Aid from Virginia and South Carolina.
Barnwell defeats the Tuscaroras, Jan. 28. 1712.
Before the news of this dreadful affair could reach New Berne, the blow had fallen, not only there, but also at Bath and on the Roanoke River. Some hundreds of settlers were massacred,—at New Berne 130 within two hours from the signal. No circumstance of horror was wanting. Men were gashed and scorched, children torn in pieces, women impaled on stakes. The slaughter went on for three days. A war-chief called by the white men Handcock seems to have been the leading spirit in this concerted attack, but as usual in Indian warfare the concert was incomplete.[278] An outlying detachment of Tuscaroras in Bertie Precinct, whose head war-chief was called Tom Blunt, took no part in the massacre and remained on good terms with the whites. Perhaps Blunt’s attitude may have been affected by nearness to Virginia and its able governor, Alexander Spotswood, who was certainly instrumental in keeping the Nottoways and Meherrins quiet. Through Blunt’s intervention, Spotswood secured the release of Graffenried, after five weeks of captivity, and it was not the fault of this valiant governor that Virginia troops did not march against Handcock; for his House of Burgesses, after advising such a measure, behaved like a “whimsical multitude,” and refused to vote the necessary funds.[279] Important aid, however, was obtained from South Carolina, which had for the moment a more complaisant assembly, and in Charles Craven a wise and able governor. Advantage was taken of the deadly hatred which the Sioux and Muskogi tribes bore to the Iroquois. With a small body of white men, supported by large numbers of Muskogi Creeks and Yamassees, and of Sioux Catawbas, Colonel John Barnwell made a long and arduous winter march through more than 250 miles of virgin forest to the Neuse River, where he encountered the Tuscaroras, and in an obstinate battle defeated them with the loss of 400 warriors. Then Handcock, retiring behind a stockade, sought and obtained terms from Barnwell; a treaty was made, and the South Carolina forces went home.
Crushing defeat of the Tuscaroras; migration to New York.
They had scarcely departed when the faithless red men renewed their bloody work, and in March the distracted colony was again obliged to ask for succour. Summer added to the other horrors the scourge of yellow fever, which carried off some hundreds of victims, among them Governor Hyde. In December a force of 50 white men and 1,000 Indians from South Carolina, under Colonel James Moore, arrived on the scene, and in March, 1713, Handcock was driven to cover on the site of the present town of Snow Hill, in Greene County. His palisaded fort was stormed with great slaughter, and that was the end of the Indian power in eastern North Carolina. Their remnant of defeated Tuscaroras withdrew to the upper waters of the Roanoke, and thence migrated northward to central New York, where they were admitted into the great confederacy of their kinsmen, the Iroquois of the Long House. Thus did the celebrated Five Nations become the Six Nations.
Charles Eden.
After Hyde’s death the government was ably administered by one of the leading colonists, Thomas Pollock, as president of the council. In 1714 Charles Eden came out as governor. Under the stress of war the colony had begun to issue paper money, a curse from which it was destined long to suffer. But some other evils were remedied. Liberty of conscience was secured to Dissenters, and in the matter of test oaths the Quaker’s affirmation was accepted as an equivalent. Eden was a very popular governor and managed affairs with ability until his death in 1722. His name is preserved in that of the town of Edenton, in Chowan County, which was in his time the seat of government.
The Yamassees and the Spaniards.
We must now turn to South Carolina, where we have seen Governor Craven using the Yamassee and Catawba warriors as allies to be sent against the Tuscaroras. The year 1713, which witnessed the crushing defeat of the Tuscaroras, was the year of the treaty of Utrecht, which ended the long war of the Spanish Succession. Throughout that war the powerful tribe of Yamassees had been steadfast friends of the English. From time to time they made incursions into Florida and brought away many a Spanish captive to be burned alive, until government checked their cruelty by offering a ransom for Spanish prisoners delivered in safety at Charleston; the prisoners were then sent home on payment of the amount of their ransom by the government at St. Augustine.
Alliance of Indian tribes against the South Carolinians.