Tuscarora
The Tuscarora are an Indigenous people originally from what is now New York and Pennsylvania, who migrated southward to North Carolina and surrounding areas around 500 BCE. Historically, they were skilled farmers, cultivating crops such as corn, beans, and fruits, but also relied heavily on hunting and gathering. The Tuscarora faced significant challenges following European colonization, including land encroachment and enslavement, which led to the Tuscarora War in the early 18th century. After suffering heavy losses and ceding territory, many Tuscarora sought refuge with the Iroquois Confederacy in New York, where they were formally adopted in the early 1720s.
The American Revolutionary War further fragmented the Tuscarora, leading to the establishment of the modern Tuscarora Reservation in New York and a pro-British faction that moved to Canada. Despite historical upheavals, the Tuscarora have managed to preserve aspects of their culture and identity, with recognized tribes in New York and Canada. The Tuscarora language, known as Skarohreh, is now considered extinct, but revitalization efforts have emerged in recent years to preserve their linguistic heritage. Today, community initiatives continue to foster a sense of identity among the Tuscarora, including those who remained in North Carolina and have organized into various groups.
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Tuscarora
- CATEGORY: Tribe
- CULTURE AREAS: Northeast, Southeast
- LANGUAGE GROUP: Iroquoian
- PRIMARY LOCATION: New York, North Carolina; Ontario, Canada
- POPULATION SIZE: 2,364 in the United States (2010 US Census); 2,492 in Canada (2024 Registered Population); 662 living on the Tuscarora Nation Reservation, NY (2018-2022 American Community Survey)
The Tuscarora probably originated in New York and Pennsylvania and migrated southward to the coastal plain and the eastern piedmont of North Carolina after 500 BCE. Before contact with Europeans, the Tuscarora were principally farmers who produced corn, hemp, gourds, beans, peaches, and apples in great abundance. Despite their skills as farmers, the Tuscarora placed a greater reliance on hunting and gathering than neighboring Indigenous American peoples.
The colonization of North Carolina by the English prompted the Tuscarora War. The English encroached upon Tuscarora lands, enslaved the Tuscarora, and cheated them at trade. In the war, an alliance of the English and the Yamasee defeated the Tuscarora. Nearly one thousand Tuscarora were killed and another seven hundred enslaved. In the peace treaty, the Tuscarora forfeited their rights to lands south of the Neuse River but received a small reservation in Bertie County, North Carolina.
Shortly after the war, about fifteen hundred Tuscarora moved to New York to seek shelter with the Iroquois Confederacy, which accepted the Tuscarora as members in 1722 or 1723. Over the next ninety years, most of the remaining Tuscarora moved northward, and in 1804, the North Carolina reservation closed. A few Tuscarora stayed in North Carolina, though they eventually became estranged from the main Tuscarora Nation.
During the American Revolutionary War, most of the Tuscarora and many allied Oneida broke with other Iroquois and supported the Americans against the British. As a result, Tuscarora villages were attacked and destroyed by the British and other Iroquois, forcing the Tuscarora to find new lands to the west in Lewiston, New York. These lands became the site of the modern Tuscarora Reservation. The American Revolution also divided the Tuscarora. In the 1780s, a small pro-British faction of the Tuscarora moved to English Canada near the Grand River. These lands became the site of the modern reserve of the Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario, the largest in the reserve system of Canada and home to members of each of the Six Iroquois Nations.
Studies of the Tuscarora in the late twentieth century showed that they retained an unusually large portion of their traditional culture, social structure, and national identity. In the late 1950s, the Tuscarora Nation of New York challenged an effort by a utility company to build a reservoir on the Tuscarora Reservation. Although the US Supreme Court ruled against the Tuscarora, their legal struggles helped inspire the emerging American Indian activism of the 1960s. Also, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, descendants of the Tuscarora who remained in North Carolina asserted their identity as Tuscarora, organizing into several groups and bands in the region. However, these claims were typically disputed by Indigenous officials in New York. Only the Tuscarora Nation of New York and the Tuscarora of Six Nations held status as officially federally recognized tribes in the early twenty-first century.
The Tuscarora people's language is a Northern Iroquoian language called Skarohreh or Ska:rù:rę', meaning "hemp people." In 2007, it was estimated only seven Native speakers remained, and in 2020, the last native speaker died, making the language technically extinct. However, efforts to retain the language emerged in the 2020s, including the Tuscarora Language Committee and community language programs in Tuscarora Schools.
Bibliography
"First Nation Detail: Tuscarora." Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, 3 May 2024, fnp-ppn.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/fnp/Main/Search/FNMain.aspx?BAND‗NUMBER=245&lang=eng. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.
"Indigenous Peoples of North Carolina: Tuscarora." The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 31 Oct. 2024, guides.lib.unc.edu/nc-indigenous/tuscarora. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.
La Vere, David. The Tuscarora War: Indians, Settlers, and the Fight for the Carolina Colonies. U of North Carolina P, 2016.
"Our History." Tuscarora Nation of North Carolina, tuscaroranationnc.com/our-history. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.
Printup, Bryan, and Neil Patterson. Tuscarora Nation. Arcadia, 2007.
"Registered Population." Government of Canada, Nov. 2024, fnp-ppn.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/fnp/Main/Search/FNRegPopulation.aspx?BAND‗NUMBER=245&lang=eng. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.
"Tuscarora War." North Carolina History Project, John Locke Foundation, 2016, northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/tuscarora-war. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.
"2010 Census CPH-T-6. American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes in the United States and Puerto Rico: 2010." US Census Bureau, 8 Oct. 2021, www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/dec/cph-series/cph-t/cph-t-6.html. Accessed 28 Mar. 2023.
Wallace, Anthony F. C. Tuscarora: A History. State U of New York P, 2012.