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Total population

Extinct as a tribe

Regions with significant populations

North Carolina

Languages

Carolina Algonquian

Religion

Tribal religion

Related ethnic groups

Roanoke

Croatan

The village of Secoton in

Roanoke, painted by

Governor John White c.1585

CroatanFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Croatan were a small

Native American group livingin the coastal areas of what is

now North Carolina. They may

have been a branch of the

larger Roanoke people or

allied with them.[1]

Contents

1 History

1.1 Beliefs

1.2 European

colonization

1.3 The Lost

Colony

1.4 Speculation

of the fate of the

"Lost Colony"

2 Modern era and

legacy

3 See also

4 Notes5 References

History

The Croatoan lived in current Dare County,

an area encompassing the Alligator River,

Croatan Sound, Roanoke 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. Scholars believe the Algonquians had a total population of

5,000 to 10,000.[1]

Croatan Indians were a part of the Carolina Algonquians, a southeasterndesignation 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 demonstrates very effectively 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 theworld carried more respect towards their leaders. Werowance actually

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 wealth

to his tribe, otherwise respect was lost. [1]

Beliefs

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. 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 theirmagical abilities. Conjurors were thought to have powers from a personal

connection with a supernatural being (mostly spirits from the animal

world). [2]

European colonization

It is known that the coming of Europeans upset tribal relationships; some

tribes, such as the Algonquian people, advocated cooperation while others,such as the Yamasee, Cherokee, and Chickasaw, resisted. The conflict

between certain tribes and the English settlers later led to the Yamasee

War. Those tribes that did maintain contact with the settlers gained power

through their access to and control of European trade goods. While the

English may have held great military might 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 good terms with English settlers of the Roanoke Colony.

Wanchese, the last leader of the Roanoke, accompanied the English on a

trip to England.[3]

The Lost Colony

It is possible that 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 in Virginia, but he

found his colony had been long deserted. The buildings had collapsed and



Governor John White

returned to Roanoke in 1590

to find the words "croatoan"

carved on a tree.

"the houses [were] taken down".[4] The

few clues about the colonists’ whereabouts

included the letters "CROATOAN" carved

into a tree.[4] Croatoan was the name of a

nearby island (likely modern-day Hatteras

Island) and a local tribe of NativeAmericans. 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.[4] White foundno such cross and was hopeful that his family was still alive.[4]

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"

Based on legend, some people said that the Lumbee tribe, based in North

Carolina, were descendants of the Croatoan 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, proposedthe “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. [5]

Other scholars believe the Lumbees to be descended from an eastern

Siouan group called the Cheraws. During the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries a number of Siouan-speaking tribes occupied southeastern North

Carolina. John R. Swanton, a pioneering ethnologist at the SmithsonianInstitution, 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.[6]

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 the Virginia and North Carolina frontiers in

the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. These "free people of

color" were mostly descendants of white 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.[7][8] In Robeson

County, they may have intermarried with Native American survivors and

acculturated as Indian.

Modern era and legacy

The Lost Colony Center for Science and Research has excavated English

artifacts within the territory of the former Croatan tribe. The artifacts mayalso be evidence of trade with the tribe, or of Indians' 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.

A historical marker placed by the state of Georgia states "In 1870 a group

of Croatan Indians 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 TradingCompany, 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[9]

The University of Bristol, UK have also been running excavations down on

Hatteras Island in conjunction with the Croatoan Archaeological Society.

Hateras 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 fascinating European trade items.

See also

Algonquian languages

Algonquian peoplesAquascogoc

Carolina Algonquian



Dasamongueponke

Roanoke tribe

Secotan

Notes"Indian Towns and Buildings of Eastern North Carolina"

(http://www.nps.gov/fora/forteachers/indian-towns-and-buildings-

of-eastern-north-carolina.htm), Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, National

Park Service, 2008, accessed 24 Apr 2010

1.

Blu (2004). Handbook of North American Indians. Sturtevant and Fogelson.

pp. 323-326.

2.

Kupperman (1984). Roanoke: The Abandoned Colony . Rowman andAllanheld. pp. 45–65.

3.

Milton, Giles (2000). Big Chief Elizabeth - How England's Adventurers

Gambled and Won the New World . London: Hodder & Stoughton.

pp. 265–266. ISBN 978-0-340-74881-7.

4.

Blu (2004). Handbook of North American Indians. Sturtevant and Fogelson.

pp. 155.

5.

Encyclopedia of North American Indians, Houghton Mifflin

(http://www.credoreference.com/entry/hmenai/lumbee)

6.

Heinegg, Paul. "Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South

Carolina, Maryland and Delaware" (http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/).

Paul Heinegg. Retrieved 15 February 2009.

7.

Stilling, Glenn Ellen Starr. "Lumbee origins: The Weyanoke-Kearsey

connection" (http://linux.library.appstate.edu/lumbee/16/WOOD007.html).

The Lumbee Indians: An Annotated Bibliography . Glenn Ellen Starr Stilling.

Retrieved 30 July 2008.

8.

http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/topics/historical_markers/county/bulloch/croatan-indian-community

9.

References

K.I. Blu: "Lumbee", Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 14:

278-295, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2004

T. Hariot, J. White, J. Lawson: A vocabulary of Roanoke, vol. 13,

Merchantville: Evolution Publishing, 1999

Th. Ross: American Indians in North Carolina, South Pines, NC: Karo

Hollow Press, 1999

G.M. Sider: Lumbee Indian histories, vol. 2, Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1993

S.B. Weeks: The lost colony of Roanoke, its fate and survival , New

York: Knickbocker Press, 1891

J.R. Swanton: "Probable Identity of the Croatan Indians." U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Office of Indian Affairs, 1933

J. Henderson: "The Croatan Indians of Robeson County, North



Carolina", U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Office of Indian Affairs, 1923

K.O. Kupperman: "Roanoke, the Abandoned Colony", Rowman and

Littlefield, 1984

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Croatan&oldid=667213316"

Categories: Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands

Algonquian peoples Native American history of North Carolina

Native American tribes in North Carolina Algonquian ethnonyms

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