Tuscarora

views updated Jun 11 2018

Tuscarora

The Tuscarora are an American Indian group living on the Tuscarora Indian Reservation in New York State and the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario. In the 1980s the Tuscarora in New York and Ontario numbered approximately fifteen hundred.

In late aboriginal and early historic times the Tuscarora occupied an extensive territory along the Roanoke, Tar, Pamlico, and Neuse rivers in present-day North Carolina. In the early eighteenth century they were driven out of their territory after a series of devastating wars with White colonists. They migrated north, where they were adopted by the Iroquois tribes and accepted as members of the Iroquois Confederacy in 1722. The Tuscarora participated in the councils of the league, but their chiefs were not given the position of sachem in the council. Before migrating north the Tuscarora economy had been based on a combination of horticulture, hunting, gathering, and fishing. Once joined with the Iroquois, they settled on lands given to them by the Seneca and adopted Iroquoian cultural and organizational patterns. During the American Revolution many Tuscarora were forced by circumstances to side with the British and subsequently were granted lands on Six Nations Reserve. Those Tuscarora able to remain neutral during the war were granted the lands they occupied in New York State.

See alsoIroquois

Bibliography

Boyce, Douglas W. (1973). "Did a Tuscarora Confederacy Exist?" Indian Historian 6:34-40.

Johnson, Frank R. (1967-1968). The Tuscaroras: Mythology, Medicine, Culture. Murfreesboro, N.C.: Johnson Publishing Co.

Tuscarora

views updated Jun 27 2018

Tus·ca·ro·ra / ˌtəskəˈrôrə/ • n. (pl. same or -ras) 1. an American Indian people forming part of the Six Nations, originally inhabiting the Carolinas and later New York.2. the Iroquoian language of this people.• adj. of or relating to the Tuscarora or their language.

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