The Indian Woods historical marker at the intersection of St. Francis Road and U.S. Highway 17 in Bertie County is easily missed while cruising at 55 or 60 miles an hour.

Located at the edge of a farmer’s field after the fall harvest of cotton, the sign leans to the north, and hints of the story and its aftermath of an almost forgotten war between Native Americans and colonists in the early 18th century.

It is the northernmost of at least seven signs that are found throughout coastal North Carolina from Wayne County to Bertie County that trace the story of that conflict.

The Tuscarora War was brutal and horrific. Launching a coordinated attack on the morning of Sept. 22, 1711, Tuscarora warriors slaughtered 140 men, women and children throughout eastern North Carolina.

“The Tuscarora devastated white settlements in the Pamlico Neuse region and raised serious fears for the continuance of English occupation in North Carolina,” Thomas Parramore wrote for the North Carolina Historical Review in 1982.

Unable to defend its own people, the North Carolina colony’s general assembly begged Virginia and South Carolina for help.

Virginia refused to send troops, but put pressure on neutral Tuscarora villages in its colony to remain out of the conflict. South Carolina sent combined white and Native forces.

In the end in March of 1713, when the last pitched battle of the war was fought at Fort Neoheroka, which is present day Snow Hill in Greene County, at least a thousand Tuscarora were dead and another thousand sold into slavery in South Carolina.

In North Carolina, as many as 200 colonists were killed and the combined white and Native combatants provided by South Carolina suffered an additional 200 deaths.

Tuscarora lineage

The Tuscarora were part of the Iroquois, whose original lands stretched from New York state into Canada. The migration to North Carolina most likely occurred sometime around the 1500s, Dr. Arwin Smallwood, dean of the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at North Carolina Central University, told Coastal Review.

Smallwood, who traces his lineage to the Tuscarora people, grew up in Indian Woods and has studied the history of the Tuscarora extensively.

“In the 1500s they’d already moved down from (New York) and settled North Carolina,” he said, adding that “they never broke their blood ties to the five nations,” which are the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca.

By the 1580s, when Sir Walter Raleigh’s doomed expeditions landed on Roanoke Island, the Tuscarora were well established in eastern North Carolina and probably were the dominant Native nation of the region. They may have been the ones who decided the colony’s fate.

“Tuscarora oral traditions say they were the ones who destroyed the Lost Colony,” Smallwood said. “They always had large numbers of people who had European characteristics like red and auburn hair, even sometimes blonde hair, but definitely what (Native Americans) called the Tuscarora eye, which was blue-green, kind of a hazel eye, that was prevalent throughout the Tuscaroras and that distinguished them.”

War: Longtime complaints

At its simplest, the Tuscarora War was about long-established complaints of the Tuscarora: Encroachment on lands they had traditionally controlled and unfair and dishonest trading practices.

But, Smallwood noted, there were other factors at play.

It was “trade routes. The Tuscaroras controlled the Piedmont and the coastal plains of North Carolina. They controlled all the major trade routes between North Carolina and Virginia,” he said. “Anyone who needed knives, axes, guns, gunpowder, whatever they had to trade through them, including rum. They had to trade through the Tuscaroras. For the southeastern Indians, it was a way of eliminating them as the people who monopolized trade.”

It is possible that, after at least 60 years of observing the internal politics of the North Carolina colony, the Tuscarora were aware of the internal rivalries that were threatening to tear the colony apart, and that may have played a role in the timing of the initial attack.

Cary’s Rebellion pitted Thomas Cary, the Quaker-leaning former governor of the colony, against Edward Hyde, who the Lords Proprietors had selected to govern the colony. The rebellion exposed the deep political divisions within the colony that led to open warfare with Hyde finally taking the reins of the governorship in 1711.

At that time, the colony was divided into two counties: Albemarle in the north and Bath in the south. Although in 1711 the nominal capital of the colony was Bath. There was no government office there and it’s doubtful if the population of the town ever reached 300 people.

The northern Albemarle colony was dominated by the supporters of Hyde and the resentment from Cary’s attempt to wrest control of the colony permeated the region.

“The Cary Rebellion had pitted Albemarle against Bath and had left the colonists of the two counties somewhat at odds with each other. It was by no means clear that Albemarle would rush to the defense of Bath County and, in fact, it did not,” Parramore wrote.

If there was a proximate cause of the war, it was the settlement of New Bern by Swiss immigrants and members of the Palatine religious sect escaping religious persecution in Europe.

“New Bern was built on what (the Tuscarora) considered to be part of their capital city,” Smallwood said.

Baron Christopher DeGraffenreid, the founder of New Bern, in his “Account of the Tuscarora War,” touched on many of the issues that have been cited as causing the conflict.

“What caused the Indian war was firstly, the slanders and instigations of certain plotters against Governor Hyde, and secondly, against me, in that they talked the Indians into believing that I had come to take their land,” he wrote. “Talked them out of this and it was proven by the friendliness I had shown them, as also by the payment for the land where I settled at the beginning (namely that upon which the little city of New Bern was begun), regardless of the fact that the seller was to have given it over to me free.”

Captured with surveyor John Lawson, DeGraffenreid was able to talk his way out of imprisonment and possible death.

It is possible Lawson could have avoided his fate, but, Smallwood said, “he quarreled with the chiefs. You’re being held prisoner, and you’ve been put on trial, and then you go argue with the prosecuting attorney and the judge who decides whether you live or die.”

Lawson, whose book “History of North Carolina” gave accurate and clear-eyed accounts of Native life in the colonies, was not so lucky, and may have had a hand in his own undoing. Accused by his captors of surveying the Tuscarora land for the purpose of selling it, he was tried and convicted and sentenced to death.

Like the North Carolina colony, the Tuscarora had internal divisions. Parramore described the Tuscarora as “not a nation and probably not even a confederacy though colonial perceptions of them had not traditionally recognized any significant internal divisions.”

Smallwood, however, paints a different picture.

“The whole structure was family based,” he said. “With that being said, they were all united because the whole nation is united by blood.”

Within that nation family, there were specific ways to make decisions that would affect all members for the Tuscarora nation, Smallwood said, describing the decision-making process as “a democracy.”

Smallwood explained that Lawson was convicted after “all of the chiefs met in the war council. In that council, they all agree to execute Lawson.”

War: First conflict

When the war first broke out in 1711, South Carolina sent military aid. Col. John Barnwell left South Carolina with “30 white men and nearly 500 Indians,” the Carolana website states.

Although Barnwell may have included giving military aid to North Carolina in his reasoning, by his actions and those of the men under his command, the profit that could be realized from the bounty on scalps and selling Native Americans into slavery was an important part of why he made the trip.

Thomas Peotta in his 2018 doctoral dissertation, “Dark Mimesis: A Cultural History of the Scalping Paradigm,” at the University of British Columbia, describes how profitable scalps and prisoners could be.

“Virginia and Carolina offered scalp and prisoner bounties to militiamen and allied Indians. Virginia…offered £20 per scalp to British colonists, while uninvolved Tuscaroras on Virginia’s frontier were offered a bounty of 6 blankets apiece…for the scalps of Hancock’s warriors, and market prices for enslaved women and children,” he wrote.

For Barnwell, the scalps had an additionally benefit, Peotta wrote, noting that “scalps and prisoners also offered a way to tally the dead: Barnwell’s forces recorded 52 scalps and 30 captives after (his) victory at Torhunta in 1712.” Torhunta is present day Pikeville in Wayne County.

After a series of battles with the Tuscarora including a 10-day siege at their main settlement in Craven County, Barnwell reached an agreement with the Tuscarora combatants to pay tribute and lay down their arms. After signing the agreement, he invited some of the local Indians, who had not attacked the colonists, into his camp. They were then seized, DeGraffenreid wrote, and sold into slavery

“He thought of a means of going back to South Carolina with profit, and under the pretense of a good peace he enticed a goodly number of the friendly Indians or savage Carolinians, took them prisoner at Core Town (to this his tributary Indians were entirely inclined because they hoped to get a considerable sum from each prisoner) and made his way home with his living plunder…This so unchristian act very properly embittered the rest of the Tuscarora and Carolina Indians very much, although heathens, so that they no longer trusted the Christians,” he wrote.

War: Conclusion

The action reignited the war, with King Hancock again leading the Tuscarora aligned with him. Renewing the conflict may have been justified, but it was not sanctioned by the war council, allowing the northern Tuscarora to remain neutral.

It would take another military expedition from South Carolina, this one led by Col. James Moore to end the war, but it also led to an open rift between King Hancock and the northern Tuscarora.

King Hancock was captured by northern Tuscarora at the orders of Chief Blunt (or Blount) in November of 1712 and turned over to North Carolina authorities who executed him.

The war did not end with Hancock’s death, however.

The agreement with Blunt was that he was to deliver the scalps of key leaders to North Carolina authorities by the end of the year. When he failed to do so, Moore renewed his campaign.

Finally, following a three-day siege at Fort Neoheroka the war came to an end, although there were sporadic raids and fighting until 1715.

Aftermath

For the tribal nations that had aligned with the South Carolina expeditions, their participation sparked “a continental war in the back country,” Smallwood explained.

“Because of the role,” Smallwood continued. “Those Indians in that area played in the war, it set off a continental Indian War. he Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondaga, the Senecas, and (allied tribes) came south, and they completely obliterated the (the southern tribes).”

In North Carolina, the war was a harbinger of extraordinary change. Initially the war’s end brought brought economic hardship to what was then called Bath County, an area that now includes Beaufort, Hyde, Bladen, Onslow, Carteret and New Hanover counties.

“The concentration of Indian attacks on frontier settlements during the war and the continuation of raids after the peace of 1713 stifled economic growth in Bath County and contributed to temporary food shortages throughout the colony,” Christine Styrna explained in a 1990 doctoral dissertation at the College of William and Mary.

But if the initial effect was to wreak havoc on the colony’s economy, the war also “provided certain colonial leaders with the opportunity to reinforce their economic and political power while serving as a catalyst for economic development,” Styrna noted.

Bath and New Bern had taken the brunt of the Tuscarora raids, and there, Styrna wrote, “colonists slowly rebuilt their homes and fortunes.”

The rest of the colony, though, experienced a “boom period” in which coastal and local trade increased dramatically. According to the shipping reports Styrna cites from the Boston Newsletter, “the number of vessels sailing to and from ports in North Carolina ports elsewhere between 1716 and 1720 increased fourfold in comparison to the five-year period before the war.”

If, however, North Carolina was on the road to recovery, the fate of the Tuscarora was one of enslavement and exile, leading to a diaspora of the tribal nation that stretched from North Carolina to Canada.

Most of the southern Tuscarora emigrated north. The largest group returned to the Iroquois in New York, becoming numerous enough that in 1722 the Tuscarora became the sixth nation of the Iroquois Confederacy.

As they moved north, some settled in Pennsylvania. There is today, a Tuscarora Mountain in south central Pennsylvania.

Many of them, though, settled in small communities throughout North Carolina and other states east of the Mississippi.

“It’s like you take a plate or mirror and you drop it on the floor and it shatters and shards go everywhere,” Smallwood said. “There’s some big chunks, and then there are lots of little chunks. And those little chunks, are scattered all over eastern North Carolina. They’re at least today, seven different factions of Tuscaroras that are (in North Carolina). And larger groups of them who are in Virginia, and even over into eastern Ohio.”

Coastal Review will not publish Thursday and Friday in observation of the Thanksgiving holiday.

Clarification: Dr. Smallwood is a descendant of the Tuscarora people, not the Cherokee. During his presentation when he said “we were Cherokees” he was explaining that many Native descendants assumed that Cherokee was their heritage. This story has been updated for clarity.

MOREHEAD CITY — About 50 made their way to Mug Shot Caffeine and Cocktails on a chilly Saturday afternoon in mid-January to hear Dr. Arwin D. Smallwood explain “The History of the Coree and Neusiok Native Americans of Carteret County, North Carolina.”

Smallwood was the first to present for Coastal Carolina Riverwatch’s new initiative, “Cultural Perspectives Series: Coastal Indigenous Communities and Ecological Wisdom.” The nonprofit organization works to protect the water bodies, estuaries and coastline in the White Oak River Basin, mostly in Carteret, Jones, Onslow and Pender counties.

“I’m still just an ol’ country boy from eastern North Carolina, and that’s never left me, and it’s still a part of who I am,” Smallwood began. “I grew up in Bertie County in Indian Woods,” which was the old Tuscarora reservation established in 1717.

Now the dean of the College of Liberal Arts at North Carolina Central University in Durham, Smallwood has spent his career studying the relationships among African Americans, Native Americans and Europeans in eastern North Carolina during the colonial and early antebellum periods.

During his presentation when he said that while growing up in Indian Woods, “we were Cherokees” and “grandma was Cherokee, right?” he was illustrating that many Native descendants assumed their heritage was Cherokee because the Tuscaroras’ history had largely been erased.

Smallwood said that he never fully understood who the Tuscarora and other Native groups in eastern North Carolina were until he was a student at N.C. Central, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

“We didn’t know anything much about our community, other than we’ve always been from there,” he said. “I knew all my family and all my people, but we didn’t know very much about the history of the area beyond our family lore and family stories.”

In a class on state history he read “North Carolina: The History of a Southern State,” written by “two great professors out of Chapel Hill,” Hugh Talmage Lefler and Albert Ray Newsome.

They mentioned his community, Indian Woods, by name in the first chapter, and “I said to myself, if this is significant enough to be in this book from these two great Carolina scholars, then it must be significant,” Smallwood explained. This inspired him to commit his life to learning and researching as much as possible about Native peoples, particularly Tuscaroras and those in eastern North Carolina.

Smallwood went on to earn his doctorate in early U.S. and African American history from the Ohio State University, and has held positions at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, the University of Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee, and Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois.

Smallwood said that, because he was presenting in Morehead City, he narrowed the focus of his talk to the Coree and Neusiok of Carteret County, who are among several groups in the region of Iroquois origin and have a connection to the Tuscarora whom he studies.

The Iroquois are an ancient people who migrated from Central America and Mexico thousands of years ago, to what is now the Midwest, then to what is now the state of New York. Many moved south from there, following the valleys and rivers, eventually reaching eastern North Carolina.

The Coree, Neusiok, Tuscarora, Meherrin and Nottoway, who straddle the Virginia and North Carolina border, are Iroquois, or the Haudenosaunee people. “We call them Iroquois. It was a name given to them by the French, but their Native name is Haudenosaunee,” or people of the long house.

“The Iroquois said that they had a confederation,” Smallwood continued. “If you attack one of the Iroquois, you attack them all. If you attack the Mohawks, then all of the Haudenosaunee would attack you. If you attack the Tuscarora, all of the Haudenosaunee and the Allies will attack you. They were a family. They were all kin.”

The Tuscaroras were the largest and most powerful group at one time and were scattered all over eastern North Carolina, from Virginia to the Cape Fear River. The population began to decline as early as Spanish contact in the late 1400s and early 1500s. By the start of the Tuscarora War in 1711, disease and conflict caused the once-heavily inhabited region to depopulate.

There were a “host of other Indians in Coastal North Carolina,” Smallwood said, and while some were Algonquian-speaking peoples, they were allied with the Tuscaroras and Corees at the start of the Tuscarora War, “and that war was as much about control of this region.”

After the Tuscarora war in the mid-1710s, “we call it the Tuscarora diaspora,” large numbers scattered all over North Carolina, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, eastern Ohio, Pennsylvania into Canada, and many returned to New York.

The Tuscarora had a sophisticated trade network spanning from the Outer Banks to as far south as Florida, as far north as Canada and as far west as Memphis.

The trading paths the Native people created are now the state roadways, like U.S. Highway 70 and N.C. 12, connecting old Native communities that are now North Carolina towns.

One reason the coastal areas were important for trade is the access to seashells. “Native Americans value seashells in the same way that Europeans value gold and silver, diamonds,” and other precious stones. Seashells had great spiritual meaning and were used as currency.

“And to trade, you had to speak Tuscarora. That was the trading language,” he said.

The maps Ralph Lane and John White illustrated when first reaching eastern North Carolina in 1584-85 show a well-established community with religious buildings, houses and gardens.

The Native people knew the land and cultivated for food or medicine different types of crops, many of which were introduced to the settlers and are still grown today. Smallwood gave the example of tobacco, which was originally ceremonial but is now a multibillion-dollar industry, corn, beans and white potatoes.

He recounted traditions from his childhood in Bertie County. Going out at night to fill up the bed of a truck with herring, having wild plums, strawberries, apples, pears and peaches, and watching his mother garden the way her mother did and her mother before her.

“I found that so many traditions and customs that we think are African American or European, are actually Native American and were transferred to us, and we have carried them on — cooking traditions, gardening habits and behaviors,” he said.

“We have passed them on from generation to generation. And we don’t even know why we did these things, but they were transferred somewhere when we were blending cultures,” Smallwood said.

The blending of cultures happened a handful of ways, including early white settlers marrying Native women, and white indentured servants and enslaved African Americans would run away places like the Great Dismal Swamp and intermix with the Native population.

“Our cultures are blended. Native, African and European, and it is what makes us Southern, what makes us American, what makes us North Carolinians,” but, “We’re different here in eastern North Carolina,” he said. “This is home, and we share a culture, and we share an identity, and that identity and that culture has been forged over hundreds of years.”

About the series

Riverwatch Executive Director Lisa Rider told Coastal Review that Smallwood’s “expertise in African American and Native American history, particularly in North Carolina, provides invaluable insights into the often-overlooked narratives that shape our understanding of the coastal communities we serve.”

The organizers launched the series that “recognizes the intertwined histories of African American and Indigenous communities in coastal North Carolina, emphasizing their shared heritage and contributions to ecological stewardship,” and are planning the next installment for this summer.

Secotan Alliance president and founder Gray Michael Parsons is scheduled to be the speaker Saturday, July 12, in Morehead City.

Riverwatch said that the Secotan Alliance’s inaugural symposium, “In the Spirit of Wingina and Beyond” held in May 2024 in Manteo inspired the cultural series. The theme for the 2025 symposium the last weekend in May is “Our Women: Leaders of Indigeneity.”

Parsons is a descendant of the Machapunga-Mattamuskeet people and has focused his efforts on honoring Indigenous leaders and promoting environmental stewardship. He is also the author of “Hope on Hatterask,” a work rooted in his Indigenous heritage.

Parsons founded the alliance “to educate the public on the traditional indigenous principles of the Secotan Alliance under the leadership of Chief Wingina.” The Secotan Alliance was first documented by the English at initial contact in 1584. The alliance territory included Dare, Hyde, Beaufort, Washington and Tyrrell counties. Chief Wingina was beheaded by the English military in June 1586 after an attempt to expand the alliance. 

Parsons told Coastal Review that his focus will be on providing a “functional definition and real world understanding of the ‘Indigenous Earth Ethic’ and the inclusive concept of what I refer to as ‘Indigen-us’.” 

He added that his goal is to empower all to see and understand their own deep indigenous ancestral identity as a part of the natural world.

“In doing so it is my hope that they will embrace and live a more sustainable life and thus one that is in what I call ‘Righteous Relationship with Creation,’” he said.

MOREHEAD CITY — Historian and North Carolina Central University College of Liberal Arts Dean Dr. Arwin D. Smallwood is set to deliver a lecture here Saturday exploring the history, culture and resilience of coastal Indigenous communities as Coastal Carolina Riverwatch’s guest speaker.

The nonprofit organization’s Coastal Indigenous Communities lecture series is part of an effort to educate, inspire and foster dialogue about the coastal region’s cultural heritage and environmental stewardship.

Tickets are free for the event, which is 4-6 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 11, at Mug Shot Caffeine and Cocktails, at 2302 Arendell St. Unit G, Morehead City. Advance registration is available online.

The Riverwatch group said Smallwood’s work has earned him recognition as a leading voice in the study of the American South, with a focus on Indigenous and African American communities. His historical expertise includes emphasis on the Tuscarora Tribe and African American landownership.

“His expertise on the history of the Tuscarora Indians, African American landownership, and the enduring environmental practices of marginalized groups offer valuable insights into the cultural and ecological legacy of our region,” according to the group.

Smallwood’s publications include “Bertie County: An Eastern Carolina History,” “The Atlas of African-American History and Politics,” and “NCAT vs. NCCU: More Than Just a Game,” which explores the cultural and historical significance of the rivalry between these two prominent historically Black institutions.

His accolades include the Gov. James E. Holshouser Jr. Award for Excellence in Public Service, and he has been awarded multiple prestigious fellowships.

Dr. Karrie Dixon, who has led Elizabeth City State University since 2018, has been elected as the new chancellor for North Carolina Central University.

Dixon is succeeding Johnson O. Akinleye, who is retiring June 30 after eight years leading the N.C. Central in Durham. She will begin her appointment on July 1.

The UNC Board of Governors, which is the policy making body for the University of North Carolina System, announced the appointment Thursday.

“Being a part of this incredible community of scholars, innovators and leaders on the sloping hills and verdant green is a dream come true,” Dixon said in a release. “NCCU embodies grit, innovation, leadership, purpose and legacy, and I am committed to building on our rich traditions and ensuring that our students, faculty, staff and alumni have the tools and opportunities necessary to succeed. I can’t wait to engage with all the possibilities that Durham has to offer.”

According to the Board of Governors, Dixon grew enrollment at Elizabeth City State “by nearly 70%, raised $24 million in private gifts and built partnerships that led to nearly $300 million in state and federal funding for facilities, infrastructure and academic programs” and raised employee morale from lowest in the UNC System to the highest.

UNC System President Peter Hans recommended Dixon following a national search that drew more than 50 candidates, resulting in three finalists endorsed by the N.C. Central’s Board of Trustees, according to the board.

“Karrie Dixon has been a widely admired leader in our university System for more than two decades,” Hans said. “She’s known for building great teams and taking on big challenges with honesty and optimism. I’m excited for NC Central and grateful to Chancellor Dixon for her commitment to this state.”

N.C. Central’s Board of Trustees Chair Kevin Holloway said that the university is “thrilled to have a dynamic new chancellor in Dr. Karrie Dixon to accelerate the growth of our great institution so our students and graduates can fully compete in a global economy.”

A first-generation college graduate, Dixon holds a bachelor’s degree in communication from N.C. State University, a master’s degree in speech communication from UNC Greensboro, and a doctorate in higher education administration from N.C. State University.

Dixon has worked within the UNC System for 23 years, moving up the ranks in academic positions at the system office, including as vice president for academic and student affairs, senior associate vice president for academic and student affairs and assistant vice president for academic and student affairs.

Previously she was assistant vice provost at N.C. State University, and before that served as a program assessment consultant in N.C. State’s Department of Chemical Engineering. She was an adjunct assistant professor at N.C. State’s College of Education, and taught communication at N.C. State and UNC Greensboro.

“This is a great day for North Carolina Central University,” said UNC Board of Governors Chair Randy Ramsey. “Karrie Dixon has made enormous contributions to eastern North Carolina during her years of service to Elizabeth City State University and will now be a tremendous leader for another of our state’s important public HBCUs. I congratulate her and look forward to seeing what this new chapter holds.”

MANTEO — A two-day program held here last week brought together researchers who study the Indigenous people of the late 16th century who lived in what is now northeastern North Carolina.

Held on the College of The Albemarle Dare County Campus, the two-day program, “In the Spirit of Wingina … and beyond,” was sponsored by the nonprofit Secotan Alliance and focused on what happened when the English first encountered the Native peoples of the Albemarle region.

The event’s keynote speaker, Dr. Michael Oberg, distinguished professor of history at the University of New York at Geneseo, is the author of “The Head in Edward Nugent’s Hand,” which details the events leading to the death of King or Chief Wingina of the Roanoac.

Wingina was among those to first greet English captains Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe. In their account, the explorers reported to Queen Elizabeth I that “The king is called Wingina, the countrey Wingandacoa.”

The captains’ account makes clear that Wingina was initially friendly to the English.

“Hee made all signes of joy and welcome, striking on his head and his breast and afterwardes on ours to shew wee were all one, smiling and making shewe the best he could of al love, and familiaritie,” the explorers wrote.

By the time of the second English expedition, however, under the military command of Ralph Lane, European disease had begun to ravage the Native populations. Wingina was apparently becoming convinced that there was something spiritually out of balance in the lives of his people.

Oberg noted during his talk that the Roanoke were at the time part of the Algonkin, or Algonquin, people and that they operated, “on a belief that bad things happen for reasons often tied to the failure or the ineffectiveness of rituals or the malevolence of spiritually powerful figures.”

The Roanoac attempted prayer with the English, with Wingina and his people going to great lengths to change the horror of the diseases that were ravaging their villages.

“He (Wingina) and some of his people took the Bible, the most physical manifestation in English ritual … and rubbed the book on his body,” Oberg said.

Nothing worked and so the Native people withdrew from Roanoke Island, but before leaving, Wingina told Lane there was a gathering of tribes at the headwaters of the Albemarle Sound that were planning on attacking and wiping out the English.

Lane headed to the village of Chowanoac, captured the chief, who under duress said that Wingina was the actual plotter.

Lane then returned to Wingina’s village where he requested a meeting over what he claimed was the theft of a silver cup.

On June 15, 1586, Lane and Wingina met.

“After some time talking, Lane yells out the password, ‘Christ our victor,” and they opened fire,” Oberg said of the incident.

Wounded, Wingina ran into the forest with English soldiers in pursuit. Sometime later “… Edward Nugent emerges from the woods with Wingina’s head.”

With that history of deception and violence on the part of the English, the failure of the Roanoke Colony and the 115 to 120 colonists who arrived in 1587 may have seemed preordained.

There were, however, other factors.

Studies of tree rings show that the colonists arrived during a time of extreme drought, when it was all the area Tribal nations could do to feed themselves.

There was also a diplomatic outreach from the governor of the colony, John White, following the killing of colonist George Howe at the hands of a tribal leader, Wanchese.

The attempted diplomacy ended disastrously, with White, who had failed to get what he wanted from the local tribe, attacking a village, where “he kills the wrong people,” Oberg noted.

“And, like all little men and cowards, blame the victims,” Oberg continued. “‘If only they told us they were there, we wouldn’t have killed them.’”

Oberg, who had attended opening night of the outdoor drama, “The Lost Colony,” on Roanoke Island on the night before his lecture, talked about how the drama interpreted historic events.

“If you went to the play, you’ve seen one version of (what happened). I’m certain I don’t know what happened,” he said. “Whatever happened, Indigenous people decided their fate.”

For the Native people, it was the beginning of a period of change that was traumatic and devastating.

Oberg emphasized that there is a tendency to think of the story of the founding of the United States as a seminal event, but to the Native people it may have simply been a continuation of what they had already been experiencing.

“Was it just one chapter in a prolonged era of warfare that ran from the middle of the 18th century through the first quarter of the 19th century, the replacement of one tyrant imperialist, George III, with another, George the First, Washington?” Oberg asked.

Symposium attendees also heard from Dr. Charles Ewen, East Carolina University Harriet College Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, who explained how few contemporaneous accounts exist and that those accounts are from a European perspective.

He pointed in particular to what the Native tribes described as a village that would be the modern equivalent of a “crossroad where there’s a 7-11 and a gas station.”

North Carolina Central University Dean of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities Dr. Arwin Smallwood was reared in Bertie County and is a member of the North Carolina Tuscarora people. He focused on the history of the Tuscarora Nation and the relationship between North Carolina and New York stat,e where many of the Nation moved after the 1711-15 Tuscarora War.

Dr. Gabrielle Tayac shared a description of Powhatan’s Mantle, a decorative garment that has been in England since the middle of the 17th century. Now housed at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, it could be worn, although it is so large and heavy it was doubtful that it would have been.

Consisting of four hides sewn together with sinew and thousands of shells embedded in the fabric, the work that went into the piece is extraordinary, as is its artistry. As an example of the skill and creativity of the people of the coastal area, there may be nothing else quite like it.

Also included during the two-day event were the sounds of Native American song, dance and storytelling performed by solo performer IOSDN.

Dr. Carresse Gerald knew before she was in kindergarten that she wanted to be a veterinarian. 

“I love animals and loved to learn about them. I watched National Geographic and Animal Planet often,” the Winston-Salem native told Coastal Review. “I especially enjoyed learning about exotic animals like Komodo dragons. So, it made sense for me to want to become a vet. My grandfather also had horses and I figured I could come home and take care of them.”

Her love of animals led her to pursue a career in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, and she is now an assistant professor in North Carolina Central University’s Department of Environmental, Earth and Geospatial Sciences.

Her love of STEM also led her to connect with an educator at North Carolina Coastal Federation to help her students learn more about their coastal environment. The Coastal Federation publishes Coastal Review.

Gerald is one of the growing number of females in STEM careers. 

Though women make up nearly half of U.S. workers, they are still “vastly underrepresented” in the STEM workforce, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. 

In 1970, 38% of U.S. workers were women, of those 8% were in STEM. By 2019, women made up 48% of all workers, of those, 27% were in STEM, “but men still dominated the field. Men made up 52% of all U.S. workers but 73% of all STEM workers,” the Census notes. 

In 2019, there were nearly 10.8 million workers in STEM occupations, which account for nearly 7% of all U.S. occupations, according to Census Bureau estimates.

Gerald earned her bachelor’s in animal science, when she studied large animals such as livestock and poultry, followed by her master’s, which built upon her undergraduate work focused on animal health, both at N.C. Agricultural and Technical State University.

“The research I conducted was to analyze hog barn dust effects on Porcine epithelium,” she said, or pig tissue. “My Ph.D. is in Energy and Environmental Systems and my dissertation included research characterizing hog barn dust and the effects of the dust human airway cells.” She earned her doctorate from N.C. A&T, as well. 

After a few years as a postdoctoral research associate at University of Nebraska Medical Center, in 2016 she joined N.C. Central. She and her husband reside in Graham with their four kids aged 16, 10, 2 and 9 months. 

As a female in STEM, Gerald said it can be challenging to balance work, personal and family responsibilities.

“I also try to make it a point to advocate for myself as much as possible,” she said. “One positive about being a female in STEM is encouraging other young females in STEM. I love working with students and increasing motivation of young students to pursue graduate degrees, internships and community service in STEM.”

Gerald said that she is using her role in front of the classroom to encourage other women to become leaders in STEM. 

“It is easy to reach the students in my classroom. I even have had students ask if their friends could attend field trips or listen to a lecture,” Gerald explained. “I also work with student organizations, and it helps me to motivate females to engage in STEM. Our student organizations are open to non-STEM majors, so it is always awesome to see history and criminal justice majors engaging in STEM activities.”

She said her research team is currently analyzing fecal coliform, bacteria that originates in the intestines of warm-blooded animals, and pharmaceutical compounds in surface water from an urban watershed, Third Fork Creek. She uses a nematode worm model, Caenorhabditis elegans, to determine if the collected water affects their growth and chemotaxis, or ability to find a food source. This type of worm is often used in research to study human diseases. 

One of her graduate students is analyzing air quality for volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, and particulate matter, PM, inside a nail salon and “we are collecting nail salon dust to expose to airway cells to see if the dusts will induce inflammation.”

She connected with the Coastal Federation a few summers ago through another nonprofit organization for which she volunteers.

“I am a board member for the nonprofit, The Institute of Landscape, Art and Sustainable Spaces,” she said. Each summer, the organization sponsors a free summer program called EnviroKIDs, and one of the stops happens to be sponsored by the Coastal Federation at Hammocks Beach State Park.

“The first time I went, I brought my two oldest kids and we had so much fun,” Gerald explained. “I also met the sweetest, extremely knowledgeable environmental educator, Rachel Bisesi. From then on, Rachel has been integral in making sure we increase students in STEM from speaking to my classes and planning trips, she is gem.”

Bisesi explained to Coastal Review that she was leading a teacher workshop session with another group the day she met Gerald.

She was explaining to the teachers that most of the state’s big universities have marine labs on the coast but after noticing one of the teacher’s bags had an N.C. Central logo on it, Bisesi said she realized that really wasn’t true, as not many of the historically Black colleges and universities have marine labs, although Elizabeth City State is on the coast. 

“Then I finally connected that Dr. Gerald teaches at Central, and reached out to see if she’d be interested in a partnership. It grew from there, and I’m so glad because she is such a joy to work with, and is doing really great work,” Bisesi said.

Gerald said that she brought her first group of N.C. Central students to Hammocks Beach State Park in April 2022. 

“It was a great time and the students enjoyed collecting organisms along the estuary.  We identified a few crabs, fish, snail and oyster species,” she said. “When I took the second group in fall 2022, I had several students tag along again because they enjoyed the first time so much! In the fall, we had a chance to see dolphins and jellyfish! I still have students talking about the previous trips and ready for another one.” 

When Gerald isn’t in the classroom, she said she enjoys working with her church congregation, Piedmont Church of Christ, spending time with her kids and exercising.  

“I also love reading books and listening to audiobooks. I am also a huge ‘Star Wars’ and Marvel fan and love watching the movies and the various series,” she added.