Catawba -- Saponi -- Melungeon: Ch 2: English Explorers

CHAPTER II – ENGLISH EXPLORERS

Abraham Wood

Abraham Wood was one of the earliest and least known of the Virginia Explorers who travelled into the interior of the continent. (12) The author of this book writes about the earliest explorers of Virginia. In doing so he speaks of the Indians they find. In the interior of Virginia, we find the Monacan and Saponi as well as others. These are some of the northernmost bands of the Eastern Siouan peoples, which I call “bands” of the Catawban peoples. The author states, “Smith and Newport in the spring of 1607 and again in the autumn of 1608 as passing beyond the falls of the James, and on the second trip reaching Monacan [Manakin] town, some thirty miles above the falls." This is the first mention of the Siouan/Catawban peoples by English explorers that I have found. A French Huguenot village sprang up where the Monacan village had previously stood.

The Jamestown settlers were living amongst the Pamunkey Indians. But the year after the Jamestown settlement was founded, they came across a Siouan speaking people, the Monacans.  No new explorations are mentioned for a couple of decades. Then in 1641 four men (their names are not stated) petition the government of Virginia for permission to explore to the Southwest of the Appomattox River. In March the legislature passed a law telling them the government wanted a cut of anything they found. There is no more said about this expedition. The Indians rebelled in 1644. In 1645 and 1646 several forts are established. 

These forts were expensive to maintain, so they were run by private individuals. One of them became “Fort Henry”. It was maintained by Abraham Wood. The location of Fort Henry is the city of Petersburg, Virginia today. One of the last great battles of the American Civil War was fought there in 1865. Cadwallader Jones was the administrator of the fort that grew into the modern city of Richmond. The Byrd family are also associated with this fort. A considerable trade was conducted with the Indians from these locations. The author writes;

“From it [Fort Henry] went out the Occoneechee or Trading Path southward to the Catawba’s and beyond, and also the trail leading westward to the headwaters of the Roanoke and over the mountains to the New River – the two great roads of early trade and settlement, both of them first explored by Abraham Wood and his associates. Wood sent out several expeditions from his fort further into the interior. Just across the river was situated the principal village or "town" of the Appomattox Indians, who furnished Wood with messengers, hunters, porters, and courageous and faithful guides. At its warehouses were fitted out the pack-trains of the Indian traders. Sometimes these traders were servants or paid agents of Wood or of his associates, sometimes they were free traders "of substance and reputation," who received goods on credit, and contracted to pay for them at a stipulated price. Wood imported from England the varied articles of barter, chiefly Guns, Powder, Shot, Hatchets (which the Indians call Tomahawks), Kettles, red and blue Planes, Duffield’s, Stroudwatier blankets, and some Cutlery Wares, Brass Rings and other Trinkets. These Wares are made up into Packs and Carryed upon Horses, each Load being from one hundred fifty to two hundred Pounds, with which they are able to travel about twenty miles a day, if Forage happen to be plentiful" In the early days, before the competition of Charleston began to be felt, the pack-trains might count a hundred horses. Guided by only fifteen or sixteen men they filed oft with tinkling bells southward along the Occoneechee path to visit the Indians of the South Carolina and Georgia Piedmont, or even to swing around the end of the Appalachian Mountains and track northward again to the Cherokee. Chiefs of distant tribes, like the king of the Cherokee, came in with their followers to trade and treat with Wood and received suitable entertainment; though rival traders and the Indians of the nearer tribes, anxious to retain their position as middlemen, tried by force or fraud to intercept them and frequently succeeded.”          

Comment: There are people who say the Cherokee were latecomers to the region. Please note they were mentioned by the late 1640s, and perhaps earlier.

This article also mentions the Appomattox Indians on the opposite side of the River. Abraham Wood used them as guides on his explorations.

Some have said an early word used for the Cherokee could have been “Tomahittans”. I am skeptical. Wikipedia claims that the Tomahittan are the Nottawago, or Nottaway. I will make no claim either way. The Nottaway, like the Cherokee and Tuscarora, are an Iroquoian people. (13)

Back to the narrative:

Abraham Wood is first mentioned as an indentured servant boy in Virginia in the 1620s. In 1646 is mentioned as a Captain of Militia. In 1652 he is a Lieutenant Colonel, and in 1655 he is a full Colonel. Later he is called General Wood. For someone who as a child, was recorded as an indentured servant in Jamestown before Jamestown was even 20 years old, he came a long way. But that also means he saw the end of the Powhattan Confederacy. He saw Indian peoples being enslaved all around him. He rose to prominence in that environment. It doesn't say he was guilty or innocent of these barbarisms, either way.

In 1650 Wood and others travelled through the Tuscarora Nation.

There are stories that in 1654 he and some of his men travelled as far as the Mississippi River. This narrative reads (14);

“Cropping out in all the literature of Mississippi Valley exploration, from the eighteenth century to the monographs of contemporary scholars, is the bare statement, now calmly presented as a fact, now contemptuously mentioned as a lie, that in the year 1654, or at various times in the decade following that year, 

“Abraham Wood gained the banks of the Ohio, or of the Mississippi, or of both. It can probably never be either proved or disproved with absolute certainty . . .

“Dr. Daniel Coxe . . . was the first to mention the episode. His account appears in a memorial to King William, presented to the Board of Trade Nov. 16, 1699, and in the younger Coxe's book Coxe states that at several times during the decade 1654-1664 Wood discovered "several branches of the great rivers Ohio and Mcschacebe." In confirmation, Coxe alleges that he was at one time in possession of a journal of a Mr. Needham, one of the agents Wood employed in his exploring expeditions. Now Wood's men did discover branches of the Ohio and Mississippi, in the years 1671-1674; and the Needham referred to was employed in the most brilliant of those discoveries. Since Coxe states incorrectly both Wood's title and place of residence, it is most probable that his information about the date was also incorrect. One of Coxe's later memorials to the Board of Trade, which constitutes the last chapter of this volume, omits all mention of the episode.”

It was said they went up the Dan River through the Mountains, then down the New River. When Batts and Fallam went through this region in 1671 they noted some trees had been “notched”, this showed some White men had proceeded them. (15) If it wasn't Wood and his men, then someone else had passed that way. In 1671 Thomas Batts and Robert Fallam are said to have passed through to the western side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. They also were sent by Wood to explore the region. 

This record says;         

"It consisted of Captain Thomas Batts, a successful colonist of a good English family, and two other gentlemen, Thomas Wood, perhaps a kinsman of Abraham Wood, and Robert Fallam. They were accompanied by a former indentured servant and Perecute, an Appomattox chief, whose faithfulness and iron courage should have preserved his name." There is mention of an “Ha-na-ha-skie” town in the vicinity of the Tutelo and Saponi. It has the same number of syllables as O-co-nee-chi. It is one of those towns that just vanished from historical accounts.

On September 19th, 1671 the Batts/Fallam expedition was said to have seen William Byrd's expedition with “a great company” in the Western regions of Virginia. Was this him returning from a slave raid? They did not write down a great deal about their slave raids. I don't think they wanted posterity to realize just exactly they were doing. It appears that Batts and Fallum made it to southwestern Virginia and returned to Fort Henry. This journey cleared the way for another expedition to go a little further west, and discover the Cherokee.

James Needham

We have James Needham going to Carolina on September 22nd, 1671. The article says he travelled with Henry Woodward. In Allan Gallay's book about the Indian Slave trade it mentions Woodward as having been one of the bigger Indian slave traders around that time. Needham would have known this. (17) 

Perhaps the Occoneechi Indian known as “Indian John” did as well. About the Occonechi; that it says “Few in number but fierce and treacherous, they were strongly fortified on their island in the Roanoke River at the modern Clarksville, Virginia, just below the confluence of the Dan and Staunton; and recruiting their numbers from vagabonds and fragments of various tribes, they exercised a great influence on the neighboring peoples and were a great hindrance to the white advance into the interior.”

Why would they be made up of “fragments of tribes” unless those “tribes” were no longer “whole”? Only something that has been torn apart is found in fragments. When I read about Needham's death, we are meant to feel sorry for him. But he was apparently friendly with Henry Woodward, a well-known dealer in Indian slaves. In fact Gallay says (p. 55, “The Indian Slave Trade”) “[Henry] Woodward learned that the Cherokee were the Westo's Enemies, and if the Cherokee were obtaining goods from Virginians, it would have been expedient for the Westos to procure goods from the Carolinians.” (18) The Westo could ill afford an alliance between the Cherokee and the Virginians.” There is more going on here, concerning the murder of James Needham.

Back to the narrative:

“About the twenty-fifth of June, they met a band of Tomahitan, who seem to be identical with the Mohetan and the Cherokee, on their way from the mountains to the Occaneechi village. Despite the machinations of the Occaneechi, who were naturally angry at the loss of their position as go-betweens in the trade, eleven of the Cherokee pushed through to Wood's plantation, and then overtook Needham with the main band on the way to the Cherokee country, and effected an exchange of letters. Nine days the party traveled southwest from the Occaneechi village, crossing nine eastward-flowing rivers and creeks, to Sitteree, the last village before reaching the Cherokee country, and doubtless on the headwaters of the Yadkin. There they left the trail and struck due west over the great North Carolina Blue Ridge. Four days of hard going, when they had sometimes to lead their horses, brought them to its narrow crest. at the end of fifteen days from Sitteree were on the banks of a westward-flowing river -- the home of their Cherokee friends.”

“After a short rest, Needham determined to return to Fort Henry, in company with a dozen Cherokee, and to leave Arthur behind to learn the language. On the tenth of September he reached home, made hurried preparations for another journey, and within ten days had turned his face again toward the mountains. His intention was to make only a short visit to the Cherokee and bring Arthur back with him in the spring. Naturally Wood had been greatly elated at the success of the expedition and had high hopes of the future. He eagerly followed Needham's westward journey, as news of his progress was brought to him, and heard that his agent had safely passed the Eno village and all seemed well. On the twenty-seventh of January, 1674, however, a flying report reached him that his men had been murdered by the Cherokee in their country. Then rumors of the disaster followed each other faster and faster, but the facts were difficult to learn, for the Indians were, as always, fearful of telling the exact truth. Wood dispatched a runner to make inquiries; but before his return, one Henry Hatcher, an independent trader, friendly to Wood and well acquainted with the Carolina Piedmont, arrived and notified Wood that Needham had certainly been killed, and identified the murderer.” 

From eye-witnesses Wood later heard the story in all its details. With Needham was an Occaneechi, Indian John or Hasecoll. He’d gone on the first expedition and been suitably rewarded. Wood hired him to go on the return trip and escort the party safely past his dangerous friends. It was the trader Hatcher, however, who persuaded the Occaneechi to let them pass, and even then several warriors accompanied the explorer, doubtless, as Wood suggested, to see the murder. Near the mountains the treacherous protector became threatening; but Needham maintained a fearless and defiant attitude, his only hope of safety. That evening at their bivouac at the ford of the Yadkin, Hasecoll shot the Englishman through the head, before he could draw sword or the Cherokee spring to his rescue. Ripping open Needham's body, he tore out the heart and held it up in his hand, and with face turned eastward bade defiance to the whole English nation. He then commanded the frightened Cherokee to go home and kill Arthur, looted the pack-train to his satisfaction, and made off with the booty loaded on Needham's horse.” 

Comment: The way Needham was killed sounds like some kind of ritual, to tear out his heart and hold it high facing east, similar to something we read about from Spanish chroniclers about the Aztecs or Mayan peoples. Personally, I suspect Needham himself was a slave trader. He was known to travel with Woodward who was a known as a major trader in Indian slaves. When it says Hasecoll turned east, he might not have been trying to defy the English Nation. Maybe he turned to face the direction of the rising sun. The death seems personal. To the South Carolinian officials and to Woodward, it was pure business that Virginia and the Cherokee not trade with one another. But to Hasecoll, it seems more of a personal nature that Needham needed to die. Recall the Occoneechi were made up of sad remnants of wasted tribes. This makes it sound as though a few escaped the slave traders, and they joined up with the Occoneechi. Maybe Hasecoll was one of them. Remember that he traveled with a very well-known slave trader, Woodward. Did he remember seeing Needham, personally, capture and enslave some of his kinsmen, or kill others? It is as though we have the copy of a book with half its pages missing. By no means am I saying this IS what actually happened. I am just suggesting another possible alternative.

It is easy to forget that although these Occoneechi and other coastal bands lived amongst the English to a degree, they were NOT European. We forget sometimes that our own European Catholics and Protestants were burning one another alive as heretics, at the same time. Before we judge others, remember the English thought that it was impossible for a “commoner” to tell the truth unless he/she had been tortured. We will discover that Byrd killed several warriors who had surrendered so he could sell their families, their wives and children, and make a profit off of them. ALL PEOPLE in the past it seems, were pretty brutal. Something to ponder. 

Needham and Arthur started together, and we only have looked into Needham's fate. What of Arthur?

Gabriel Arthur

The dazed Cherokee, after the murder of Needham, hurried home and reported what had occurred. The chief of the village was away so that the party friendly to the Occanecchi was, for a moment, in the ascendency. They seized Gabriel Arthur, bound him to a stake, and heaped dry reeds about him. In spite of the protests of some of the Indians, it seemed that another life was to be sacrificed on the altar of exploration. At the critical moment, the chief, gun on shoulder, entered the village; and, hearing the commotion, ran to the rescue. An adopted member of the tribe, angered at this interference, defiantly grasped a torch and started to light the pyre; but the war chief shot him dead, cut Arthur loose with his own hands, and led him to his lodge. 

Arthur survived. He is about to go on a journey he probably never forgot.

After the Chief saved Arthur's life, he went on several Cherokee War parties against other tribes. He went down to Florida and even against South Carolina settlers. He warred against the Shawnee. They captured him, realized he was a White man, and sent him back to the Cherokee. Eventually he made it back to Fort Henry with many stories about the interior country, and tribes he encountered there.

Occoneechi

Hudson mentioned some of these events as well. Arthur could not return to Fort Henry using the same route as he did when he left Fort Henry earlier. He returned to the Sara village, and hired four Sara Indians to travel with him. They would accompany him only as far as Eno Town, for fear of the Occoneechi's. Apparently Col. Wood went to visit the Tomahittan's and they returned to Fort Henry, but went by an indirect route through Tutelo Town and then to Monacan Town. From there to Fort Henry, skirting north of the Occoneechi's. As a result of these events, Per Hudson, Wood says of the Occaneechi; “. . .they are but a handful of people, beside what vagabonds repaire to them, it being a receptacle for rogues.” (19) I suspect here is an example of the fact that some tribes simply vanished. Maybe a few survivors of a now extinct band sought to unite again with a band still in existence. When he says “vagabonds repair to them”, is he really saying “a few survivors escaped a slave raid?” I wouldn’t be surprised if the killing of Henry Needham was a revenge killing. Perhaps then knew he’d been with Woodward and Woodward was known for his brutal slave raids. Maybe historians have unjustly condemned the Occoneechi for Needham’s brutal murder. We just don’t know all the facts.

John Lederer's Journey's 

Early English explorers opened the door to later colonization. John Lederer, John Lawson, James Needham, Gabriel Arthur, Abraham Wood, and William Byrd were amongst these. We only have a little in the form of historical documentation to go on concerning the Saponi. If we had information from multiple sources, we would have more confidence in the information gleaned from them. Unfortunately, we don't. And the voice of the Saponi is never heard. Remember, one person might have a personal bias, or a lack of cultural knowledge to draw from, in deriving conclusions. Please notice the “Rickohockans west of the Appalachian Mountains, and the Savannah Indians (better known as the Shawnee). to the east of them on the map below. The Rickohockens are shown near where the Cherokee later appear. Are they one and the same? I don’t know.

John Lederer made three journeys through Saponi country in the 1670s, and left a record of those travels. Below is a portion of that record. (20)

From march 1669 until September 1670 John Lederer made several trips to inland Virginia and North Carolina. He made three trips mapped below.

Map 5. The Territory Traveled by John Lederer 1669-1670

Here is a map of Lederer’s three journeys. It was translated from Latin by Sir William Talbot Baronet. Sed nos immensum spatiis confecimus aequor, Et iam tempus equum fumantia solvere colla. Virg.Georg. London, Printed by J.C. For Samuel Heyrick, at Grays Innegate in Holborn. 1672. We have –

My LORD,

From this discourse it is clear that the long looked-for discovery of the Indian Sea does nearly approach; and Carolina, out of her happy experience of your Lordship's success in great undertakings, presumes that the accomplishment of this glorious Designe is reserved for her. In order to which, the Apalataean Mountains (though like the prodigious Wall that divides China and Tartary, they deny Virginia passage into the West Continent) stoop to your Lordship's Dominions, and lay open a Prospect into unlimited Empires; Empires that will hereafter be ambitious of subjection to that noble Government which by your Lordships deep wisdom and providence first projected, is now established in Carolina; for it will appear that she flourishes more by the influence of that, than the advantages she derives from her Climate and Soyl, which yet do render her the Beauty and Envy of North-America. That all her glories should be seen in this Draught, is not reasonably to be expected, since she sate to my Author but once, and then too with a side-face; and therefore I must own it was never by him designed for the Press, but published by me, out of no other ambition than that of manifesting to the world, that I am, My Lord,

Your Lordships most humble and obedient Servant,

William Talbot.

Talbot also wrote – 

That a Stranger should presume (though with Sir William Berkeley's Commission) to go into those Parts of the American Continent where Englishmen never had been, and whither some refused to accompany him, was, in Virginia look's on as so great an insolence, that our Traveler at his Return, instead of Welcome and Applause, met nothing but Affronts and Reproaches; for indeed it was their part, that forsook him in the Expedition, to procure him discredit that was a witness to theirs: Therefore no industry was wanting to prepare Men with a prejudice against him, and this their malice improved to such a general Animosity, that he was not safe in Virginia from the outrage of the People, drawn into a persuasion, that the Publick Levy of that year, went all to the expense of his Vagaries. Forced by this storm into Maryland, he became known to me, though then ill-affected to the Man, by the stories that went about of him: Nevertheless finding him, contrary to my expectation, a modest ingenious person, &a pretty Scholar, I thought it common Justice to give him an occasion of vindicating himself from what I had heard of him; which truly he did with so convincing Reason and circumstance, as quite abolished those former impressions in me, and made me desire this Account of his Travels, which here you have faithfully rendered out of Latin from his own Writings and Discourse, with an entire Map of the Territory he traversed, copied from his own hand. All these I have compared with Indian Relations of those parts (though I never met with any Indian that had followed a Southwest-Course so far as this German) and finding them agree, I thought the Printing of these Papers was no injury to the Author, and might prove a Service to the Publick.

William Talbot.

We know John Lederer was commissioned by Governor William Barkeley “to go into those Parts of the American Continent where Englishmen never had been.” What did Lederer find on his three journeys? 

Lederer's contact the Monacan and Saponi

The following is an interesting observation made in Lederer's work. He states; 

“The Highlands (in Indian, Ahkontshuck) begin at those falls, and determine at the foot of the great ridge of Mountains that runs through the midst of this Continent, Northeast and Southwest, called by the Spaniards Apalataei, from the Nation Apalakin; and by the Indians, Paemotinck. According to the best of my observation and conjecture, they lie parallel to the Atlantick Sea-coast, that bearing from Canada to Cape Florida, Northeast and Southwest, and then falling off due West as the Mountains do at Sara: but here they take the name of Suala; Sara in the Warrennuncock dialect being Sara or Sualy.” This of interest for several reasons. Occasionally you see records of the various Siouan cities given one name, and at others the same people are given a different name.” 

He speaks of some mountains called “Ahkontshuck” in “Indian” but the Spanish call them “Apalataei”. Then in the next sentence he talks about a place called “Sara”, then says “but here they take the name “Suala” or “Sualy”. This was called by the Spanish Xualla and Joara. The English in Virginia spoke of the Saura people, then later in South Carolina they are called “Cheraw”. 

Quoting from Lederer's account;

“These parts were formerly possessed by the Tocci, alias Dugi; but they are extinct; and the Indians now seated here, are distinguished into the several Nations of Mahoe, Nuntaneuck, alias Nuntaly, Nahyssan, Sapon, Managog, Mangoack, Akenatzy, and Monakin, et cetera. One Language is common to them all, though they differ in Dialects. The parts inhabited here are pleasant and fruitful, being cleared of Wood, and laid open to the Sun. The Valleys feed numerous herds of Deer and Elks larger than Oxen: these Valleys they call Savanae, being Marsh grounds at the foot of the Apalataei, and yearly laid under water in the beginning of Summer by floods of melted Snow falling down from the Mountains.”

He talks of tribes that “are now extinct”, the Tacit and the Dugi. We know the Cherokee later called the regions west of the Mountains and to their north “a dark and bloody land”. We know the English found Kentucky virtually uninhabited. We know there were great cities at one time from Illinois to Ohio that were abandoned. We might assume there were terrible Indian wars in the past that depopulated this region. 

He mentions all those Eastern Siouan city-states – saying they speak the same language, with local different dialects. He then tells of several bands of the Catawba Nation: Mahoe, Nuntaneuck (aka Nuntaly), Nahyssan, Sapon, Managog, Managoack, Akenatzy, Monackin. I suspect what Lederer calls “tribes” are actually “cities” or “villages”. If you remove the “Nah” pefix as well as the last letter “n” from Nahyssan you get “Yssa”, a major city in the Catawba confederation, recorded by the Spaniards. “Akenatzy” is obviously “Occoneechi” from a later date. We also recognize “Monackin” and “Sapon.” “Mahoe”, “Managog” and “Managoack” are obviously the same as “Manahoak” as well. “Nuntaneuck” is the only one I haven't seen before, and can't explain in some manner. The last surviving speaker of the Tutelo language that went to live with the Six Nations said the word for all the people was “Yesah” – and I can't help but recall in the south, the word for all the people was translated in several ways – Esaw, Issa/Iswa, Yssa – it is the same word translated slightly differently by different scribes.

He mentions seasonal lakes being formed from the melt of the mountain snows, but perhaps some of these lakes were due to beaver dams that are now gone. Perhaps the people learned from the beaver and created a few dams themelves. He mentions “elk larger than oxen”. These animals must be the eastern bison, now extinct. No other North American animal of the region was “larger than oxen”. They were said to have been smaller than plains bison, though. but very similar. 

About Customs and Ways

As Leaderer continues, he breaks for a moment to talk about the people he meets.

“The Indians now seated in these parts, are none of those which the English removed from Virginia, but a people driven by an Enemy from the Northwest, and invited to sit down here by an Oracle above four hundred years since, as they pretend: for the ancient inhabitants of Virginia were far more rude and barbarous, feeding onely upon raw flesh and fish, until these taught them to plant Corn, and shewed them the use of it.

“But before I treat of their ancient Manners and Customs, it is necessary I should shew by what means the knowledge of them hath been conveyed from former ages to posterity. Three ways they supply their want of Letters: first by Counters, secondly by Emblemes or Hieroglyphicks, thirdly by Tradition delivered in long Tales from father to son, which being children they are made to learn by rote.”

comment: The first paragraph says some newcomers arrived about 400 years earlier. Since this was written about 1670, 400 years earlier makes it the year 1270 since the arrival of the “newcomers”. I could speculate to my heart’s content. All I can do is guess, and you can do that without my help.

As for the second paragraph, it is equally challenging. It says they had a form of writing. They had a means of describing numbers. They had some type of hirogliphics. That would be where a symbol represented a word. And they also passed down stories from farther to son, or from mother to daughter. Thinking of the Maya again, they DID have a written language. This implies that they did want to pass down their knowledge from generation to generation. They wanted what they know to be passed down to us. 

He continues;

For Counters, they use either Pebbles, or short scantlings of straw or reeds. Where a Battle has been fought, or a Colony seated, they raise a small Pyramid of these stones, consisting of the number slain or transplanted. Their reeds and straws serve them in Religious Ceremonies: for they lay them orderly in a Circle when they prepare for Devotion or Sacrifice; and that performed, the Circle remains still; for it is Sacriledge to disturb or to touch it: the disposition and sorting of the straws and reeds, shew what kinde of Rites have there been celebrated, as Invocation, Sacrifice, Burial, et cetera.

Comment: If there was a battle fought at a location, the dead were honored by placing a pile of rocks at the location. There is mention of a new colony being formed and moved to another location. This makes perfect sense. A parcel of ground can support only so many people. As a town grew, they could sense the number of deer harvested was growing smaller, the numbers of fish caught in the streams dwindled, and the wild fowl became scarcer and scarcer. There'd come a time when they'd have to separate into two bands. But again, I’m just guessing. No matter how much I “guess” I can never presume to know. 

He continues –

“The faculties of the minde and body they commonly express by Emblems. By the figure of a Stag, they imply swiftness; by that of a Serpent, wrath; of a Lion, courage; of a Dog, fidelity; by a Swan, they signifie the English, alluding to their complexion, and flight over the Sea.

“An account of Time, and other things, they keep on a string or leather thong tied in knots of several colours. I took particular notice of small wheels serving for this purpose among the Oenocks [Eno’s], because I have heard that the Mexicans use the same. Every Nation gives his particular Ensigne or Arms: The Sasquesahanaugh a Tarapine, or small Tortoise; the Akenatzy's a Serpent; the Nahyssanes three Arrows, et cetera. In this they likewise agree with the Mexican Indians. Vid. ]os. à Costa.”

Comment: I was intrigued by the measurement of the concept of time. What he calls “Oenocks” the “Eno”. Lederer says the Eno had “small wheels”. But the American Indian peoples never invented the wheel. Each band also had a symbol that represented it. A symbol of 3 arrows would immediately be understood by other Catawban bands – but non-Catawban people might not understand it. Leaving marks in the soil, or symbols carved into the bark of trees would have been a means of communicating.

Continuing the narrative;

“They worship one God, Creater of all things, whom some call Okaeè others Mannith: to him alone the High priest, or Periku offers Sacrifice; and yet they believe he has no regard to sublunary affairs, but commits the Government of Mankinde to lesser Deities, as Quiacosough and Tagkanysough, that is, good and evil Spirits: to these the inferior Priests pay their devotion and Sacrifice, at which they make recitals, to a lamentable Tune, of the great things done by their Ancestors.

“From four women, viz. Pash, Sepoy, Askarin, and Maraskarin, they derive the Race of Mankinde; which they therefore divide into four Tribes, distinguished under several names. They very religiously observe the degrees of Marriage, which they limit not to distance of Kindred, but difference of Tribes, which are continued in the issue of the Females: now for two of the same Tribe to match, is abhorred as Incest, and punished with great severity.”

comment: “Mannith” is similar to “Manitou.” He seems to imply “Quiacosough” means “good spirits” and “Tagkanysough” means “bad spirits”. He mentions all mankind being born from four women. I can see the similarity of “Sepoy” and “Saponi”. I see If you simply add “Mar” to “Askarin” you get the second and third woman founders. When they say people of the same tribe cannot mate, he means people of the same community. That is, a Saponi could not marry another Saponi, or an Eno couldn't marry another Eno. Citizens of a village must have been very closely related to one another. For this law to have had to have been enacted.

He continues talking about death rituals and so on. As for intellect of the Indians, he says;

“I have been present at several of their Consultations and Debates, and to my admiration have heard some of their Seniors deliver themselves with as much Judgement and Eloquence as I should have expected from men of Civil education and Literature.” 

comment: American Indians have always been brilliant orators.

On the 13th of March, 1669, Lederer purchased a stone from the Indians and gave it to Gov. Brekeley.

In May he starts his second expedition. He adds;

“The twentieth of May 1670, one Major Harris and myself, with twenty Christian Horse, and five Indians, marched from the Falls of James-River, in Virginia, towards the Monakins; and on the Two and twentieth were welcomed by them with Volleys of Shot. Near this Village we observed a Pyramid of stones piled up together, which their Priests told us, was the Number of an Indian Colony drawn out by Lot from a Neighbour-Countrey over-peopled, and led hither by one Monack, from whom they take the Name of Monakin. Here enquiring the way to the Mountains, an ancient Man described with a staffe two paths on the ground; one pointing to the Mahocks, and other to the Nahyssans.” 

Comment: This confirms what we thought earlier. The land could support only so many people. The names of some bands were derived from their founders or chiefs.

He talks of the flour that Lederer's men took with them, how it turned bad. The Indian corn however remained good to eat. 

So we know that in 1670 these northern bands of the Catawban peoples were still strong communities.

Please remember Lederer's account of Northern Catawban band's customs and ways is the only account I have found. Anytime anyone looks at another person's culture, we are viewing it through glasses tinted by our own culture. Europeans considered many American Indian practices as extremely cruel (which was true) while forgetting their own culture was still burning witches alive, and Christian Catholics and Protestants were gruesomely torturing one another, as well. Europeans often believed a “commoner” was incapable of telling the truth, until he’d been tortured.

No matter how objective Lederer might have tried to be, there is no way in his short span of time that he could have understood the rituals and customs of the Northern Catawba Bands of Indians. Nor is there any means by which I can understand them, either. I merely make suggestions as to why something might have been done, based upon empirical evidence available. I must humbly ask forgiveness for my flaws in understanding, as I try to understand and eliminate them.

John Lawson

About 1701 we have the accounts of another traveler, John Lawson.

Quoting Hudson; Our fullest early description of the Catawba comes to us from the hands of John Lawson who visited them in January 1701 while on a journey from Charleston, South Carolina to the mouth of the Tar River in North Carolina. Having made contact with the Sewee, Santee, Congaree, and Wateree Nations while traveling on foot up the eastern banks of the Santee-Wateree-Catawba River system, he came upon the Catawba Nation situated a few miles from the present day 'Old Reservation'. (21)

First, we must make an effort to understand the people he is talking about. Hudson refers to the 'nations' of the Wateree, Congaree, Sewee, Santee, and Catawba. These are all part of ONE nation, one People, and NOT separate nations. It appears that some of the English only had a vague notion of this concept, where the Indians were concerned. What happens to each of these groups only makes sense once we realize they are all part of one greater confederated nation.

Hudson adds; “The Waxhaw, Esaw, and Sugaree Nations were situated near the Catawba Nation, and all four appear to have been closely related.”

Lawson tells a little about the Catawban Bands. Hudson tells us; Upon arriving among the Waxsaws, Lawson was entertained in a cabin that impressed him as being unusually large and well built. The Indians of these four nations lived in villages scattered through an area at about ten miles across. Each of these villages had a 'theatre' or 'stage-house' that was larger in size and different in construction from the bark-covered houses in which they lived. In these public buildings, ambassadors from other nations were received, political affairs were deliberated, and rituals were performed. Each village apparently had a government council of elders with a residing king and war captain, the relationships among these being governed by a personal code of etiquette. At the same time as Lawson's visit, an ambassador came from the Saponi Nation, located 150 miles to the north. (22)

He speaks of dances performed for him, saying at the end of the dance the young men took their “sexual license” with as many women as they wanted for a “bed-fellow.” When reading these things, please remember Lawson had no prior knowledge of these people, and he did not speak their language. For all we know, these men's wives might have been there watching their husband's dancing. These warriors and the female “bed fellows” he mentions, might have known one another better than Lawson realized. He might have seen only what he wanted to see. 

Also note when speaking of the Waxsaw, Esaw, Sugaree and Catawba, he speaks “of these four nations” . . . They are clearly part of the same nation. These are in reality more like four bands, four counties, four city-states, or what-ever designation you think most proper. They are confederated together in such a way that if one needs help, the others can come to their aid if necessary. It is a mutually beneficial arrangement. Also note he speaks of EACH Waxsaw village as though there were several. Later we simply hear of THE Waxsaw village. The numbers of the people are in decline. Thirty years earlier Lederer spoke of the Saponi and Monacan as though their numbers were on the rise. Now the reverse seems to be the case.

In 1701 John Lawson found the Saponi dwelling on the Yadkin River in North Carolina near the present town of Salisbury, North Carolina. Haithcock next mentions that the Saponi had moved by 1711 to a place called “Sapona Town,” a short distance from the Roanoke River, 15 miles west of Windsor, Bertie County, North Carolina. This was shortly before the Tuscarora War of that same year. This means the Saponi, Eno, and Sisipahaw all three lived near the Tuscarora. Haithcock mentions one Saponi took the name “Johnson”, after a settler named John Johnson, who lived at Sapona Town. In 1713 Virginia's governor, Alexander Spotswood, established some lands for the Eastern Siouan’s from Virginia. Elements of the following bands were reported to have gone there, to a place called “Fort Christanna”; Saponi, Tutelo, Occoneechi, Meiponstky, Monacan, and the Stegarsky. These all came to be called the Saponi Nation. Tanhee Soka, Saponi, signed his mark at Fort Christanna. (23).

The Northern Catawban bands (which included the Saponi and others) were almost constantly on the move from the 1670s until they arrived at Christanna in 1713. That's between 40 and 50 years. During this time their numbers decreased drastically. Why? Was it the slave trade? War? Disease? All of the above?

John Lawson visited the Saponi town when it was located on the Yadkin River in 1701., near the present town of Salisbury. Per Haithcock, they then moved to Bertie County, North Carolina with the Tutelo. He states that the Saponi, Tutelo, and Occoneechi, had moved to a 'new town', called Sapona Town, just before the Tuscarora War 

James Mooney was first to refer to the Catawba as “Eastern Siouan”. (24) Hudson disagrees with some of Mooney's conclusions. In making his case, he makes a very important observation. While quoting Sapir, he says, “ . . . as Sapir was careful to point out, inferential evidence must be subjected to vigorous scrutiny and methodological rigor, otherwise it can lead to a badly distorted reconstruction, particularly in the hands of someone with a “theory”.(Sapir 1951:394).

Sapir was ahead of his time on this topic, especially with regards to the Melungeons – people should heed his warning. We have all of these ridiculous ideas as to the origin of the Melungeons while reality is staring us in the face. (25)

This is so very important as we shall see. One of the main reasons I am writing this is to explain why so many ideas about the Melungeons are in error. It is my hope that seeing the true origins of the Melungeons will help develop some pride in their American Indian heritage, and that they shall learn to reject the many theories about their origins that are pure and utter nonsense.

References:

12. https://archive.org/stream/firstexploratio02bidggoog/firstexploratio02bidggoog_djvu.txt. Harvard University Library of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology GIFT of Lombard C. Jones; Falmouth, Massachusetts ; The First Explorations of the Trans- Allegheny Region by the Virginians 1650-1674; By Clarence Walworth Alvord and Lee Bidgood; The Arthur H. Clark Company; (c) 1912

13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahittan

14. https://archive.org/stream/firstexploratio02bidggoog/firstexploratio02bidggoog_djvu.txt. Harvard University Library of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology GIFT of Lombard C. Jones; Falmouth, Massachusetts; The First Explorations of the Trans- Allegheny Region by the Virginians 1650-1674; By Clarence Walworth Alvord and Lee Bidgood; The Arthur H. Clark Company; (c) 1912 

15. A Journal from Virginia Beyond the Appalachian Mountains in Septr., 1671, Sent to the Royal Society by Mr. Clayton, and Read Aug. 1, 1688, Before the Said Society      https://www.jstor.org/stable/1915561

16. THE JOURNEYS OF JAMES NEEDHAM AND GABRIEL ARTHUR http://cherokeeregistry.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=406&Itemid=615

17.  “The Indian Slave Trade, The Rise of the English Empire in the American South," 1670-1717”; Alan Gallay; Yale University Press, © 2002. Gallay says “Woodward’s visit to the Westo was a success, and it resulted in a profitable trade in Indian slaves that lasted from 1675-1680.”

18. “The Indian Slave Trade, The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717”; Alan Gallay; Yale University Press, © 2002

19. “The Catawba Nation,” University of Georgia Press; by Charles M. Hudson; © 1970

20. The Discoveries of John Lederer”, by John Lederer, 1672

21. “The Catawba Nation,” University of Georgia Press; by Charles M. Hudson; © 1970 

22. ditto

23. ditto

24. “The Siouan Tribes of the East”; James Mooney; U. S. Government Printing Office, 1894.

25. Edward Sapir; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Sapir ; 1884-1939; Prussian-American anthropologist-linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the early development of the discipline of linguistics

Maps:

 (5) Map 5. A General MAP of the whole Territory which Johan Lederer traversed. Collected and Translated out of Latin from his Discourse and Writings, By Sir William Talbot Baronet. Sed nos immensum spatiis confecimus aequor, Et iam tempus equum fumantia solvere colla. Virg.Georg. London, Printed by J.C. For Samuel Heyrick, at Grays Innegate in Holborn. 1672.