Tuscarora (Amerind tribe)

The Tuscarora ("hemp gatherers") are a Native American people of the Iroquoian-language family, with members in New York, Canada, and North Carolina.

Well before the arrival of Europeans in North America, the Tuscarora are presumed to have migrated south from the eastern Great Lakes region and settled in the region now known as Eastern Carolina.

The most numerous indigenous people in the area, they live along the Roanoke, Neuse, Tar (Torhunta or Narhontes), and Pamlico rivers in North Carolina.

They first encounter European explorers and settlers in North Carolina and Virginia.

After the 18th century wars of 1711-1713 (known as the Tuscarora War), most of the Tuscarora leave North Carolina and migrate north to Pennsylvania and New York, over a period of 90 years.

They align with the Iroquois in New York, because of their ancestral connection.

They are sponsored by the Oneida and accepted as one of the Six Nations in 1722.

After the American Revolution, in which they and the Oneida ally with the colonists, the Tuscarora share reservation land with the Oneida before gaining their own.

The Tuscarora Nation of New York is federally recognized.Those Tuscarora who ally with the British in the American Revolution resettle with other Iroquois tribes in present-day Ontario, where they are part of the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation.

Only the tribes in New York and Ontario have been recognized officially by the respective national governments.

After the early 19th century, the Tuscarora in New York no longer consider those remaining in North Carolina as members of the tribal nation.

The North Carolina remnants have formed bands in which they call themselves Tuscarora; as of 2010, several bands in Robeson County have united on an interim basis as the Tuscarora Nation One Fire Council.