Tuscarora, from Skaroo’ren, "hemp gatherers," their self-designation and possibly the name of one of the constituent tribes or villages. See also Oneida (Chapter 8).
Location In the sixteenth century, the Tuscarora were living near Cape Hattaras on the Roanoake, Neuse, Tar, and Pamlico Rivers, in North Carolina. The people migrated to New York in the early eighteenth century.
Population There were about 5,000 Tuscaroras in 1500. In the early 1990s there were roughly 1,400 enrolled members living in New York, of a total of around 3,000 in the United States, as well as an additional 1,200 living in Canada.
Language Tuscaroras spoke an Iroquoian language that changed markedly following the northward migration.
Historical Information
History The Tuscarora people came originally from the north, perhaps around the St. Lawrence Valley-Great Lakes region. They may have moved southward as late as around 1400. In the sixteenth century, and for some time thereafter, they were the dominant tribe in eastern North Carolina, despite losing upward of 80 percent of their population to European diseases during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Their somewhat inland location kept them from extensive contact with non-native settlers until the mid-seventeenth century.
Tuscaroras were traditionally friendly to the British settlers, even to the point of helping them fight other Indians. Active involvement in the deerskin, rum, and slave trade led to a growing factionalism within the tribe, which was most intense in villages closest to trade centers. Involvement with rum also contributed significantly to a general decline of the people. Throughout the seventeenth and into the eighteenth century, non-natives regularly took advantage of Indian generosity, taking their best lands, cheating them in trade, and stealing their children for slaves.
War between the two groups broke out in 1711. It was largely a reaction to years of British abuse and to continuing population loss due to disease. Led by Chief Hancock, the Indians raided settlements and killed perhaps 200 British, who took their revenge as they could. Some Tuscarora villages remained neutral because of especially pro-British contact and sympathies; the "neutral" and "hostile" camps each had their Indian allies from other tribes. Freed African Americans played a significant role in construction of European-style forts among the Indians.
The conflict soon became a general war, with some tribes, such as the Coree and Pamlico, fighting with the Tuscaroras and others, mainly Algonquians, fighting with the Carolina militias. In 1713, as a result of a betrayal by Tuscarora leader Tom Blount, Carolina soldiers killed or captured almost 1,000 Tuscaroras. Many of the captives were sold into slavery. Most survivors migrated to New York to live among their Iroquoian-speaking relatives. Those who did not join the initial exodus lived for some additional years on the Susquehannah and Juniata Rivers, and some neutrals continued to live for a time in North Carolina. Virtually all Tuscaroras had left by 1802.
In 1722 or 1723, under the sponsorship of the Oneida, the Tuscarora were formally admitted into the Iroquois League, although their chiefs were not made official sachem chiefs. The former southerners soon adopted much of northern Iroquois culture. With the Oneidas, most Tuscaroras remained neutral or sided with the colonists in the American Revolution, although the rest of the league supported the British. The Seneca and a non-native land company donated land to the Tuscarora consisting of three square miles near Niagara Falls. The tribe purchased over 4,000 acres in 1804. It also received over $3,000 from the North Carolina legislature from the sale of Tuscarora land in that state.
Most Tuscaroras had become farmers and Christians by the end of the nineteenth century.
Meanwhile, those loyal to Britain in the war settled in Oshweken, Ontario, on the Six Nations Reserve. The Tuscarora rejected the Indian Reorganization Act in the 1930s. In the 1950s, the government proposed that a massive reservoir be built on their land. The Indians’ refusal to sell led to many protests and a court battle. Although they ultimately lost, and the reservoir was constructed, the process contributed significantly to their own, as well as other tribes’, sense of empowerment and national identity.
Religion Tuscaroras believed that after death the immortal soul traveled to a western paradise. They buried their dead on scaffolds; bones were later placed in a village repository. Eventually the people adopted the practice of ground burial in bark, cane, or woven rush coffins. There were a number of planting and harvest festivals. Priests addressed every large gathering of any purpose.
Government The "tribe" was a collection of autonomous villages, each with its own chief, or headman, and council. The office of chief may or may not have been hereditary. Women served in some political capacity. Ultimate political authority was vested in the people and the council. The Tuscaroras were at first represented by the Oneida in the Iroquois League’s annual council.
Customs Clan descent was matrilineal. There were eight clans in New York. Women nominated the clan chiefs. For five or six weeks, once in their lives, older children were secluded in a cabin and tortured with hunger and emetic plants. Some died from this treatment, which was ostensibly done to toughen them. The people may have played a mathematical reed game, in which high-stakes gambling figured prominently. At least in the historical period, villagers moved to hunting locations in late fall; such quarters were often within a day’s walk of their permanent villages.
A great deal of ceremony was associated with the burial of men, the degree of ritual and expense being related to a person’s social standing. The corpse lay in state for a day or so, in a cane hut, in which relatives cried, mourned, and painted their faces black. Then the bodies were wrapped in blankets, covered with mats, and placed within a woven reed or cane shroud. One or more shamans conducted the funeral, at which they delivered lengthy eulogies. A small house was raised over the grave, which was then covered with earth. Chiefs were later disinterred. Their bones were cleaned and reassembled, and, dressed in white deerskins, they were buried in a crypt or house with other past chiefs.
Curing methods included shaking gourd rattles, sucking blood and fluids, and using snakes. Curers also used many herbal and plant medicines. The cures were often quite effective, and early non-native observers noted that these Indians were generally much healthier than were the colonists and other Europeans.
Dwellings Some villages were palisaded, at least in the early historical period. A village might have hundreds of houses; the average early-eighteenth-century village population was around 400. A village consisted of several "hamlets," or cabins near an open ceremonial area surrounded by fields. People who lived in "the country" had more distant neighbors.
Houses were ridged-roof pole lodges covered with cypress, cedar, or pine bark. There was a center fire and no smoke hole. Mats or deerskins served as bedding. In the north, multifamily longhouses were divided into compartments, each with its own fire, beds, and storage.
Diet Corn was the staple food, north and south. People also grew beans and squash. Women gathered wild fruits, nuts, berries, and roots. Men hunted game, including deer, bear, beaver, otter, rabbit, cougar, opossum, raccoon, partridge, pheasant, geese, and ducks. Seafood also played an important dietary role.
Key Technology Bows were carved from black locust wood whenever possible. Animal bones were used as hoes. Men made bowls, dishes, spoons, and utensils from tulip, gum, and other wood. Women made pottery and wove baskets of bark and hemp as well as mats of rush and cane. In the north, the people acquired many of their material goods by trade.
Trade Tuscaroras were very active traders, at least in the early to mid-seventeenth century. Intertribal trade included wooden bowls and utensils, and possibly white clay tobacco pipes, for raw skins. They also imported copper from the west.
Notable Arts Tuscarora arts included carved wooden items, woven mats and baskets, and pottery.
Transportation The people navigated rivers and marshes in cypress log canoes. They acquired horses in the mid- to late seventeenth century.
Dress Men wore hand-tanned breechclouts; women wore a wraparound skirt and a tunic. Both were made from Spanish moss or softened tree bark. Outerwear consisted of turkey feather, fur, or deerskin mantles. Men, especially among the wealthy, wore copper bracelets and other ornaments. Both men and women painted their bodies extensively.
War and Weapons The people celebrated both war and peace. Traditional enemies included the Catawba, Creek, and Cherokee (the latter may also have been allies). Allies included the Coree, Pamlico, and Machapunga. During the Tuscarora war, the people built and lived in forts about a mile apart.
Contemporary Information
Government/Reservations The Tuscarora Reservation is located in Niagara County, New York. Established in 1784, it contains roughly 5,700 acres and had a 1990 resident population of 310 Indians (of an enrolled population of about 1,200). Each clan is represented on the council of chiefs. Titles are conferred by Iroquois Confederacy sachems.
Tuscaroras (about 200 in the mid-1990s) also live on the Six Nations Reserve, Ontario, Canada.
Economy There is little or no employment specific to Indians. Most jobs are located in the Buffalo and Niagara Falls areas, especially in construction and heavy industry but also in business and the professions.
Legal Status The Tuscarora Nation is a federally recognized tribal entity.
Daily Life Most Tuscaroras are Christian, and most of these are Protestant. The Longhouse religion is also active. Local issues include the status of non-natives living on the reservation as well as individual efforts to sell tax-free cigarettes and gasoline and to open gambling establishments. Language classes are held at the Tuscarora Indian School. The people join in pan-Iroquois festivals. A field day in July and a community fair in October are both open to non-natives.
In 1958, the New York State Power Authority planned a reservoir that would flood the Tuscarora Reservation in Niagara County, New York. As part of a public and legal protest, William Rickard (left) and Wallace "Mad Bear" Anderson (right) warn officials to leave their land alone.
