Secotan
The Secotans were one of eight groups of American Indians dominant in the Carolina sound region, between 1584 and 1590, with which English colonizers had varying degrees of contact. Other local groups included the Aquascogoc, Chowanoke, Chesapeake, Dasamongueponke, Weapemeoc, Moratuc, Ponouike, Neusiok, and Mangoak, and all resided along the banks of the Albemarle and Pamlico sounds.[1]
Booty booty
Amadas and Barlowe, Secotans and Neiosioke
Before the English placed their first settlement on Roanoke Island, Master Philip Amadas and Master Arthur Barlowe executed an expedition on April 27, 1584, on behalf of Sir Walter Raleigh, who received an English charter, to establish a colony a month earlier. During their expedition, Barlowe took detailed notes relating to conflicts and rivalries between different groups of Native Americans.[2] In one such account, Wingina, the wereoance or chief of the Secotans, explained his own tribal history, in relation to a neighboring tribe at the mouth of the Neuse River, the Neusiok, referred to as the Neiosioke by Barlowe. According to Wingina, the Secotans endured years of warfare with the Neiosioke, and "some years earlier," he met with the Neiosioke king, in an effort to ensure a "permanent coexistence." The two leaders arranged a feast between the two groups. An unspecified number of Secotan men and thirty women attended a feast in the town of Neiosioke. The Neiosioke executed an ambush on the Secotans at the feast, and by the time fighting ended, the Neiosioke had "slewn them every one, reserving the women and children only."[3]
In conveying this "inter-tribal" history to Barlowe, Wingina saw an opportunity to advance the interest of the Secotans. Wingina and his people attempted on several occasions to convince the English to join them in devising a surprise attack against the Neiosioke. The Englishmen, uncertain of "whether their perswasion be to the ende they may be revenged of their enemies, or for the love they beare to us," declined to help the Secotans wage war against their rivals. Instead, the English established a trusting relationship with the Secotans, exemplified by the willingness of two Secotan men, Manteo and Wanchese, to accompany Amadas and Barlowe back to England.[4]
Later records
The Secotan remained in the same area until 1644-5, when they were attacked and driven off by colonists from Virginia Colony during the last of the Anglo-Powhatan Wars. English settlement in the area began to increase soon afterwards, and it was officially transferred from Virginia Colony to the Province of Carolina in 1665.
See also
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- Algonquian languages
- Algonquian peoples
- Aquascogoc
- Carolina Algonquian
- Chowanoke
- Chesapeake (tribe)
- Dasamongueponke
Notes
- ^ Names of geographic features and Native American groups have changed over time. The English knew the Albemarle and Pamlico sounds as the Roanoke Sea. The English knew the location of the Mangoaks, but according to the depositions collected from 1707-1711, the Tuscarora initiated the sale of the same lands to the Weapemeoc in 1645. This provides evidence that the Tuscarora and Mangoak existed as names for the same group of people. Many commonly used tribe names actually refer to individual villages, which existed within tribes. The Secotan tribal area included the villages of both Roanoke and Croatan, though many sources inaccurately refer to theses villages as separate Native American groups. Bernard G. Hoffman, "Ancient Tribes Revisited: A summary of Indian distribution and movement in the North Eastern United States from 1534 to 1779, Parts I-III." Ethnohistory, 14, no. 1 / 2 (1967): 30.
- ^ Paul E. Hoffman, Spain and the Roanoke Voyages, 26-27.
- ^ Stick, Roanoke Island: The Beginnings of English America, 36, 42, 50-51.
- ^ Stick, Roanoke Island: The Beginnings of English America, 51-52.
References
- Hoffman, Paul E., Spain and the Roanoke Voyages (Raleigh: Division of Archives and History; North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, 1987), 18-19.
- Kupperman, Karen Ordahl. Indians and English: Facing Off in Early America. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000.
- Mancall, Peter C. Hakluyt's Promise: An Elizabethan’s Obsession for an English America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
- Milton, Giles, Big Chief Elizabeth - How England's Adventurers Gambled and Won the New World, Hodder & Stoughton, London (2000)
- Vaughan, Alden T. "Sir Walter Raleigh's Indian Interpreters, 1584-1618." The William and Mary Quarterly 59.2 (2002): 341-376.