The Tuscarora nation encountered by Europeans in…

The Tuscarora nation encountered by Europeans in North Carolina has three tribes: Kǎ'tě’nu'ā'kā' (People of the Submerged Pine-tree), also written Kautanohakau; Akawěñtc'ākā' (meaning doubtful), also Kauwetseka; and Skarū'ren' (hemp gatherers), also Tuscarora.

These will remain active as independent groups after the tribe's migration to New York and Ontario.

An early nineteenth-century historian will write that the Tuscarora traditionally were said to occupy the "country lying between the sea shores and the mountains, which divide the Atlantic states," in which they had twenty-four large towns and could muster six thousand warriors, probably meaning persons. (F.W. Hodge, "Tuscarora", Handbook of American Indians, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1906)

European colonists in late seventeenth and early eighteenth-century North Carolina report two primary branches of the Tuscarora: a northern group led by Chief Tom Blunt, and a southern group led by Chief Hancock.

Varying accounts circa 1708-1710 estimate the number of Tuscarora warriors as from twelve hundred to two thousand.

Historians estimate their total population may have been three to four times that number.

Chief Blunt occupies the area around what is present-day Bertie County, North Carolina, on the Roanoke River.

Chief Hancock lives closer to present-day New Bern, occupying the area south of the Pamlico River.

Chief Blunt has become close friends with the Blount family of the Bertie region and lives peacefully.

By contrast, Chief Hancock has to deal with more numerous colonists' encroaching on his community.

They raid his villages and kidnap the people to be sold into slavery.

The colonists have transported some enslaved Tuscarora to Pennsylvania to be sold there.

Both groups suffer substantial population losses after exposure to Eurasian infectious diseases endemic to Europeans.

Both also suffer territorial encroachment.

The Tuscarora nation sends a petition to the Province of Pennsylvania, protesting the seizure of their lands and enslavement of their people by citizens of the Province of Carolina.