Our Tuscarora Neighbors
(Part five)
Their headman, in those days, was designated, in English reports as Segwarusara, Sequareesera and other spellings, obviously of the same word. Many years later we find it as Sagareesa, Sacarese, etc. interpreted as "Sword-carrier" It is a title, and not an individual name. (In 1794 we find the Tuscarora "Sacharese" visiting Philadelphia with Corn-planter, to attend a treaty; at which be asked that proper young Then be sent as teachers to the Tuscarora.) Other chiefs or sachems mentioned in the 18th Century are Rudlt, Kanigot and Thiglrorotea.
In 1768 The Tuscaroras had 140 fighting men-and probably more than twice as many women and children-in one vi1Iage six miles from the principal Oneida village There were still several Tuscarora settlements in tile Susquehanna. Valley, those who had stopped &t Tamaqua, Pa., in 1713 appear to have removed after two years. These were adopted by the Senecas as children." It remains to trace briefly the fortunes of some of these people who had remained in North Carolina, where their number had been estimated-probably over-estimated at from 3,000 to 4,000. Sir William Johnson even reported that in six North Carolina towns they numbered 5,000 or 6,000; but subsequent records do not account for such numbers. In 1766, 160 Tuscaroras, just from North Carolina, came in on Sir William Johnson and were sent to New York villages.
In 1767 there was another fragmentary migration, many Indians of various tribes, including the Tuscarora, being attracted to the Moravian Mission at Friedenshuetten, on the Susquehanna near Wyalusing. The missionaries re-ported that they were lazy "and refuse to hear religion." Some of them who had camped near the river, were so alarmed at a snowfall, the first they had ever seen, that they begged the missionaries to give them refuge.
Various companies of them corning into the Colony of New York, sites were assigned them. In the northern part of the Oneida territory, already mentioned, they were allotted to Ganasaraga near present Sullivan, Madison County; and to Kaunehsuntahkeh exact site uncertain. Of the migration of 1766, Sir William Johnson wrote to the Earl of Shelburne, December 16th of that year:
This moment an interpreter arrived here with several Tuscarora chiefs returned from North Carolina whither they went last spring in order to bring the remainder of their tribe out of danger from that government, which they have now done to the number of 160, and they have produced to me certificates of their quiet behavior and decorum,, under the seals of the magistrates of the several districts thro which they passed; notwithstanding which, by the account the interpreter and they give me, as also from the letters I received by them, I find that on their way, their lives were several times attempted by the frontier people, who assembled for that purpose, to prevent which for the future. one of my officers, that way, was necessitated to but the Crown to the charge of an- attendant white man, and that on their return, having sold part of .there lands in Carolina and purchased sundry horses, wagons etc. for carrying some effects, they were again used ill at Paxton in Pennsylvania and robbed of several horses, etc., valued at �55; of this the Tuscarora chiefs complained to several of the Six Nations-, and I have just now with difficulty prevented them from making a formal complaint to the whole Confederacy on promising them that it should be inquired into.
I am persuaded Governor Penn will do all he can on receipt of my letter, but these sort of lawless people are not easily detected being screened by one another. There hare been several instances of much of the same nature lately in different quarters on the frontiers.
The Tuscaroras shared in the treaty of Fort Stanwix, October 24, 1768, at which was established the boundary line between the Northern colonies and the Indian lands. It may be noted here that they later shared in the following treaties with the United States Government: Port Stanwix 1784 Fort Harmar, Ohio, 1789; Canandaigua, 1794; Oneida, 1794; and Buffalo Creek, 1828.
At Port Herkimer, in 1785, they were made a party to the treaty by which the Oneidas ceded to the State of New York the lands they had occupied from a time unrecorded. Thus they were again scattered. In after years, we find settlements of Tuscaroras at or near the east end-of Oneida take on Cayuga Inlet; and on the Genesee .below Avon.
End of part five.
© 1997 mckyrbnsn@hotmail.com
|