Hancock (tribal chief)
Hancock was a tribal chief of the Tuscarora people during the early 18th century, known for his leadership amid escalating tensions with English colonists in the Carolina colony. In response to the abusive treatment of his tribe, including land dispossession and slave raids by settlers, Hancock ordered retaliatory attacks in 1711. His actions were a significant reaction to the incursion of more than four hundred Swiss colonists, led by Baron Christoph Von Graffenreid, who forcibly displaced Tuscarora families from their ancestral lands.
The conflict that ensued involved multiple tribes, including the Coree, Pamlico, and Machapunga, and resulted in considerable loss of life among settlers. By 1712, colonial forces, including those from North and South Carolina, mounted a military campaign against Hancock, leading to the destruction of his main village. After a brief period of peace that was soon violated by the colonists, tensions reignited, and Hancock ultimately fled to Virginia. However, he was captured by allied Tuscaroras and delivered to colonial authorities, where he faced execution.
The aftermath of the conflict saw the remaining Tuscarora people either absorbed into the Iroquois Confederacy in New York or sold into slavery, marking a significant chapter in the struggles of Indigenous peoples against colonial expansion in North America.
Hancock (tribal chief)
- Born: fl. early 1700’s
- Birthplace: Unknown
- Died: 1750
Category: Tribal chief
Tribal affiliation: Tuscarora
Significance: Hancock led his tribe in North Carolina’s bloody Tuscarora War against white settlers
Little is known about Hancock except that, in 1711, he ordered his tribe to retaliate for the abusive treatment of his people at the hands of the English colonists in the Carolina colony. The tribe was located primarily in eastern North Carolina, in the rich and fertile lands along the Roanoke, Tar, Pamlico, and Neuse rivers. Population estimates put their numbers at about five thousand during Hancock’s reign.
Throughout the first two decades of the eighteenth century, the Tuscaroras were abused by English settlers in the Carolinas. Slave traders raided their settlements and settlers took their most fertile lands away from them. The colonists’ most incendiary act occurred in 1711, when more than four hundred Swiss colonists under the command of the opportunistic Baron Christoph Von Graffenreid drove a number of families off a large tract of Indian land. Hancock ordered retaliatory raids throughout eastern North Carolina, which led to Von Graffenreid’s capture and the death of the colony’s surveyor-general, John Lawson, author of the famous narrative A New Voyage to Carolina (1709). The raids escalated so that the war involved the Coree, Pamlico, and Machapunga tribes as well as the Tuscarora. Nearly 140 settlers, mostly Swiss, died in the initial attacks.
In 1712, North and South Carolina sent a combined force under the leadership of Colonel John Barnwell against Hancock, destroying his main village of Cotechney. Hancock finally agreed to a peace plan, which was quickly broken by the colonists. Tuscarora raids began again. Hancock fled to Virginia with a considerable supply of booty but was captured by a band of Tuscaroras who remained allied to the whites. The chief was turned over to colony officials and executed.
In 1713, Colonel James Moore of South Carolina, with one thousand Indian allies, attacked the remaining Tuscarora force and quickly overcame them. To finance the campaign, Moore ordered all Tuscarora prisoners, about four hundred, to be sold into slavery. Survivors fled north and joined their Iroquoian brethren in New York. The Tuscaroras were formally accepted as the sixth Iroquois nation in 1722.