76~Native Americans

~~All that is essential for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing~~

----- Two Wolves ----------

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy,sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

This page is about the Native American's that have been a part of my family's life, George Skipper was a Chief ,. David Jennings was killed by an Indian,. Burrell Bassett fought in the Blackhawk War, My Barnard Family was friendly with the Blackhawk tribe,.

The area where Zadock & Henry Barnard and their families
homesteaded
in Greene Co. was the home of Chief BlackHawk and there are a few
Indian
story's. It has been said that the Indian's didn't bother certain
family's during the up-risings because they had received help from them
and were friends. During one such up-rising, a mother hid her children
in the oven, thinking that they would be safe there if the house was
torched. As the government moved the Indians north & west @ 1870, our
family's followed.

In 1783, a John Barnard listed as "Old" was outside of Freeland's
Station also known as "Dentris Lick" clearing brush with two other men when they were surprised by Indians. The indian's killed them all, but they cut off Barnard's head & ran off with it. This Fort/Station was south/west of Nashville, Tn.

The Black Hawk War was a war fought in 1832 in the Midwestern section of the United States of America between American settlers and Native Americans. The war was named for Black Hawk Black Hawk (1767 - October 3, 1838) was a chief of the Sauk Native Americans in the United States.

Black Hawk was born in the village of Saukenuk on the Rock River in what is now Illinois. In the War of 1812 he fought on the side of the British.

In 1804, General William Henry Harrison who was the governor of Indiana Territory at the time, negotiated a treaty in St. Louis with a group of Sauk and Fox leaders, in which they ceded all lands east of the Mississippi in exchange for $1,000 per year and the condition that the tribes could continue to reside on the land as long as the U.S. government possessed it.

However, this treaty was subsequently disputed by Black Hawk and other members of the tribes, since the full tribal councils had not been consulted. After the War of 1812 in which Black Hawk had fought against the U.S., he signed a peace treaty in May of 1816 . (following treaties signed by the other tribes in the preceding year); a provision of which Black Hawk later protested ignorance.

Nevertheless, the non-native population of Illinois exploded after the War of 1812, exceeding 50,000 in 1820 and 150,000 in 1830. In 1825, thirteen Sauks and six Foxes signed another agreement re-affirming the 1804 treaty. In 1828, the U.S. government liaison, Thomas Forsyth, informed the tribes that they should begin vacating their settlements east of the Mississippi. On July 10. 1830,. Keokuk . , a Sauk chief, sold 26,500,000 acres of Sauk land east of the Mississippi to the government of the United States for three cents an acre .
The land included the village of Saukenok, at the junction of the Mississippi and Rock Rivers . , which had been home to Black Hawk and his band of Sauk and Fox Indians for more than 150 years. In the fall of 1830, when Black Hawk and his followers returned from their hunt, they found white settlers occupying their village. Black Hawk did not sanction the sale of this land and was determined to regain the village; after a year of tension, he returned again in 1831, and Illinois Governor John Reynolds proclaimed it an "invasion of the state".

Responding to Governor Reynolds' call General Edmund Pendleton Gaines brought his army troops from St. Louis, Missouri to Saukenuk to insist upon Black Hawk's immediate departure. Black Hawk refused, and was driven across the Mississippi by Gaines' troops and an additional 1,400 militia called up by Reynolds. At this point, Black Hawk signed a surrender agreement in which he promised to remain west of the Mississippi. This did not last long, however.

On April 6. 1832, chafing under the rule of Keokuk and stirred up by promises of British support by Sauk chief Napope and of welcome by the Winnebago prophet White Cloud in Illinois, Black Hawk and his band of 1,000 returned to Illinois in an attempt to reclaim their homeland. The Governor, considering this an invasion, mobilized the militia of 1,600 men and called for additional support from U.S. troops. Federal authorities, along with Sauk and Fox tribal councils, ordered Black Hawk and his band west of the Mississippi, but they refused to leave.

The governor issued a proclamation on April 16 . , mustering five brigades of volunteers to form at Beardstown
and to head north to force Black Hawk out of Illinois. Although federal U.S. army troops were also involved, the militia, which by the end of the war reached 9,000 men, were the majority. , the militia began an aggressive pursuit, finally coming into contact with Black Hawk and his warriors on the Rock River near Dixon on May 14. When the militia fired upon them, the warriors returned fire and killed 11 militiamen in the Battle of Stillman's Run. Although the militia numbered 300, they fled after the initial volley and returned home with news that 2,000 "bloodthirsty warriors were sweeping all Northern Illinois with the bosom of destruction." After this initial skirmish, Black Hawk sent the women and children of his band to the Michigan Territory and then moved into northern Illinois. On May 19, 1535 the militia traveled up the Rock River in search of Black Hawk. Several small skirmishes ensued when they encountered the Indians raiding the Illinois settlements of Ottawa and Galena. Following these skirmishes, the governor recruited additional militia forces, raising the number to 4,000. With the one-month enlistment for militia already expired, the Governor mustered them out of service on May 27 and May 28 . The Federal Government then ordered General Winfield Scott with 1,000 regulars and 300 mounted volunteers to resume the chase.

From the end of June to the beginning of August, the federal troops pursued Black Hawk and his band throughout northern Illinois. They remained hot on his trail, but always seemed to remain two to three days behind. On August 1, with his band depleted and hungry, Black Hawk surrendered on the Mississippi River near the mouth of the Bad Axe River.

Black Hawk was ordered to board a U.S. ship positioned on the river, but many of his band had already crossed the river. When the ship's crew fired upon the Indians on the shore, a battle ensued and 850 of Black Hawk's band and 17 soldiers were killed. Black Hawk escaped with ten warriors and 35 women and children to Wisconsin, but on August 27 they were captured and delivered to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. On September 21, a peace treaty was signed with the Sauk and Fox Tribes and Black Hawk was placed in the custody of Keokuk, the same man who betrayed him by selling his land two years earlier. Black Hawk never again attempted to regain his homeland.

The Black Hawk War of 1832 resulted in the deaths of 70 settlers and soldiers, and hundreds of Black Hawk's band. The War not only affected the lives of the Indians, settlers, and militiamen involved, but also the settlement of Illinois and Wisconsin. The Black Hawk War was responsible for the end of conflict between settlers and Indians in both states.

On Easter Sunday, 1619, one thousand persons inhabited the Virginia Colony. Another three thousand five hundred and seventy came before 1622, Of these five thousand persons, only twelve hundred and forty remained alive on Good Friday, March 22, 1622. On that fateful day, the Indians made their last stand against the encroaching white man. In the ;Great Massacre1; of 1622, over three hundred and forty seven were slaughtered by the Indians. The uprising failed to drive the white man from Virginia, however, and the fate of the Indians was sealed. The permanence of the colony was assured.

Until the Great Massacre,; relations between the English and the Indians had been relatively peaceful. Chief Powhatan was friendly to the white man, even before he allowed his daughter to marry John Rolfe; but the Indian leaders who followed him looked with strong disfavor upon the European invasion of their land. Little is known of the exact reason for the uprising or its timing, but it was well-planned and well-executed. Small bands of apparently friendly Indians drifted into all white settlements in the colony on Good Friday, 1622, and, once inside, seized upon every instrument of death to attack the settlers. Many small settlements were wiped out altogether, including the noble experiment at Henricus where land had been set aside and an effort begun to establish a city and a college, ironically including an Indian school. The capital at Jamestown was saved through the loyalty of one Indian who had been converted to Christianity; but the peace was broken, and the friendly relations between the Indians and the invading white man were at an end.

THE BLACKWATER BARRIER

In addition to the Warrosquoyake and the Nansemond Indians which we have discussed, there were several other tribes living on the South side of the James River as settlement moved in that direction. Among these were the Nottoway, the Meherrin, the Tuscarora, the Chowanoke and the Weanock. The Tuscarora were a war-like tribe living just below the Virginia border in what is today, North Carolina. The Weanock were a wandering tribe which lived on a branch of the Chowan River just across the North Carolina border but sometimes resided in southern Virginia. This was also true of the Chowanoke for which the Chowan River was named. This was the leading and largest tribe living in the area between the James River and Albemarle Sound. The Chowanoke lived in two villages at the junction of the Nottoway and Meherrin Rivers. All were branches of the Iroquois.

For an excellent discussion of the Indians of early Virginia, their way of life and their fate, reference is made to: McCary For a similar description of the North Carolina tribes, reference is made to: (Indians)

All of these tribes, in one way or another, were affiliated with the Powhatan Confederation which extended from the Neuse River in North Carolina northward to the Rappahannock River in Virginia. Captain John Smith listed more than 160 towns under the control or influence of Chief Powhatan.

Relations between the Indians and the English were relatively peaceful as long as Powhatan lived; however upon his death, his brother, Opecanaugh, used every means at his disposal to drive the English back into the sea. It was he who led the Great Indian Massacre on Good Friday, 1622. He was captured and placed in prison where he died. After 1622, relations soured and the English struck viciously at the Indians and their towns driving them into the forests.

There was little contact between the settlers and the Indians not occupying the land along the south shore of the James since access to the river was so vital to the new plantations. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that their existence was unknown until 1650 when Edward Bland led an expedition from Fort Henry (now Petersburg) southward into North Carolina to trade with the Tuscaroras on the Roanoke River. His path led him through the lands of the Nottoway and the Meherrin. (Parramore)

In 1665, the Virginia Colonial government decided that the southern boundary of the colony would be a line beginning at Fort Henry (Petersburg) and extending along the Blackwater River. No white settlement would be allowed south and west of the Blackwater and that land was reserved for the Indians. This decision was fortunate for the Nottoway and the Meherrin whose hunting grounds and villages were thus protected from the European invasion.

Alas, the peace was not to last, however. As more and more settlers came to Virginia and the growth of tobacco became more important, the pressure increased to open the new land to settlement at the expense of the Indians.

The Nottoway nation, in 1650, consisted of three villages on the Nottoway River in what is today Sussex County. They were a peaceful tribe, ill-prepared to defend themselves from the English or from the more war-like tribes to the south. Gradually they threw in their lot with the English and by treaty, depended upon the white man for protection. In return, they were expected to help the white man against the other tribes. In 1681, the Nottoway, facing constant attack from other tribes and a failure of the English to carry out their obligation of protection, were forced to move from their lands to a settlement on the Assamoosick Swamp in Surry County. In 1694, they moved again to the mouth of the Assamoosick in what is today Southampton County. They survived in a settlement south of the Nottoway near Courtland until 1825.

About 1653, the Weanocks left their home in North Carolina and settled near modern Courtland on the Nottoway River on land rented from the Nottoway. By 1664, they had abandoned their village and returned to their home on the Chowan. They later settled south of the Blackwater in Surry County and were eventually absorbed by the Nottoway and Nansemond.

The Meherrin followed a similar course but were not as successful in adopting the means to survive. In 1691, they moved to the mouth of the Meherrin in North Carolina and by 1728, only a few survived.

In 1705, the General Assembly lifted the ban on settlement south and west of the Blackwater reserving to the Nottoway two small settlements: (1) a circle six-miles in diameter on the east side of the Assamoosick Swamp and (2) a six-mile square known as Indiantown on the south side of the Nottoway near Courtland. Even these reservations were to pass to the white man, however. In 1734, an act was passed by the General Assembly authorizing the Nottoway to sell portions of the reservations. Subsequent acts authorized additional conveyances until the Act of 1824 which authorized the division of the remainder of the reservation among the members of the tribe in fee simple.

As the influx of settlers increased, pressure was exerted on the colonial government to change its policy toward settlement south of the Blackwater. Despite the prohibition, some had settled in the forbidden area. Some transgressors were prosecuted, Many were not. A commission was appointed to review the policy and filed its report in 1699. The report appears beginning on page 57 of English Duplicates.

This report outlines the problem; makes findings of fact and recommends action. Its study covered not only the dissatisfaction with the Blackwater line on the south edge of the colony but addressed the problem on the north raised by the Pamunkey Indians. In both cases, the commission recommended that all lands be held by virtue of patents issued by the colonial government and that no patents be issued for lands lying within three miles of Indian villages. In the case of the Nottoway, two sites were set aside, one on the east side of the Assamoosick and one south of the Nottoway River.