What Indian Tribe lived in the Piedmont region

Did you know that November is Native American History Month? Keep reading for a brief history on Native Americans in North Carolina and learn how the tribes made their way to the “Tar Heel” state.

Paleoindian Period
The oldest Native American cultural period in North Carolina is the Paleoindian Period. The Paleoindian Period occurred around 10,000 BCE during the Ice Age. Native Americans were nomadic, so they had limited possessions and their access to temporary shelter made travel easy. Since they lived during the Ice Age and many large mammals were close to extinction, Native Americans who lived at the time relied on smaller woodland mammals for food. In order to hunt and gather, spears were created as hunting tools and baskets were made to store food. The oldest spear found is called Clovis, which dates between 9500-8500 BC. It was slender with a long flute to attach the spear. Around 8000 BCE another spear, the Hardaway-Dalton, was created. It did not have a flute, but there were shallow indentations on each side of the spear by the base.

 Arrowheads

Archaic Period
Native Americans who lived during the Archaic Period used similar tools as the people in the Paleoindian Period did, but changes in diet and hunting were made. The archaic period lasted from 8000 BC-1000 BC, when groups of 25-100 native peoples came to North Carolina. These groups moved during each season and lived near the floodplains. Native peoples living during this time hunted deer, aquatic animals and other small game. The invention of the atlatl, or spear, allowed them to launch it forcibly and far to hunt. Plants were used for medicinal purposes. Stone tools were made to use as jewelry, decorative pins, grooved axes, balancing weights called balance stones for atlatls, fishhooks and awls. Later, they started weaving baskets.

Woodland Period
The Woodland period brought changes in shelter, weaponry,and interaction with other tribes from different states. Archeologists debate how long this period lasted. Many believe that the Woodland Period started in 1000 BC and ended when the Europeans came around AD 600. This period brought the manufacture of clay pots, semi-permanent villages, gardens and settlements occupied by people for several months a year. Styles of pots are adopted from contact with other places such as Ohio and Tennessee. Populations began to increase and wild animals were still hunted as the main sources of food. Pottery styles started to spread through North Carolina with designs that allowed the pottery to also be used for cooking. As for weaponry, the bow and arrow replaced the atlatl, which enabled hunters to hunt more effectively and efficiently. When burying loved ones, members commonly began to include personal artifacts with the body.

Catawba map

Mississippian or Late Woodland
Religious and ceremonial practices, a new diet, and hierarchies were brought into the Mississippian or Late Woodland Period. This period took place largely in the Piedmont and mountain areas of the Carolinas. It takes place in 8000-1000 BCE. Native Americans in this time ate more corn, squash, and beans as opposed to meat. More modern and permanent homes were built in squares and rectangles. In the Piedmont region houses were oval. Many platform mounds (earthen mounds on top of burned remains of ceremonial lodges) were used for religious and political purposes. Complex pottery styles with intricate designs were used to hold and cook food, as well as for urns. Organization of the social hierarchy also took place during this period.

The village of Pomeioc, North Carolina, 1585
Courtesy of the National Archives Records Administration, 535753

Battles
Due to conflicts, changes in weather and diseases; populations began to decline, and battles broke out between North and South Carolina tribes. The Catawba tribe, one of the most well-known tribes in North and South Carolina, fought with European settlers against the French, Spanish and British loyalists. Enemy tribes who fought with the French were the Iroquois, Cherokee, Shawnee and Algonquin. These battles led to expansion issues, decline of populations and slavery. The Tuscarora and Yamasee Wars resulted in the most devastating circumstance for many tribes. With colonial settlements close to the tribes, many Catawbas became captured by British and sold as slaves. The smallpox epidemic, weather, destruction of towns and the influx of refugees caused a population decrease.

Group of Catawba in Rock Hill, South Carolina

Reservations
The Catawba Nation has a rocky history in the Carolinas. In 1759, the Catawba negotiated with the South Carolina government for a reservation in Rock Hill, SC. In 1760, 20 absorbed parts of tribes were in the area. In 1775, the Catawba fought against Cherokee and Lord Charles Cornwallis. Five years later in 1780, the English captured Charlestowne and the Catawba fled to North Carolina. By 1881, the Catawba returned to see their village destroyed. With a fear of their population soon to be extinct, the Catawba signed a treaty at Nation Ford to sell land to South Carolina, but this violated state laws. They went to North Carolina with a promise of land, but then the state refused to give them the promised land. The Catawbas then returned to South Carolina. In 1850 a 630-acre tract was selected on the west bank of the Catawba river in their old reservation. Catawba finally became a federally recognized tribe in 1973. In 2000, Over 2,200 Native Americans still live in Rock Hill.

Map of Catawba Indian Reservation
 

Federally Recognized Tribes
In order to become recognized as a tribe in North and South Carolina, there are rules and responsibilities required by the government. Federally recognized tribes are an American Indian or Alaska Native tribe entity that is recognized as a government-to-government relationship with the United States, with the with the responsibilities, powers, limitations, and obligations attached to that designation, and is eligible for funding and services from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Treaties, acts passed by Congress, and presidential orders allow tribes to reach this status.

Native Americans have made countless sacrifices in their history. It is vital to recognize and respect their culture and celebrate its lasting beauty.

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This blog was written by Julia Zwetolitz, marketing and communications intern with Charlotte Mecklenburg Library.

All photos are courtesy of the Robinson-Spangler Carolina Room unless otherwise specified.

• To download a printer-friendly handout with brief descriptions and contact information for the Tribal Nations and Urban Indian Organizations in North Carolina, click here: NC Tribes & Urban Indian Orgs. Summary Updated 11.17.21
• To download a printer-friendly map of the Tribal Nations and Urban Indian Organizations in North Carolina, click here: NC Tribal Map

Coharie Indian Tribe

Email:    Phone: 910-564-6909   http://www.coharietribe.org

The present population of the Coharie Indian Tribe is located predominantly in southeast NC in the counties of Sampson and Harnett.  Coharie tribal members descended from the aboriginal tribe of the Neusiok Indians. Historical movements, caused by Inter-tribal as well as White/Indian colonial hostilities, moved the Coharie to their present location sometime between 1729 and 1746.  The contemporary Coharie community consists of four settlements:  Holly Grove, New Bethel, Shiloh, & Antioch. The modern day Coharie Intra-Tribal Council, Inc. is the outgrowth of an election of tribal members in 1975 to unite the Coharie organizations from Harnett & Sampson Counties into a single body to provide effective leadership, avoid duplication & seek projects that could benefit all Coharies regardless of county lines.

Cumberland County Association for Indian People

Email:   Phone: (910) 483-8442   http://www.ccaip.orgspring.org

The mission of Cumberland County Association for Indian People (CCAIP) is to enhance self-determination and self-sufficiency as it relates to the socio-economic development, legal, and political well-being of the Indian People of Cumberland County.  Fostering healthier choices is one of many areas the CCAIP Board works on to improve the lives of its members.  We support the planning and delivering of services by utilizing local, state, and national networking resources in the following areas: (1)   Education, (2)   Native arts and crafts, (3)   Cultural enrichment, (4)   Job referrals services, (5)   Employment and training, (6)   Economic development, and (7)   Housing and health needs.

Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians

Email:    Phone: 828-497-2771    http://www.nc-cherokee.com

More than a thousand years ago, Cherokee life took on the patterns that persisted through the eighteenth century. European explorers and settlers found a flourishing nation that dominated the southern Appalachians. The Cherokees controlled some 140,000 square miles throughout eight present-day southern states. Villages governed themselves democratically, with all adults gathering to discuss matters of import in each town’s council house. Each village had a peace chief, war chief, and priest. Men hunted and fished; women gathered wild food and cultivated ‘the three sisters’ corn, beans, and squash cleverly inter-planting them to minimize the need for staking and weeding. Nearly 200 years of broken treaties had reduced the Cherokee empire to a small territory, and Andrew Jackson began to insist that all southeastern Indians be moved west of the Mississippi. The Cherokees in Western North Carolina today descend from those who were able to hold on to land they owned, those who hid in the hills, defying removal, and others who returned, many on foot. Gradually and with great effort, they have created a vibrant society a sovereign nation of 100 square miles where people in touch with their past and alive to the present preserve timeless ways and wisdom.

Guilford Native American Association

Email:   Phone: 336-482-6065   http://www.guilfordnative.com

In September 1975, in response to a nearly 100 percent dropout rate of American Indian students from Guilford County’s three public high schools, a small group of parents began working with members of local Lutheran churches to create a 501(c)(3) non-profit association. Today, as the oldest American Indian urban association in NC and one of the oldest in the U.S., the Guilford Native American Association (GNAA) has progressed from a single program focus of educational advocacy to become a multi-service organization. The GNAA board has ten members who are elected by the American Indian community at the organization’s annual meeting. Board members serve three-year staggered terms with either two or four new members elected each year.

Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe

Email:   Phone: 252-586-4017  www.haliwa-saponi.com

Haliwa-Saponi tribal members are direct descendents of the Saponi, Tuscarora, Tutelo, and Nansemond Indians, and smaller Eastern Siouan-speaking tribes. For about three decades, the remaining members of these tribes lived at Fort Christianna, which was established to support trade and to Christianize and educate tribal members. In the mid-1700s, a fairly large body of Saponi left Fort Christianna and settled in Old Granville County in North Carolina. In the mid-1700s, the Nansemond migrated to North Carolina from Virginia and bought several large tracts of land that make up the modern day Haliwa-Saponi community. This area, known as the Meadows, encompasses most of southwestern Halifax County and southeastern Warren County (from which the Haliwa-Saponi get their name. These ancestors of the Haliwa-Saponi lived a semi-traditional life of farming, hunting, and fishing. Those who did not own their land lived with relatives or served as sharecroppers for white planters, some traveling as far as 30 miles from home to work and live. The Haliwa-Saponi Tribe was recognized by the state of North Carolina in 1965.

Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina

Email:   Phone: 910-521-7861   www.lumbeetribe.com

The Lumbee Tribe is the largest tribe east of the Mississippi River, the ninth largest tribe in the United States, and the largest non-reservation tribe in the United States. A Cheraw community was first observed on Drowning Creek (Lumber River) in present day Robeson County in 1724.  In 1835, the N.C. State Constitution was amended to disenfranchise Indians (along with Blacks) and rescind citizenship rights.  In 1885, the N.C. General Assembly recognized the Indians of Robeson County as Croatan and established a separate school system for Indians. In 1887, the state established a Croatan Indian Normal School, with this institution growing into a college, and is known as the University of North Carolina at Pembroke (UNCP).  In 1911, the N.C. General Assembly changed the name of the tribe to “Indians of Robeson County”.  In 1933, a bill was introduced in congress to recognize the Indians of Robeson County as “Cheraw”.  In 1952, the Indian leaders held a community referendum to get approval of tribal members to change the name to “Lumbee Tribe” and in 1953, the N.C. General Assembly changed the name of Indians of Robeson County to “Lumbee”. The Lumbee hold no treaty with the federal government.  However, the Congress of the United States in 1956 passed the Lumbee Act officially recognizing the Native American Indians of Robeson and adjoining counties as the Lumbee Indians of North Carolina.  This bill, however, contained language that made Lumbee ineligible for financial support and program services administered by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).

Meherrin Indian Nation–People of the Water

Email:   Phone: 252-398-3321   www.meherrinnation.org

Meherrin refer to themselves as Kauwets’a:ka, pronounced (gau went ch-AAga), “People of the Water.” Meherrin are an Iroquois Nation that share allegiance, culture, traditions and language with

the Tuscarora, Nottoway, Cherokee, and other Haudenosaunee Nations. The first written account of the “Meherrin” people began on August 29, 1650 when an English merchant named Sir Edward Bland led an expedition from Fort Henry (Petersburg, VA) to the Meherrin village, Cowonchahawkon (Emporia, VA). In 1705, the VA Assembly assigned a circular tract of land to be set aside for the Meherrin making it the first Reservation (Maharineck) in NC. The Meherrin became tributaries of NC on March 4, 1729, and an act of NC Assembly enlarged the Reservation. The Meherrin have always defended their “Turtle Island” (United States) and have fought in every major war. In 1757, Meherrin, Tuscarora, Nottoway, and Sappony enlisted at the request of Col. Washington in the Colonial Army in Williamsburg, VA to fight the French. 15 Meherrin fought in the American Revolutionary War and 39 Meherrin enlisted in the Army at Wilmington, NC on the same day during the Civil War. Today, under the leadership of Chief Wayne Brown and 7 elected Council members, the Meherrin tribe was placed on Active Status with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The annual Powwow is held the first weekend on Oct. on Hwy 11, between Ahoskie and Murfreesboro, NC.

Metrolina Native American Association

Email:   Phone: 704-750-9609   http://www.metrolinanatives.com

The Metrolina Native American Association (MNAA) was organized in the early 1970s by a group of American Indian families who met in each other’s homes with the goal of assisting native people in the area to stay connected. The MNAA Board of Directors has seven members, elected at large, who serve three-year, staggered terms. The MNAA Board is ethnically and educationally diverse. MNAA has 175 registered members in the 10-county service area of which about one-third are active. Seventy percent of MNAA members are Lumbee but nearly all of the NC tribes are represented, as well as tribes such as the Ute and Chippewa-Winnebago.

Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation

Email:   Phone: 336-421-1317   www.obsn.org

The Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation is located in Alamance and Orange Counties, in the old “Texas” Community. This is where the tribe is developing its 25 acres of former tobacco land into a tribal center facility which will include a reconstructed 1701 Occaneechi Village, 1880’s Log Farm, as well as office space, community meeting area, pow-wow grounds, and tribal museum. The Occaneechi descend from several small Siouan speaking tribes who were living in the Piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia when the first European explorers arrived in the 1600’s. John Lawson met their ancestors in 1701 when he visited the area that is now modern-day Hillsborough, North Carolina, in a small village on the banks of the Eno River. A decade later, the Occaneechi would unite with the Saponi, Tutelo, and other smaller tribes at Fort Christanna, Virginia, forming a federation that went under the name Saponi. By the late 1700’s, the ancestors of the modern Occaneechi had returned to what is now Alamance and Orange Counties, where they lived as small farmers and craftsmen.

Sappony

Email:   Phone: 434-585-3352   www.sappony.org

The Sappony have made the gently rolling highlands of the Piedmont their home for countless generations. Today, the Tribe’s 850 members call the area known as the High Plains their home. High Plains is located along the borderline that separates North Carolina and Virginia. In the early 1700’s, when the Sappony children were attending school at Fort Christanna and the Tribe was guarding the frontier for the colonies, they were also helping to mark the North Carolina-Virginia borderline. The same borderline runs through the High Plains settlement. As a result, part of High Plains is located in the northeastern section of Person County in North Carolina and part is located in the southeastern section of Halifax County in Virginia. The first Indian school in the High Plains community began as one room in their Baptist church in 1878.  In 1911, after receiving legislative recognition from the state of North Carolina, the Sappony built and partially funded the High Plains Indian School.  Virginia recognition followed in 1913 which allowed the Indians living on the Virginia side of High Plains to attend the same school. The Indian school was closed in 1962 with the advent of assimilation.

Triangle Native American Society

Email:     http://trianglenative.org

In 1983, a group of residents in the Triangle (Durham, Raleigh, & Chapel Hill, N.C.) assembled to organize a social network for American Indians living in the area. The TNAS Executive Board is made up of the current officers (president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer) and emeritus presidents. There are currently eight board members.  Officers are elected at the annual meeting held on the first Monday in October (if there is a quorum of regular members as stated in the by-laws) and serve for one year. TNAS membership meetings are held on the first Monday of each month at the Wade-Edwards Learning Lab in Raleigh. The society gained a seat on the North Carolina Commission of Indian Affairs (NCCIA) Board in March 2000. TNAS currently does not have a physical office or paid staff.

Waccamaw Siouan – People of the Fallen Star

Email:   Phone: 910-655-8778   www.waccamaw-siouan.com

The present population of the Waccamaw Siouan Indian Tribe is located predominantly in southeast North Carolina in the counties of Bladen and Columbus, in the communities of St. James, Buckhead and Council.  The first written mention of the Waccamaw-Siouan Tribe appeared in the historical records of 1712 when a special effort was made to persuade them, along with the Cape Fear Indians, to join James Moore’s expedition against the Tuscarora. The Waccon Indians, the Siouan tribe that Lawson placed a few miles to the south of the lower or hostile Tuscarora, ceased to exist by the name Waccon but that they moved southward as a group and became the Waccamaw Indians. Tribal names were often changed or altered, especially by the whites in their spellings, and the Waccamaw appeared first in historical records at about the same time the Waccon name disappeared. The Waccamaw, then known as the Waccommassus, were located one hundred miles northeast of Charleston, South Carolina. In 1749, a war broke out between the Waccamaw and the State of South Carolina. Twenty-nine years later, in May 1778, provisions were made by the Council of South Carolina to render them protection.  It is believed that after the Waccamaw and South Carolina War, the Waccamaw sought refuge in the swamplands of North Carolina.