TUSCARORA

Iroquoian-speaking Indians of North America who occupied what is now North Carolina when first encountered by Europeans in the 17th century. They were noted for their use of Indian hemp for fibre and medicine; their name derives from an Iroquoian term for hemp gatherers. Though expert hunters, they also depended heavily on cultivating corn (maize). Later they extended their economy by trading rum to neighbouring Indian groups. The typical Tuscarora dwelling at the time of first European contact was a round lodge of poles overlaid with bark. Evidence suggests that they were organized in exogamous clans, with the clans grouped into two moieties in each of the three tribes constituting the Tuscarora nation. Depredations of Tuscarora women by colonists, who also kidnapped men, women, and children to be sold into slavery and took tribal lands without payment, led to the outbreak of war in 1711, following the failure of peaceful Tuscarora attempts to obtain relief. Over the following 90 years groups of Tuscarora fled or drifted northward, having been admitted into the Iroquois League (q.v.; Iroquois Confederacy) as the sixth nation. During the American Revolution many Tuscarora supported the colonists; those who favoured the British were granted lands on Grand River reservation, Ontario. The highest estimate of Tuscarora population in the early 18th century was about 5,600. By the second half of the 20th century their numbers had dwindled to the hundreds, living in New York state and adjacent parts of Canada.