How dialect, maps, and timeline of NC Tuscaroras' historic copper mines furthers the paper genocide

 

Dialect: Early Explorers Lewis and Clark named rivers and subsequently introduced terms used to identify people living nearby, just like surveyor Lawson and other transcribers. This contributes to some identity misconceptions. The Iroquoian language and Algonquian language were not easily distinguished from one another and that also led to misconceptions. As explorers and settlers translated what they understood, misspellings occurred. All these things contribute to a lesser history of the North Carolina Tuscaroras.

For example, the country of India has over 17 dialects. I challenge any American who does not know the language to go there, attempt to correctly distinguish their dialects, and return to correctly transcribe who said what and which dialect was spoken. I’ll give you two years, ten months, and four days – same as Lewis and Clark, to cover the entire country on foot, canoe and horseback.

William Byrd names his three hunters Tuskeruda Indians in his work The Westover Manuscripts and the setting of this mention is along the Roanoke, a major trading river for the Tuscarora. In several references of copper mines, the Roanoke is nearby. Read why this is important.

That said, the copper mines mentioned in William Byrd’s The Westover Manuscripts place several copper mines along the North Carolina and Virginia border, Tuscarora areas. Could one or more of these copper mines be the western copper mines that John Pory of Jamestown conspired with the Algonquin Chowanoke to take from the Mighty Tuscarora?

Map and Timeline: Yellow – 1724-1770 Major Tuscarora trading areas. Red pen - 1600-1712 Territory of the Tuscarora in Va. and NC. Lime green - is extent of Tuscarora Travel 1663-1710. A combination of three maps indicate that the Tuscarora dominated the area prior to William Byrd’s work written in 1728 to 1736. This indicates about four to 12 years difference which partially explains displacement of the Tuscarora from their copper mines. The Tuscarora War (1711-1715) had largely ended the reign of the Mighty Tuscarora, leaving room for other tribes to migrate into their settlements and copper mines to claim control and occupancy. [Maps are listed in references.]

The Saponi are referenced by Byrd as occupants of the island on Roanoke River. But in question is when did they become occupants and how many were there. There were only 30 Saponi "bow men" in 1708. Yes, the Tuscarora regularly traded with these river Saponis, but they most likely had not owned copper mines because there were not enough people to both hunt and work mines. But there were enough Tuscarora.

Estimates for Tuscarora population in 1708 vary. Lawson gives 4,000 roughly but that is limited because it is from one man's foot travel and the Tuscarora foot travel far exceeds that of one man. For example, Lawson once met a band of 500 Tuscarora hunters and said they were too populous for one range, meaning he did not know how many others were out of his foot range.

The Tuscarora copper mines became the property of the white conquerors.

The Exsanguination of the Second Society: Scholarly Historical Fiction Relating to Robeson County, North Carolina’s Tuscaroras shares references to sightings of Tuscarora copper mines where Spaniards and white colonists, believed to be The Lost Colonists’ survivors are seen working in eastern North Carolina.

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References

Hodge, Frederick Webb.(1907). Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, Part 1. Washington Government Printing Office. P. 851.

The Westover Manuscripts: Containing the History of the Dividing Line Betwixt Virginia and North Carolina; A Journey to the Land of Eden, A. D. 1733; and A Progress to the Mines. Written from 1728 to 1736, and Now First Published
(spine) Westover Manuscripts
William Byrd, of Westover
Edmund Ruffin
iv, 143 [1] p., ill.
PETERSBURG:
PRINTED BY EDMUND AND JULIAN C. RUFFIN.
1841. Page 83.

Call number C 917 B99 c2 (North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

https://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/byrd/byrd.html

 Edmond Jenings. (1708). Letters. UNC Chapel Hill Special Collections Library. Filename: 03406_0013_0001.tif.

R.H. Major. (2017). The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia: Expressing the Cosmographie and Comodities of the Country, together with the Manners and Customes of the People. Gathered and observed as well by those who went first thither as collected by William Strachey, Gent., the first Secretary of the Colony. In The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315557236 Page 26.

Pearce, H. (1938). New Light on the Roanoke Colony: A Preliminary Examination of a Stone Found in Chowan County, North Carolina. Journal of Southern History, 4(2), 156-58

Maps

1.       Yellow highlights Roanoke River and Tuscarora trade areas: Baldwin, Richard, 1724-1770. A Map of Va, NC, SC, Ga, Md, with part of NJ, etc. 1775. Published in London. Retrieved fron NC State Archives.

2.       Red pen line is 1600-1712 Territory of the Tuscarora, Meherrin, and Nottoway in Va. and NC: Boyce, Douglas W. “Iroquoian Tribes of the Virginia-North Carolina Coastal Plain,” Handbook of North American Indians, volume 15, Northeast, Bruce G. Trigger, ed. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1978), p. 282. [Note that this map shows current boundaries and logistics whereas the 1700’s map does not.]

3.       Light green highlighter is extent of Tuscarora Travel 1663-1710: Boyce, Douglas, W. Extent of Tuscarora Travel, 1663-1710. “Notes on Tuscarora Political Organization, 1650-1713,” Anthropology Masters Thesis, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, 1971.