ° w a �• �. N. �f M• O R �• o' n w, 14 a n tea. bP o °pa. r• c., o�Q $• �~� i, x •• �• a' St• tri' n r ` a• �. M b n •.,,• ,v $ t� On Zk VQ Z ZI �' •g, a -� o a z b o n �, " .� $ a OR a v- T � n z `t b " " N W `�" ,h $ 45,0000 • �o ° v i��, b •A W VI O z Davie County Public Library ``' Mockavilie, NC The Ligature A Link With The Past THE FIRST COLONISTS: 12,000 YEARS BEFORE ROANOKE Stephen R. Claggett, Archaeologist II, Archaeology Branch, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources Four hundred years ago the Roanoke colonists encountered numerous native inhabitants along the coast of what would become the state of North Carolina. Even earlier, during the 1540's, Spanish explorers under the leadership of Hernando de Soto had likewise "discovered" several Indian groups occupying the interior regions of the Carolinas. We now know that the coastal Indians were part of a larger group occupying the entire mid- Atlantic coastal area, which is identifiable by a shared language and culture called Algonkian. The Native Americans whom de Soto met included Siouan, Iroquoian and Muskogean speakers, whose descendants are now recognized as the historic tribes of the Catawba, Cherokee and Creek Indians. Within a very short period of time— some 50 years—the earliest European explorers of North Carolina had met, interacted with, and begun the eventual cultural destruction of all of the major native groups in the state. of the land and its potential or imagined wealth. But with the notable exceptions of John White's paintings and Thomas Hariot's writing, we possess surprisingly little knowledge about the early historic Indians who lived in our state. Tantalizing bits of information can be gleaned from the early series of exploration accounts. But when the apparent diversity and complexities of "Indian" culture are considered, we must conclude that their description by explorers was incidental to those for geography, searches for treasure, or daily hardships of the first Europeans. The later colonial period of North Carolina history likewise exhibits an unfortunate lack of interest on the part of white Americans for details of Indian life. Brief descriptions of military expeditions and political affairs involving Indian populations can be extracted from surviving colonial government records, but detailed ?% co L .a V v Z a c ..x u C' o C. az ra [a pictures of Indian culture remain elusive for modern researchers. Despite crucial involvement of the Carolina Indians in colonial economic ventures, as suppliers of skins for the What have we learned about these Indian groups from accounts of the earliest European explorers? Surviving chronicles from de Soto and the Roanoke colonists include many details enormously profitable deerskin trade, most knowledge we do have comes from unofficial sources. It is through observations of men like John Lederer, William Bartram and John Lawson that we have even an incomplete understanding of declining Indian cultures, one roughly comparable to the purposely detailed accounts of White and Hariot. Indeed, it would not be inaccurate to say that the writings of Lawson and Hariot, supplemented by White's paintings, constitute the best history of American Indians in North Carolina until the nineteenth century, by which time the majority of Indians' culture was gone forever. Population estimates, locations and accurate names for various tribal groups, and clear descriptions of Indian political and social life unfortunately cannot be gained from historical documents alone. So we at least have some records of the historic Indian inhabitants of North Carolina, even if those records are incomplete. But what about the ancestors of those historic period Indians? Where did they come from, and how do we know anything at all about their cultures? None of the Native American cultures who lived in North Carolina or other parts of North America had any sort of written language. They relied instead on oral traditions to keep records of their origins, myths and histories. Our present knowledge concerning prehistoric inhabitants of this state is therefore reliant on the scanty early historical accounts and, especially, on information gained through archaeological investigations. Archaeology is the science which allows us to construct and understand the answers to those and many other questions about the very first "colonists" in North Carolina. In the most general sense, archaeology is the study of human societies for which no or few written records exist, through the careful recovery and analysis of the material remains—the `artifacts"—of those extinct cultures. Archaeology is a branch of anthropology, which includes other types of humanistic and scientific studies of human cultures. But archaeology is the sole discipline which can provide vital time depth to the questions of change in human societies, population distributions, and forced or selected patterns of adaptation in response to environmental changes. Yet even though archaeology is a specific discipline with its own set of capabilities and limitations, it is also one which depends on many other disciplines in order to understand its subject matter. Archaeologists are trained not only in methods of excavation, analysis and report writing, but also devote considerable time to adapting the skills and advantages of many other disciplines to their task. Application of other scholarly fields like zoology, chemistry, physics, botany, mathematics and computer studies enables archaeologists to discern the immense complexity of the environments and cultures which surrounded the first Americans—the Indians. Archaeologists can trace the ancestry of Native Americans to at least 12,000 years ago. The earliest documented aboriginal groups probably came into North Carolina not long after their predecessors crossed into the New World from Siberia during the latter stages of the last Ice Age, or Pleistocene era. Artifact types, especially distinctive fluted projectile points, from those earliest Indian groups exhibit remarkable similarities across the American continents. The evidence suggests rapid population growth and movement of the initial colonizing bands through Canada and the Great Plains into the eastern woodlands, of which North Carolina is a part. Paleo-Indians, as archaeologists call them, were well adapted, technologically and socially, to climates, vegetation and animal populations very different from those of today. The late Pleistocene era saw wetter, cooler weather conditions as a general rule for areas like the eastern seaboard, wlilcn was some distance from the southern reaches of the glacial ice fronts. Several species of animals roamed the forests and grasslands of our area, including extinct examples of elephants (mastodons and mammoths), wild horses, ground sloths, camels, and giant bison. Other animals present, but now absent from the Southeast, included moose, caribou, elk and porcupine. Paleo-Indians survived by hunting those animals, using their meat, skins and other parts for food, clothing and similar needs. They also devoted considerable time to gathering wild plant foods and likely engaged in shellfishing and fishing in coastal and riverine environments. The native groups who succeeded the Paleo-Indians are called Archaic cultures by archaeologists. Those people occupied eastern North America during a long time period from about 9000 to 2000 B.C., and were the direct descendants of the Paleo-Indians. Archaic Indians adapted their techniques of gathering, hunting and fishing to environments of the new Holocene era which were notably different from those of the terminal Pleistocene era. Forest types in the Southeast gradually became more like those of today, as the vast glacial ice sheets retreated from the margins of North America. Archaic stage cultures are recognized by archeologists as very successful adaptations to the new forest communities and related animal populations that typified those times. Archaic groups produced a wide variety of stone, wood, basketry and other tools, reflective of their subsistance patterns of intensive, generalized fishing, gathering and hunting of the many different types of plants and animals that shared the post -glacial environments of the new Holocene era. Archaeological sites which represent the camps and villages of the Archaic people are found throughout North Carolina, in situations ranging from high mountain ridges, to river banks, to coastal estuaries. Archaic people apparently had superb knowledge of their environments and the potential food and raw material sources that surrounded them. Archaic people did lack three things, however, that commonly are associated with prehistoric Indians in the minds of most people. Those material cultural elements are: bows and arrows, pottery, and an agricultural economy. In fact, it is the acceptance of those things into North Carolina's Archaic cultures that archaeologists use to mark the transition to the next cultural stage called Woodland. No overnight change from a preceramic, non-agricultural Archaic stage to theWoodlandstage is -- recognizable in the archaeological record of sites and artifacts. Instead, there was very gradual and piecemeal adoption of those new traits into local groups' cultural patterns. For example, there probably were several "beginnings" in manufacture of pottery by North Carolina Indians. Agriculture likewise underwent a long period of acceptance. Woodland Indians continued to follow most of the subsistence practices of their Archaic forebears, hunting, fishing, and gathering during periods of seasonal abundance of deer, turkeys, shad and acorns. Labor was committed to tasks of clearing fields, planting and harvesting crops like sunflowers, squash, gourds, beans and maize, only when it became apparent that those efforts would assure surpluses needed for winter and early spring months when natural food sources were unavailable. Bow and arrow technology was also an innovation of the Woodland stage, although the ultimate origin of that hunting technology is unknown. Recovery of small triangular and stemmed projectile points, suitable in terms of size and weight for attachment to arrow shafts, occurs for the first time on Woodland period sites. Prior to then, the hafted stone tools of Archaic and Paleo-Indians were used for spears, knives and dart points (used with spears throwers, or atlatls). Introduction of bow and arrow technology probably led to shifts in hunting patterns among Woodland Indians, since the primary game animals like white tail deer could now be harvested more efficiently by single, stalking hunters, rather than relying on group hunting techniques. Despite the introduction of these new elements into prehistoric Indian lifeways, much remained the same. Woodland Indians continued patterns of seasonal exploitation of varieties of game and plant resources. Archaeological sites from the period, which began some time around 2000 B'.C:, are found in all portions of the landscape, although there may have been a tendency to settle in larger, semi-permanent villages along stream valleys, where soils were suitable for Woodland farming techniques. Indeed, archaeological evidence in the form of house patterns, defensive walls (or palisades), and substantial storage facilities suggests that Woodland Indians were much more committed to settled village life than any of their Iroquoian and Algonkian Indians later met by the Europeans. However, language and other intangible cultural elements will never be found in archaeological deposits at any site. Woodland type culture dominated most of the North Carolina area well into the historic period. The majority of Indian groups met by early European explorers were practicing Woodland economic and settlement patterns, occupying small villages, growing crops of maize, tobacco, beans and squash, and devoting considerable effort to obtaining natural foods like deer, turkey and fish. Certain elements of their cultures, however, suggest that some of those Indians had adopted some religious and political ideas from a fourth major prehistoric tradition, called Mississippian. Again, archaeologists recognize certain patterns of artifacts, settlement plans and economics that distinguish Mississippian Indian culture from preceding and often concurrent Woodland occupations. Mississippian culture can easily be described as an intensification of Woodland practices of pottery -making, village life and agriculture. But much more is involved in the distinction, especially in the realms of political and religious organization and associated militarism. Mississippian culture has few representatives in prehistoric North Carolina, with the exception of the so- called Pee Dee Indians, who constructed and occupied the major regional center at Town Creek (Montgomery County), and ancestral Cherokee groups in the mountains. Mississippian -type town centers are more common further to the south and west of North Carolina, and typically involve erection of flat-topped temple mounds of earth, "sacred" areas of religious and political significance, and wooden palisades, earthen moats or embankments, for defensive purposes. predecessors. By studying distributions of ceramic (pottery) styles and other Mississippian Indians, as described by artifacts, archaeologists are also able to early French and Spanish explorers discern emerging cultural patterns to who encountered them, were organized suggest that Woodland Indians had along strict lines of social hierarchies, begun to recognize territorial deter in d �redity or exploits in boundaries. Those may reflecDffi?*',O1)Ilt FrU Eli essiveness was an language groups of the Siouan, MOCk mW art of Mississippian culture, serving to gain and defend territories, group prestige, and favored trade and tribute networks. Much of the surviving, and often flamboyant artifact inventories from Mississippian sites reflect needs for status identification, glorification, and perpetuation. Pottery vessels assumed new and elaborate shapes, often in animal and human effigy forms; other artifacts of exotic copper, shell, wood and feathers mirror the emblematic needs of the noble classes to confirm their status. Far-reaching trade and tribute networks were actively maintained, at great expense, to Archaeology Branch NC Department of Cultural Resources 109 East Jones Street Raleigh, North Carolina 27611 provide necessary items to the ruling classes of Mississippian Indian groups throughout the Southeast. Measuring the involvement of North Carolina Indians with those large, powerful Mississippian groups is very difficult for archaeologists. Some minor elements of Mississippian culture may be found in various parts of our state, particularly as pottery types or ornaments connected with religious or political symbolism. Algonkian Indians met by the Roanoke colonists exhibited some religious ties with Mississippian practices more common in the far South. Cherokee religion and certain traits of pottery manufacture likewise may hint at more "elaborate" parallels in Georgia, Alabama and elsewhere in the heart of Mississippian territory. But ancestral ties of language or other cultural elements may have always tied North Carolina's Indians closely to traditions more common in the north and west, preventing total acceptance of Mississippian cultural traits that were so pervasive in other Southeastern regions. Archaeological information is imperfect; archaeologists are limited in what they can explain by vagaries of preservation, modern destruction of sites, and the simple fact that many cultural elements leave no direct traces in the ground. But archaeology exists as the only science with the techniques, theories and evaluative frameworks for providing any information on the 12,000 or more years of human occupation which occurred before the "discovery" of the New World only 500 or so years ago. The inherent curiosity that we possess about things that are old, mysterious, or simply foreign should grow quite naturally into a desire to really understand how people like the prehistoric North Carolinians lived, adapted and thrived. Archaeology provides us the means to achieve that goal.