Donnie Red Hawk McDowell makes Tuscarora History in North Carolina
Historical record confirms claims of Tuscarora Nation of NC
U.S. should be bound by treaties inherited from Great Britain
My heart leaped for joy when I read this headline!
I met Donnie Red Hawk McDowell at the University of North
Carolina at Pembroke in 2018. For over thirty years, I'd believed the rumor
about Robeson County's natives being a mix of Cherokee and other races and,
through Red Hawk and his friends learned the truth.
Red Hawk addresses the longstanding cover up in his article. Here, I address my experiences.
UNCP's professors shunned me when I shared the truth of the
area’s ancestry. When I presented genealogy charts and research from a Duke
University emeritus history professor, Dr. Peter Woods, proving Tuscarora roots,
I learned the Lumbee ideology.
“The Tuscarora in New York and already has federal recognition.
We don’t,” Dr. Locklear shouted about the Lumbees only having North Carolina state
recognition.
The truth was not the issue. Not having federal recognition
was the issue.
The Lumbee tribes have gone to Washington, D.C., pleading
for federal recognition, claiming to have new evidence of being Cherokee,
Cheraw, and other identities. They are continually denied.
Because the truth is that the North Carolina Natives are
Tuscarora, but only a small percentage, according to Dr. Peter Woods.
The library at UNCP refused a copy of Dr. Peter Wood’s
genealogy charts and his research.
“We are a Lumbee college,” an acquisitions librarian said.
The lead chair in mass communications edited my journalism article
on the Tuscarora struggle. After it was published and the Lumbees could not
stand to see the Tuscarora have any attention on the front page, the chair of
mass communications and the lead journalism professor wrote an incorrect and
shameful retraction to the article, attacking Red Hawk.
So, I wrote a novel about the wild goose chase of a white
boy learning the truth of the Tuscarora ancestry and how desperate the whites
and the Lumbees are to keep the truth hidden. The book is available to read
free at the University of North Carolina’s Special Collections in Chapel Hill. It
has 74 references, including Dr. Woods’. The Exsanguination of the Second Society is also available in paperback, ebook, and even as an
audiobook, narrated by a Southern Baptist Preacher.
Here’s to you, Red Hawk. Go! Go to Washington, D.C. and tell the truth for your people, the Mighty Tuscarora, here in North Carolina.
NC Newsline published an article by my dear friend, Red Hawk, July 14, 2023.
NC Newsline is based in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Read the full article below:
Historical record confirms claims of Tuscarora Nation of NC, U.S. should be bound by treaties inherited from Great Britain
by Donnie Rahnἀwakew McDowell on July 14, 2023.
The quest to have the aboriginal status, rights, and privileges of the Tuscarora Nation of North Carolina (TNNC) reaffirmed by the state and federal governments should be based on historically accurate, unbiased, and ethical research.
And make no mistake: there is plenty of it.
According to state and federal officials, the TNNC is
neither recognized by the state of North Carolina nor the United States. However,
an investigation into this ongoing fight for equality and justice reveals that
these stances are contradicted documented facts.
Before there was a United States
Before the creation of the English Colonies on this
continent, the ancestors of the TNNC had built positive relationships with
Spanish merchants and explorers who were brave enough to venture into Tuscarora
territory. Constant competition and rivalry between the Spanish and English in
the late 16th century led to conflict for the Tuscarora communities. When
disease decimated Algonquian nations who neighbored Tuscarora territory,
settlers leaving the Jamestown Colony in Virginia eventually took up residence
on the east side of the Chowan River. This steady encroachment, carrying with
it disease and the Indian Slave Trade, resulted in the well-known Tuscarora
Wars. The treaties that solidified the end of the Tuscarora Wars authenticate a
nation-to-nation relationship between the ancestors of the TNNC and the state
and federal governments.
The past and current leadership of the Tuscarora Nation of
North Carolina has fought for centuries to protect our homelands, families and
communities, and ways of life. The sacrifices made by our ancestors to secure
peace and sovereignty are recorded in the treaty compacts agreed upon by the
British Crown and the Colonial States.
An unknown number of thousands of acres of land, an
immeasurable withdrawal of natural resources, and an unfathomable amount of
human and cultural loss is recorded in these Tuscarora treaties. Technically,
modern and state laws challenging the sovereignty of the TNNC violate the US
Constitution in multiple ways. Also, the Federal Government has yet to
terminate the Tuscarora Treaties which it inherited from Great Britian in the
late 18th century.
Therefore, this middle ground situation has caused the TNNC
communities to be neglected, ignored, and continuously discriminated against by
state and federal Indian policies. By assuming and making the case that the
TNNC is not state or federally recognized, state and federal leaders have
seriously overlooked the authentic treaties being held and maintained at the NC
Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. Likewise, historical records
related to the establishment of the American Colonies held in England clarify
that the ancestors of the TNNC were recognized by the British Crown via the
Tuscarora Treaty of 1713.
This treaty, between the ancestors of the TNNC and the
English Colony of Virginia, states that the Tuscarora communities were under
the protection of the British Crown. Having several treaties with two English
colonies, the land base of the TNNC can be found in grants by King George II
located in a series of mid-18th maps. What remained of the Tuscarora following
the Wars was split in three factions; a Tuscarora stronghold in what becomes
Robeson County, a band of Tuscarora entered the Haudenosaunee League, and a few
families remained at Indian Woods.
Treaties ignored
State laws slowly began targeting the land claims, rights,
and privileges of the Tuscarora communities that remained in the state
following minor migrations from Indian Woods to northern relatives. Continued
encroachment and the non-reinforcement of treaty protections influenced many
Tuscarora families to seek refuge in Robeson County or in New York. Trends in
Indian Removal Policy and Disenfranchisement further oppressed, marginalized,
and silenced the identities, claims, and rights of the TNNC families that
remained in the state.
Although the ancestors of the TNNC migrated away from Indian
Woods well before its closure, later migrations eventually made Robeson County
their final exodus to safety. Regardless of the state passing laws to suppress
the identities of Native Americans that survived Indian Removal, records reveal
that the ancestors of the TNNC continued to self-identify as Tuscarora.
Accounts by Adjutant General John C. Gorman indicated that Henry Berry and the
Lowry family were descendants of Tuscarora Indians who migrated to Robeson
County to seek freedom from settler encroachment.
Resisting the authority of the Confederate Home Guard, the
Lowry Gang was able to influence the end of the disenfranchisement which
infringed upon the basic human rights of minorities in the state. During
investigations into the Lowry War, state and federal officials identified
Tuscarora families living in Robeson County who had evaded the clutches of
Indian Removal. These same families would later be identified on the Special
Indian Census conducted by the United States Government in 1900 and 1910.
Since the Lowry War, a unique Tuscarora community has
remained visible in the historical record in Robeson County. Meanwhile, state,
and federal authorities have intentionally covered up meaningful and important
historical evidence which acknowledges that the ancestors of the TNNC survived
Indian Removal in the Robeson County swamps.
Correcting the record
In response to a petition submitted on behalf of the TNNC
for Federal Acknowledgement in the late 20th century, federal authorities made
their denial decision based on many misrepresentations and false assumptions.
For instance, federal reviewers claimed erroneously that the TNNC had no
treaties with the state or federal government, nor had a reservation or prior
land in trust.
When taking the historical record into full account, and
with full transparency, these two misrepresentations dissolve into the ether.
When the US succeeded Great Britian as the successor state of the lands now
called America, it also inherited the Tuscarora Treaties that the British Crown
entered during the 18th century. The lack of integrity in honoring the pledge
made between two sovereign nations has led to increased rates of poverty, food
insecurity, cultural disconnect, and a highly disproportionate gap of
opportunities for the Tuscarora communities. Honoring the treaties and
committing equitable resources to counter the effects of assimilation and
colonization on the TNNC communities would be the first step toward
reconciliation.
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