User:Mollyantfarm111/Croatan

History

The legislature on June 30th, 1914 declared a thorough investigation to decide what tribal right the "cherokees" formerly known Croatan Indians of North Carolina had. The Croatan Indians are mainly from different counties in North Carolina, but some are also found in South Carolina. The Coratan Indians that are found in South Carolina are called "Red bones" but still carry the same characteritics of the Croatan people from North Carolina.

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=yL9dDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT16&dq=coratan+ancestors&ots=SZaKnAQrvm&sig=T7JYFE9IbatrU_HQxOhf26XRxqQ#v=onepage&q=coratan%20ancestors&f=false

The distinction between Croatans from North Carolina and South Carolina aren't very significant as individual s, but do carry a different name.

This is important to the text becuase it shows that there isn't any difference between the Croatan Indians in south carolinma an North Carolina in the way they move and act. They are just labeled in a different way because of where they live.

I used this source as an overlaying of information to explain the significance of how no matter where the Croatan Indians lived they were still the "same people".

Where did the Croatan people come from?

No one new that the Croatan Indians exisited until 1888 came along. In 1888 a petition of 54 people claiming to be a part of the Croatin Indians was sent to the indiam office at Washington. They claimed to live in Robeson county, N.C. The indian office had the understanding that the name Croatan was just the name of an island/village. There was a colony of 120 people north of Cape Hatteras, N.C. In 1587 Whites people for in Roanoke Island. White returned to the colony in 1590 but his people were nowhere to be found. The only remains were the words Croatoan carved into a tree. This made White beleive that the colonist left Roanoke for Croatan. No traces of the colonist were found, but after 100 years Lawson (John Lawson- an english expoerer of the Carolinas) spoke to the Hatteras Indians whuch made him beleive the missing colonist were involved with the Indians.

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=yL9dDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT16&dq=coratan+ancestors&ots=SZaKnAQrvm&sig=T7JYFE9IbatrU_HQxOhf26XRxqQ#v=onepage&q=coratan%20ancestors&f=false

This shows a background of how the Croatan people were missundersood for a very long time. Up until the last century were the Croatan Indians recognized as a significant tribe.

This information is important to the text so readers get an accurate representation of what the Croatan people went through as a misunderstood group.

This information was gathered t o display a better understanding of how the Croatan village originated.

The Croatan indians in Jim Crow georgia

In 1890 A group of about 100 Croatan Indians left Robeson County N.C, for South Georgia. They then established a community to solidify there place. They did this by building a church and school for their people. In a time where racial barriers were very distict between "black" and "white" the Crioatan indians did not claim either race. Instead they just considered themsleves as "indians". The South as a whole tried to force them into segration, but the Croatan people of Bulloch County wanted no part of it. Instead of obeying the people of the south they headed back to bulloch County where they could keep their people together as "Indians". The Croatan Indians established themselves in a place that was not home to them. It was unheard of for Indians to hold a identity in this way. They used segreation of Jim Crow south to develop themselves an entire community.

https://uclajournals.org/doi/abs/10.17953/aicr.29.1.w18126107jh11566?journalCode=aicr

This entry explains how the Croatan people had a very good understanding for who they were. No matter what obstacles they faced nothing could change who they were as a community.

This text shows the significance in how the Croatan Indians established themsleves in different places. They had a distinct idea on who they were and would do anything to achieve that. They felt at home when they could abide by the rules and regulations they set for themselves.

This information was gathered and expressed in a way for the reader to have an understanding of how the Croatan people carried themselves no matter where they were.

History[edit]

The Croatan lived in current Dare County, an area encompassing the Alligator River, Croatan Sound, Roanoke Island, Ocracoke Island, and parts of the Outer Banks, including Hatteras Island. Now extinct as a tribe, they were one of the Carolina Algonquian peoples, numerous at the time of English encounter in the 16th century. The Roanoke territory also extended to the mainland, where they had their chief town on the western shore of Croatan Sound.

For the most part, the groups involved with the Croatan Indians were small. Even though the majority of these groups were small, they did have about 30 groups that consisted of 100 plus members in 1930. The Croatan Indians also had a group in Robeson County N.C that had nearly 15,000 members.

Beliefs[edit]

Croatan Americans were a part of the Carolina Algonquians, a southeastern designation of the greater Algonquian source. Agriculture was the Native Americans' primary food source, and the fact that they could feed the colonists, as well as themselves, very effectively demonstrates the efficiency of their farming. The Native Americans regulated each person's position in society by public marks. The chiefs or leaders, called werowances, controlled between one and eighteen towns. The greatest were able to muster seven or eight hundred fighting men. The English marveled at the great awe in which these werowances were held, saying no people in the world carried more respect towards their leaders. Werowance means "he who is rich". Chiefs and their families were held in great status and with respect, but they had to convince followers that action or cause was wise, they did not command. The role of the chief was to spread the wealth to his tribe, otherwise, respect was lost.

The legislature on June 30th, 1914 declared a thorough investigation to decide what tribal right the "cherokees" formerly known Croatan Indians of North Carolina had. The Croatan Indians were granted rights which enabled them to be designated and known as "Croatan Indians". They were also granted the right of "Indians and their decendants shall have seperate school for their children, school comittees of their own race, and shall also have the right to choose their own teachers based upon the General assembly of North Carolina.

The Croatan Indians were mainly from different counties in North Carolina, but some were also found in South Carolina.

The Native Americans living in the Carolinas believed in the immortality of the soul. Upon death, the soul either enters heaven to live with the gods or goes to a place near the setting sun called Popogusso, to burn for eternity in a huge pit of fire. The concept of heaven and hell was used on the common people to respect leaders and live a life that would be beneficial to them in the afterlife. Conjurors and priests were distinctive spiritual leaders. Priests were chosen for their knowledge and wisdom and were leaders of the organized religion. Conjurors, on the other hand, were chosen for their magical abilities. Conjurors were thought to have powers from a personal connection with a supernatural being (mostly spirits from the animal world).

European colonization[edit]

It is known that the arrival of English Settlers upset some pre-existing tribal relationships. The Algonquian people advocated cooperation while others (the Yamasee, Cherokee and Chickasaw, for example) resisted. Later, this conflict between tribes and settlers would lead to the Yamasee War. Tribes that maintained mutually beneficial contact with the settlers gained power through their access to and control of European trade goods. While the English may have held great military superiority over the Carolina Algonquians, the Native Americans' control over food and natural resources was a much more decisive factor in the conflict with early settlers. Despite the varying relationships among tribes, the Roanoke and Croatan were believed to have been on very good terms with English Settlers of the Roanoke Colony. Wanchese, the last leader of the Roanoke, accompanied the English on a trip to England.

The Lost Colony[edit]

Governor John White returned to Roanoke in 1590 to find the word "Croatoan" carved on a tree.

Some of the survivors of the Lost Colony of Roanoke may have joined the Croatan. Governor White finally reached Roanoke Island on August 18, 1590, three years after he had last seen them there, but he found his colony had been long deserted. The buildings had collapsed and "the houses [were] taken down". The few clues about the colonists' whereabouts included the letters "CROATOAN" carved into a tree. Croatoan was the name of a nearby island (likely modern-day Hatteras Island) in addition to the local tribe of Native Americans. Roanoke Island was not originally the planned location for the colony and the idea of moving elsewhere had been discussed. Before the Governor's departure, he and the colonists had agreed that a message would be carved into a tree if they had moved and would include an image of a Maltese Cross if the decision was made by force. White found no such cross and was hopeful that his family was still alive.

The Croatan, like other Carolina Algonquians, suffered from epidemics of infectious disease, such as smallpox in 1598. These greatly reduced the tribe's numbers and left them subject to colonial pressure. They are believed to have become extinct as a tribe by the early seventeenth century.

Speculation of the fate of the "Lost Colony"[edit]

Based on legend, some people said that the Lumbee tribe, based in North Carolina, were descendants of the Croatan and survivors of the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island. For over a hundred years, historians and other scholars have been examining the question of Lumbee origin. Although there have been many explanations and conjectures, two theories persist. In 1885, Hamilton McMillan, a local historian, and state legislator proposed the "Lost Colony" theory. Based upon oral tradition among the Lumbees and what he deemed as strong circumstantial evidence, McMillan posited a connection between the Lumbees and the early English colonists who settled on Roanoke Island in 1587 and the Algonquian tribes (Croatan included) who inhabited coastal North Carolina at the same time. According to historical accounts, the colonists mysteriously disappeared soon after they settled, leaving little evidence of their destination or fate. McMillan's hypothesis, which was also supported by the historian Stephen Weeks, contends that the colonists migrated with the Indians toward the interior of North Carolina, and by 1650 had settled along the banks of the Lumber. It is suggested the present-day Lumbees are the descendants of these two groups.

Other scholars believe the Lumbees to be descended from an eastern Siouan group called the Cheraws. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, several Siouan-speaking tribes occupied southeastern North Carolina. John R. Swanton, a pioneering ethnologist at the Smithsonian Institution, wrote in 1938 that the Lumbees were probably of Cheraw descent but were also genealogically influenced by other Siouan tribes in the area. Contemporary historians such as James Merrell and William Sturtevant confirm this theory by suggesting that the Cheraws, along with survivors of other tribes whose populations had been devastated by warfare and disease, found refuge from both aggressive settlers and hostile tribes in the Robeson County swamps in eastern North Carolina.

Late twentieth-century research has demonstrated that among surnames established as Lumbee ancestors were numerous mixed-race African Americans free in Virginia before the American Revolution, and their descendants who migrated to Virginia and North Carolina frontiers in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. These "free people of color" were mostly descendants of European women and African men, who worked and lived together in colonial Virginia. These connections have been traced for numerous individuals and families through court records, land deeds and other existing historical documents. In Robeson County, they may have intermarried with Native American survivors and acculturated as Native Americans.^{[clarification needed]}

Modern era and legacy[edit]

The Lost Colony Center for Science and Research has excavated English artifacts within the territory of the former Croatan tribe. The artifacts may also be evidence of trade with the tribe, or of natives finding them at the former colony site. The Center is conducting a DNA study to try to determine if there are European lines among Croatan descendants.

In 1890 a group of about 100 Croatan Indians left Robeson County N.C, for South Georgian. By building a church and school for their people they established themselves in a time where racial barriers were very distinct between "black" and "white". The Croatan people Instead considered themselves as "indians". The South as a whole tried to force them into segregation, but the Croatan people of Bulloch County wanted no part of it. Instead of obeying the people of the south they headed back to bulloch County where they could keep their people together as "Indians". The Croatan Indians established themselves in a place that was not home to them. It was unheard of for Indians to hold an identity in this way. They used the segregation of Jim Crow South to develop themselves as an entire community.

In 1910, the North Carolina state legislature renamed the Croatan Indians in North Carolina to "Cherokee" and designated them a branch of the Cherokee Nation.

A historical marker placed by the state of Georgia states "In 1870 a group of Croatan natives migrated from their homes in Robeson County, North Carolina, following the turpentine industry to southeast Georgia. Eventually, many of the Croatans became tenant farmers for the Adabelle Trading Company, growing cotton and tobacco. The Croatan community established the Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Adabelle, as well as a school and a nearby cemetery. After the collapse of the Adabelle Trading Company, the Croatans faced both economic hardship and social injustice. As a result, most members of the community returned to North Carolina by 1920."

Researchers from the University of Bristol, UK have also been excavating on Hatteras Island in conjunction with the Croatoan Archaeological Society. Hatteras Island is the main locus for the settlement of the Croatoan tribe, and to date, they have discovered a large contact/pre-contact period settlement, midden deposits and European trade items.