This is a message posted at the Tuscaroras.com discussion forum by Teresa Morris on February 26, 1998.

Was he an absolute monarch over his people..where did he get the English name?

Colorful stories surround his name. One story is he got his English name because his father was a prominent white man and his mother an Indian. Another, he was raised as an orphan by Thomas Blount of Chowan County. Discussion also points to Blunt the Indian closely acquainted with Blunt the Englishman., who during Henseon Walker's administration of 1699-1703 communicated with an unnamed Indian tribe.

Tuscarora history scholar Herbert Paschal, makes notes of William Brice to the governor and council stating order at Counsell held at Mr. Thomas Blount's in Chowan against one Thomas Blount an Indian for ye Returning of a Mare.

Another notation is made of another Tom Blunt serving as the Virginia official interpreter to the Indians south of the James River 1691-1703. Trading was brisk with Upper Towns of the Tuscaroras and this Blunt and the Indian ruler were acquainted. Language was a problem for the Indian power brokers & the Indians represented by their own.

King Blunt was inclined towards trading with the English nation. It's reported Blunt headed a council of 16 to 18 chief men. Seven or eight clans were left with him in NC after the war. Each clan was entitled to 1 sachem and one sub-chief, on the COUNCIL. also reported a firekeeper and a war chief. It's recorded Doctor John Brickell of Edenton was aware of Blunt able to speak understandable English yet it was not reflected in the "official records". An interpreter was always present in discussing matters of state. Blunt solicited the services of his friend William Charlton for interpretation. He went with him on official visits to Virginia.

In 1721 Blunt gave Charlton 600 hundred acres of fertile Indian lands in BERTIE COUNTY, NC. Old feelings of being put off with Thomas Pollock, the interim governor of NC during the war were melted away. King Blunt and Pollock and other members of the council worked together. This was the 1732 time period. Things were great with Blunt while he held firm control over the affairs and conduct of his people. Sources say Blunt came to Pollock with his problems and Pollock represented him to succeeding governors.

THE FIRST INDEPENDENT COMMISSION FOR THE Indian Trade for and within this province was appointed in 1732. Members were Robert West, Francis Pugh, Thomas Bryant, John Spiers, Thomas Hearney.

Blunt always ruled with a tight, firm and independent hand strongly refusing to permit the militants of his own people and warriors of the northern Iroquois coming south & involve Him in war. When the English crushed the power of the Tuscarora hostiles, Blunt declined to be alarmed and flee.

He told those who spoke out against the English to Leave his people alone and to look after their own business. The king honored his terms of the 1713 treaty requiring him to make a ceremonial visit to the gov. each spring to render his tribute in deer skins. It is noted in Dr. Brickell's records that on one of his visits, Blunt being the most powerful of the 3 kings wore a suit of English Broadcloth, a pair of women's stockings of blue colour, with white clocks, a tolerable good shirt, cravat, shoes, hat. Each of them has his Queen, Children, Physician, Captain of War, and Guards.

For those of you that want to "read more about" Tuscarora happenings

Consider this sampling: Chief Elton Greene's notes, Letters of Colonel John Barnwell, Wallace's 1948 Recordings, William Saunders, The Colonial Records of NC, 10 vols. 1886-1980, A.B. Faust, ed/. The Graffenreid Manuscript C, German American Annals, n.s., XII Mar-Oct.,1914, Alfred J. Morrison, Mabinogion of the West, William and Mary Quarterly, XIX, Selections from the Epistles of George Fox (Cambridge:Trustees of Obediah Brown's Benevolent Fund and Managers of the Mosher Fund of the New England Yearly Meeting of the Friends, 1879), The 1600 population from Mooney, Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collection, Vol. 80, Lawson 1700.

Clarence W. Alvord and Lee Bidgood, First Explorations of the Trans-Alleghany Region by the Virginians 1650-1675

Letters of William Byrd, John Santon, The Tawasa Language, American Anthropologist, New Series XXXI,

J.R.B. Hathaway, ed., NC Historical and Genealogical Register (Edenton, 1900-1903)

Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, 16 vols. 1852-1853 also listed as the Pennsylvania Council,

Jacocks collection, Bertie County Historical Commission, Windson, NC (Hamilton Mt. Pleasant, letter to W.P. Jacocks dated October 25, 1958. gives the translation from Tuscarora

A.L. Fries, ed., The Records of the Moravians in NC 7 vols... (Raleigh, NC Historical Commission...known as the Moravian Records

Bertie County Deeds Book M, 314-317

Bertie County Deeds Book A, 441-442, 443

Bertie County Deeds Book L. 56-58 NCCR, VII, 361

Bertie County Deeds Book S, 675-676 Bertie County Deeds Book T, 184-185, 304 Noah Smallwood's Tuscarora Notes 1967

Governor Benjamin Williams Letter Book, 1798, 1802 Governor James Turner's Letter Book, 1802-1805, GLB 15

Samuel Kirkland Papers Hamilton College

Buffalo Courier-Express, September 10, 1890 Author's 1967 Tuscarora notes; Chief Elton Greene, February 20, 1968

100th Anniv. Edition, Lockport Union-Sun, 1921, p. 107 Tuscarora Notes

1911 J. Bryan Grimes, Secretary of State, Details of land transactions (A Letter Concerning Lands Formerly Held in Bertie by the Tuscarora Indians"

Verner Crane, The Southern Frontier 1670-1732