Interviewees:
-
Sally Bloom
- Curator of Distance Education, North Carolina Museum of History
Native Americans in North Carolina navigated appeals from both Patriots and British. The Cherokee, whose lands had been repeatedly encroached upon by colonizers, mostly aligned with the British, who had issued the Proclamation Line of 1763 to limit settler expansion. When the 1775 Treaty of Sycamore Shoals opened Cherokee territory to white settlement, Cherokee leader Dragging Canoe organized attacks along the southern border in 1776. Patriot militias from four states retaliated with devastating raids that destroyed crops, food supplies, and villages. A peace treaty was signed in July 1777, though not all parties honored it. The Catawba, by contrast, allied with the Patriots to protect their Piedmont homeland, fighting at Guilford Courthouse and other southern battles. In 1780, British forces burned their villages and Catawba women led their people to safety. Despite their service, postwar pressure from South Carolina officials drastically reduced the Catawba's landholdings.
