Christoph von Graffenried

The Graffenrieds, a well-to-do patrician family, had originally established themselves in the neighborhood of Bern at the time of the founding of the city on the Aar river in 1191 by Berchtold V, Duke of Zaringen.

Christoph von Graffenried was born November 15, 1661 at the family home, Schloss Worb, in Worb, in the German-speaking part of the Canton of Bern in Switzerland, the eldest son of Anton von Graffenried (1639–1730) and Katarina Jenner (?-1669).

Graffenried on April 25th, 1684, had married Regina Tscharner (1665–1731), who also comes from an accomplished and respected family, her father, Beat Lewis Tscharner, having been a member of the Assembly and her grandfather, Samuel Tscharner, having been Governor and later Mayor of Chillon.

Regina and Christoph have four sons and seven daughters.

He had in 1702 acquired the position as bailiff of Yverdon.

Graffenried had met Franz Ludwig Michel, who had discovered silver mines in Virginia and owns land in the New World.

Telling Graffenried what glorious places North Carolina and Virginia are, he has advised him to move to North Carolina.

With the idea of paying off his debts and making money on the cheap land in North Carolina, Graffenried had left his debts to his father and secretly departed for London so that he could see this New World.

When in London, Graffenried had met with John Lawson, the Surveyor General of North Carolina, who is publishing a book entitled A Voyage to Carolina.

Lawson had promised to show Graffenried and his settlers a perfect place to establish a community.

Graffenried had in 1709 met with the Lords Proprietors of Carolina, who have granted to him ten thousand acres (forty square kilometers ) on the Neuse and Cape Fear Rivers.

They also have given him the title Baron of Bernberg, after the settlement he is supposed to found.

Consequently, Graffenried had gathered a group of Germans from the Palatine region and Swiss immigrants who have faced hardships in their own countries and want to start over in North Carolina.

He sails in 1710 to North Carolina.

On the sea, the settlers had been attacked by French privateers, who had stripped them of everything they brought.

Once in the New World, the settlers had sold everything that remained, except the clothes on their backs.

John Lawson had taken them to a site at the junction of the Trent and Neuse Rivers, which they name New Bern.

The first season, the settler's crops do not do well.

Graffenried returns to Europe to get supplies and additional settlers.

He returns to the colony unscathed.

Graffenried had ordered that the layout of the town was made into the shape of a cross, although the town is not in the shape today due to growth of the town and towns surrounding it.

In addition to a lack of food and supplies, there is great tension between the settlers and the Tuscarora of the Neuse River region.

Unknown to the settlers, their new settlement is on the site of an old Tuscarora village.

Graffenried and the settlers evict a group of Tuscarora from nearby lands without payment in 1711, and Graffenried assumes the title "Landgrave of Carolina."

Retaliatory raids by the Tuscarora, under a leader named Hancock, lead to deaths and damage to the settlement.

Chief Hancock by now believes he has to attack the settlers to fight back.

Chief Tom Blunt does not join him in the war.

Graffenried, along with John Lawson, takes a trip up the Neuse River during the summer of 1711,

Graffenried wants to crossbreed European grapes with wild, native grapes and start a vineyard.

The Tuscarora take captive Graffenried and John Lawson (and an enslaved baggage-carrier).

While in captivity, John Lawson and Graffenried are given three separate trials, each in a different Tuscaroran village.

One finds the men not guilty; the other two pronounce them guilty of wrongful crimes against the Tuscarorans.

The Tuscaroras decide to kill them, but the elders talk and decide Graffenried will be released.

He wears such fine clothes, they mistake him for the governor of North Carolina.

They think if they let the "governor" go, the colony will let the incident pass.

They inform him they are planning an attack on all the settlements in North Carolina (this comes to be known as the Tuscarora War).

The next day, Lawson is killed and Graffenried is allowed to return to his settlement, which he finds abandoned and in flames.