page_title: Tuscarora people
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Tuscarora people / History
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Gedenktafel für das Fort Neoheroka. English: Fort Neoheroka Historical Marker. Fort Neoheroka historical marker near Snow Hill, North Carolina. 日本語: 同州スノーヒルの「ヌーヘルーカ砦の記念碑」。「タスカローラ戦争」では、1000人近いタスカローラ族が白人に殺戮された。.
context_page_description: The Tuscarora are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government of the Iroquoian-language family, with members today in North Carolina, New York, and Ontario. They coalesced as a people around the Great Lakes, likely about the same time as the rise of the Five Nations of the historic Iroquois Confederacy, also Iroquoian-speaking and based then in present-day New York.
  Well before the arrival of Europeans in North America, the Tuscarora had migrated south and settled in the region now known as Eastern Carolina. The most numerous indigenous people in the area, they lived along the Roanoke, Neuse, Tar, and Pamlico rivers. They first encountered European explorers and settlers in the colonies of North Carolina and Virginia.
  After the 18th-century wars of 1711–1713 against English colonists and their Indian allies, most of the surviving Tuscarora left North Carolina and migrated north to Pennsylvania and New York, over a period of 90 years. They aligned with the Iroquois in New York, because of their ancestral linguistic and cultural connections. Sponsored by the Oneida, they were accepted in 1722 as the Sixth Nation of the Iroquois.
context_section_description: The historic nation encountered by Europeans in North Carolina had three tribes:
  Kǎ'tě’nu'ā'kā', Katenuaka, Ga-te-no-wah-ga, or Kautanohakau ("People of the Submerged Pine-tree"),
  Akawěñtc'ākā', Akawenteaka, Akawenchaka, Ag-wan-te-ga ("People of the Two-Row"), also known as Kauwetsaka, Kauwetseka or Cauwintch-AAga ("People of the Water", this was also the autonym of the Kauwets'a:ka or Meherrin.)
  Skarū'ren', Skuarureaka or Sca-ru-re-ah-ga ("Hemp Gatherers"), today better known as Tuscarora.
  These affiliations continued to be active as independent groups after the tribe migrated to New York and, later, Ontario. F.W. 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.
  In late 17th and early 18th-century North Carolina, European 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 c. 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 English Blount family of the Bertie region and lived peacefully.
  By contrast, Chief Hancock had to deal with more numerous colonists encroaching on his community. They raided his villages and kidnapped people to sell into slavery. The 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 attack the settlers to fight back. Chief Tom Blunt did not join him in the war.
  The southern Tuscarora collaborated with the Pamlico, the Cothechney, the Coree, the Mattamuskeet and the Matchepungoe nations to attack the settlers in a wide range of locations within a short time period. Their principal targets were against the planters 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 South Carolina, which provided 600 militia and 360 allied Native Americans commanded by Col. 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 three hundred were killed, and one hundred 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 their Fort Neoheroka (formerly spelled Neherooka), with 900 killed or captured in the battle.
  After the defeat in the battle of 1713, about 1500 Tuscarora fled north to New York to join the Iroquois Confederacy, while as many as 1500 additional Tuscarora sought refuge in the colony of Virginia. Although some accepted tributary status in Virginia, the majority of the surviving Tuscarora are believed to have returned to North Carolina. In 1715, seventy 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 
caption: Fort Neoheroka Historical Marker.
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