“This day [September 5, 1609] many of the people came aboord, some in mantles of feathers, and some in skinnes of divers sorts of good furres. Some women also came to us with hempe. They had red copper tabacco pipes and other things of copper they did wear about their neckes. At night they went on land againe, so wee rode very quite, but durst not trust them”
– entries from Robert Juet’s journal, an officer on the “Half Moon”, first contact with Native Americans on the exploration of the Hudson river 1609
Tuscarora/Iroquois Group in Winter 1914
America’s Native Hemp Gatherers
Before Europeans ever set foot in New World soil, America already had the Hemp Gatherers…
Our story starts at the very beginning with a version of a ‘Tuscarora’ creation story…
Before they lived in this world, the Tuscarora lived in the Sky World.
In the middle of this Sky World was a great Tree of Life. At the base of this Tree of Life was a great hole.
A pregnant girl named ‘Sky Mother’ looked into the hole and started to fall through… As she was falling she grabbed at the sky world earth. She fell through the hole into this world but was able to grab seeds and plant roots from the sky world soil.
The Tuscarora believe Sky Mother gave to them the gift of the Hemp Seed…
“As Tuscarora, we were deemed protectors of the seed, We have an inherent right to own it and use it.”
– Crandy Johnson – native Tuscarora
Seneca Chief, Ki-On-Twog-Ky, also known as ‘The Planter’ aka ‘Cornplanter’, by F. Bartoli, 1796
The Tuscarora (Skarū‘ren’), who’s name literally translates as the ‘Hemp Gatherers’, were part of the original Iroquois Nation.
A party was sent to explore new land east. While crossing the Mississippi river, the grapevine being used to cross the river snapped leaving the party stranded separating the tribes in ancient times.
The Tuscarora continued traveling “to the sunrise” while the rest turned back… (Historians believe this actually happened around 1400 AD)
Some say the Tuscarora stopped in North Carolina for what else, its fertile soil to grow hemp…
“At one point all this was solid hemp,”
– Tracy Johnson said, gesturing with his arms to encompass the original Iroquois land
Charles Becard de Granville sketch from 1701
“Some years ago I thought it strange that there should be more smoking pipes found on two Tuscarora Indian Village sites along the Potomac River than in all the other five Indian Village sites we excavated combined. . The research was from the mouth of Great Seneca Creek in Montgomery County, to the ; mouth of the larger Conococheague- “Gue Creek about a mile south of ‘Williamsport in Washington County, Md., near the state highway bridge.”
-‘The News’ newspaper article from Frederick, Maryland – March 16, 1971
Long before European encroachment, the Tuscarora have loved the pipe.
Found in excavations from the earliest Tuscarora settlements, Smoking pipes have played a key role in all aspects the Hemp Gatherers life.
Tuscarora smoking pipe from Fort Nooherooka – pre 1713
“Their Teeth are yellow with Smoaking [Smokeing] Tobacco, which both Men and Women are much addicted to.”
-John Lawson c.1709
The smoking pipe made its way into every aspect of Tuscarora life. Every event from relaxing in the shade to sacred ceremonies performed by shaman, the smoke of the pipe puffed away.
Found even in native medicine remedies, Tuscarora would always have a pipe on hand.
Some say dances like the traditional ‘Smoke Dance’ was started when participants would take puffs from the Pipe culminating in dancing for hours…
Tuscarora smoking pipe from Fort Nooherooka with engraved snake/serpent- pre 1713
“They [Tuscarora] made pipes from stone or clay, which held about an ounce of tobacco… An indian at rest usually had a tobacco pipe in his mouth and a puff of smoke curling over his head.”
-David La Vere author of “the Tuscarora War”
Tuscarora women – circa 1860
‘The Tuscarora War’
After years of European expansion stealing Tuscarora land, constant fights ending in death for the Tuscarora, rampant spread of disease and coupled with the colonist practice of kidnapping the Tuscarora women and children for slave markets in Charleston, the Tuscarora chiefs reached out for peace…
On June 10, 1710, North Carolina Tuscarora chiefs sent messengers to the governor of Pennsylvania offering eight priceless lengths of wampum for a safe haven in Pennsylvania and Treaty of Peace…
“Cessation from murdering and taking them, that… they may not be afraid of a moose, or any other thing that Ruffles the Leaves.”
– part of the Tuscarora note sent to Pennsylvania Governor asking for a Treaty of Peace 1710
When the Treaty was turned down, the Tuscarora had no safe haven… America’s War with the Hemp Gatherers had begun…
The Tuscarora War ended in one of the largest Native American massacres in history… At Fort Nooherooka under the command of Colonel James Moore, Colonist killed over 600 Tuscarora… The 400 men, women and children that survived in the fort assault were sold into slavery in Charleston…
The remaining Tuscarora, fearing complete annihilation, in a mass migration fled to New York and joined The Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee).
Fast Fact: The northern Tuscarora tribes in North Carolina were lead by Chief Tom Blunt (Blount) during the Tuscarora War. I can’t even make this stuff up…
Watercolor Painting by Dennis Cusick (1800-1824), son of Chief Nicholas Cusick of the Tuscarora Iroquois, painted in 1821 and depicting Mrs. James Young, a missionary, teaching Iroquois girls in the Seneca School at Buffalo Creek, New York to spin hemp and flax
Chief James Deer pass’s the Peace Pipe to New York Engineer C. Davis. 1937 conclave of the Six Nations
The Tuscarora, as part of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee), stood along side our forefathers to fight, die and ultimately win the Revolutionary War…
In 1794 George Washington signed the Canandaigua Treaty, which guaranteed the Six Nations rights to land and a life “free and undisturbed”.
“They are very kind, and charitable to one another and when one loses a household or important goods, the rest pitch in to help. They say, it is our Duty thus to do… we must give him our Help, otherwise our Society will fall.…”
– John Lawson c.1709
Tracy Johnson consoles his mother in 1957 when the New York Power Authority seized Tuscarora land.
“All their Misfortunes and Losses end in Laughter; for if their Cabins take Fire, and all their Goods are burnt therein… yet such a Misfortune ends in a hearty Fitt of Laughter, unless some of their Kinsfolks and Friends have lost their Lives.…”
– John Lawson c.1709
In 1957 the Federal Power Commission under eminent domain of the Federal Power Act and backed by the United State Supreme Court, took 1,000 acres of land from the roughly 4,000-acre Tuscarora Reservation for a hydroelectric power project…
Three years later in 1960, 10,000 acres of the Allegheny Reservation, promised under George Washington in the Treaty of Canandaigua, were also ‘legally’ condemned by eminent domain during construction of the Kinzua Dam, causing the ‘relocation’ of 600 Seneca…
As the War on Hemp Gatherers around the world continues, George Washington’s promised words “free and undisturbed” resonates as a continued failure to the American spirit…
“Randy Wegerski, a 4-year-old Tuscarora boy, is shown
on the picket line as the Tuscarora people block a state
survey of their reservation in Niagara Falls, New York,
on April 18, 1958. The disputed land was seized by the
state for a power project…”
“Really better to us than we have been to them, as they always freely give us of their victuals at their quarters, while we let them walk by our doors hungry, and do not often relieve them. We look upon them with disdain and scorn, and think them little better than beasts in human form; while with all our religion and education, we possess more moral deformities and vices than these people do”
– John Lawson c.1709