CHAPTER X. THE TUSCARORAS.-END OF THE INDIAN WAR. 1711. THE fierce Tuscarora tribe of Indians, who lived on the head-waters of the Neuse and the Tar, had sullenly watched the quarrels among the whites. They had long been nursing their rage and despair at the steady increase and prosperity of the English, who were depriving them of their fishing-grounds and destroying their huntinggrounds by driving off and killing the game and cultivating the land. They felt that they, too, would in time be driven away to make room for white people. John Lawson had been appointed government surveyor, and was busy laying off more and more land for new-comers. This irritated the Indians greatly. He went among them. a great deal, and was very friendly. He was the first who wrote a description of North Carolina, giving an account of a long journey which he made in 1700 from Charleston in South Carolina to the Cape Fear, and up that river to the Yadkin, and then eastward across the country to the Pamlico. His book is very interesting and valuable now. There is no other that gives so much information about the climate, scenery, soil, products, flowers, fruits, and animals; and he writes so kindly of the Indians that his fate afterward at their hands seems especially lamentable. The Tuscaroras had twelve hundred warriors, and a wellfortified town called Nahucke where is now the town Snow Hill in Greene county, and they engaged four hundred warriors from several smaller tribes to join them. They felt sure that the quarrels and distractions among the white people gave the long-wished-for opportunity to destroy them. In the fall of 1711 they suddenly fell upon the unsuspecting settlements and upon the lonely farms along the Neuse, the Pamlico, and the Roanoke, and in two hours there were one hundred and thirty white people, men women, and children, lying dead in their homes, massacred in a horrible manner. In this massacre and in the war which followed more than eighty infants were slain with their mothers. Houses were burned, the plantations and crops destroyed, and the cattle slaughtered. It took but a day or two of such horrid work to make a scene of ruin and desolation where all had been smiling plenty and prosperity, and to efface the work of years. The white people were so taken by surprise, so terrified, and so unprepared for such a shock that they could at first do nothing but gather together and defend themselves as they best could. The Indians ranged through the woods and through the plantations with yells of triumph. They had seized Baron de Graffenreid and Mr. Lawson before they began the attack, and kept them close prisoners while the massacre was going on. They spared the baron's life because he was not an Englishman, and after keeping him six weeks a prisoner let him go back to his ruined and despairing colony. But Mr. Lawson, whom they especially hated because he was the surveyor, they murdered by sticking his body full of fine lightwood splinters and then setting them on fire. The governor at once sent off to both Virginia and South Carolina for help. If it had not been for the ready and generous assistance of South Carolina, all the settlements in North Carolina, those in Albemarle as well as those in Bath, would have been destroyed. South Carolina immediately dispatched nearly one thousand men to our aid, commanded by Colonel Barnwell, besides voting a large sum of money. Most of these men were friendly Indians of South Carolina, who were themselves at war with the Tuscaroras. Indians were valuable allies in a war with Indians, for they knew how to attack and defend in the Indian fashion. Virginia also promised help, and voted a very large sum of money, but then Governor Spottiswoode demanded security for repayment, to be given by a mortgage on the longcoveted province of Albemarle. In her deepest distress North Carolina would not give such security as that, and Virginia gave no help except by exerting a friendly influence with the Indians. South Carolina sent help at once without asking for security or anything else. Afterward, when the South Carolina Indians broke out in a bloody war, North Carolina had the opportunity to repay this kindness, and did it gladly and nobly. States and nations act toward each other very much as we see individuals do in society. Some always look out for their own interests; some are generous and uncalculating. The Tuscaroras were soon driven back to their stronghold at Nahucke, and were besieged there by the South Carolina troops, and compelled to surrender with dreadful carnage, for the white people were in no mind to show them any mercy. During the war, which lasted two years, South Carolina sent another army of more than one thousand men, under command of Colonel James Moore. The Indian tribes, great and small, were finally broken up; their homes and various forts were abandoned, and those of them that refused to live in peace with the whites left the province and went away to the western part of New York and joined the Indians living there. 1713. The chief of the Tuscaroras was named Tom Blount. He had become attached to the Blount family and took their name. He undertook to make peace, to remain in Carolina, and to keep those Indians who stayed quiet and submissive. They never broke out again, but under their king, Blount, remained faithful to their promises. While all this was going on the "Lords Proprietors" in England did nothing for North Carolina. The whole province might have been destroyed for all they seemed to care. To all the appeals made to them for help they made no reply and gave neither aid nor sympathy. The departure of so many Indians lifted the dread of their cruel presence from the province and opened the beautiful streams and hills and valleys of middle North Carolina to the white people, who now began to move inland and settle along the branches of the Neuse, the Tar, and the Roanoke. 1712. But it was a long time before the settlements recovered from this dreadful massacre. The people were discouraged and depressed, and their prosperity was wilted, and many moved away to South Carolina. The yellow fever in 1712 made its first visit to our coast, and many people in Albemarle died of it. Among them was Governor Hyde, whose loss was severely felt, for peace had not then been made. He was succeeded by Colonel Thomas Pollock, one of our planters, a man of ability, of wealth, and influence, who conducted public affairs successfully till the "Lords sent over a new governor. It was while Hyde was governor that North and South Carolina were finally separated, and each had its own distinct government henceforth. Hyde was, in fact, the first governor of North Carolina alone. RECITATION. THE INDIAN'S VISION. I HAVE seen it in a vision, |