19. Indian War in North Carolina

No sooner had the North Carolina proprietary suppressed rebellion in 1711 than the colony became embroiled in a crucial Indian conflict. The Indians in North Carolina had been growing increasingly restive. Not only was white expansion driving them from their proclaimed lands and hunting grounds, but a perhaps more embittering grievance was the common practice of kidnapping Indians into slavery. In fact, so notorious was this practice that Pennsylvania, in 1705, prohibited further “importation of Indian slaves from Carolina” since it had “been observed to give the Indians of this province some umbrage for suspicion and dissatisfaction.”

Most dangerous of the Indian tribes was the powerful Tuscarora in central North Carolina, one of the feared and disliked Iroquois nations. In the fall of 1711, the Tuscaroras, taking advantage of the turmoil of the late Thomas Cary rebellion, launched a general attack on the white settlements. The attack was particularly effective on the new and scattered southern settlements, but the main center at Albemarle escaped devastation because Tom Blunt, the Tuscarora chief in the vicinity, refused to join the war.

Governor Edward Hyde induced the Assembly to pass a law authorizing conscription of all males between sixteen and sixty, and called on the neighboring colonies for aid. The Virginia Assembly refused to vote the funds or permit Governor Spotswood to send troops. South Carolina sent a strong military force under Colonel John Barnwell. Barnwell’s troop again demonstrated the propensity of the Indians for mutual destruction—redounding to the benefit of the whites—for it consisted largely of Creek, Yamassee, and Sioux Indians. As was true of all other Iroquois, the aggressive Tuscaroras had incurred the enmity of the other tribes of the region. Barnwell decisively defeated the Tuscaroras, captured one of their forts, and slaughtered the male inhabitants. The Indian allies got all the plunder and the female slaves. Barnwell wistfully regretted that “only one girl we got.” Finally, the Tuscaroras sued for peace and a peace treaty was signed, the beaten Indians agreeing to leave all the southern North Carolina land between Cape Fear and the New River.

Colonel Barnwell had expected to be handsomely rewarded by a grateful North Carolina for his supposed patriotism; he found, instead, that the ingrates, cozily far from the battle, were carping because he had not annihilated the enemy. The embittered Barnwell then decided to get willy-nilly what he had come for. Luring a large number of Indians to a spot near New Bern under pretense of a parley, Barnwell and his men fell on them in a surprise attack, seized them, and carried them off to South Carolina to sell the hapless Indians into slavery.

The Tuscaroras were understandably bitter at this treachery and, in the summer of 1712, resumed their war against a white foe who they were now convinced could not be trusted in any respect. Once again, however, Tom Blunt agreed to remain neutral and, indeed, to come partially to the aid of the whites. South Carolina again sent an armed troop, almost exclusively Indian as before, under Colonel James Moore. Moore crushed the Tuscaroras in March 1713, ending the war. The defeated remnants made their way north to New York to join their Iroquois brethren.