16 Chronicles of the Cape Fear Rwer

Norres oN THE ARCHAEOLOGY oF NEw Hanover Covunry.

By Davin I. BUSHNELL, JR.

It is with no small satisfaction that I have obtained by the
courtesy of such eminent authority as that of Mr. David I. Bush-
nell, jr., of the Bureau of American Ethnology, who is now in
Wilmington for investigations on the vanishing race, the follow-
ing paper; and Mr. Bushnell has quoted from Mr. W. B. McKoy’s
valuable contributions on the same subject. I also include Dr.
Joseph A. Holmes’s report upon his personal investigations of the
mounds in Duplin County, and a paper by Capt. S. A. Ashe on
the Indians of the Lower Cape Fear.

In reference to the Woccon, Saxapahaw, Cape Fear, and
Warrennuncock Indians, we find it stated: “Of the North
Carolina tribes bearing the foregoing names almost nothing is
known, and of the last two even the proper names have not been
recorded. The Woccon were Siouan; the Saxapahaw and Cape
Fear Indians presumably were Siouan, as indicated from their
associations and alliance with known Siouan tribes; while the
Warrennuncock were probably some people better known under
another name, although they cannot be identified.”! Unfor-
tunately the identity of the Cape Fear Indians has not been
revealed, and it may ever remain a mystery. The name was
first bestowed, by the early colonists, upon the Indians whom
they found occupying the lands about the mouth of the Cape
Fear River, and more especially the peninsula now forming the
southern part of New Hanover County. It is also possible the
term ‘Cape Fear Indians” was applied to any Indians found in
the vicinity, regardless of their tribal connections, and, as will
be shown later, the area was frequented by numbers of different
tribes. Although the native people were often mentioned in
early writings, it is doubtful whether the Indian population of
the peninsula ever exceeded a few hundred.

Evidently Indians continued to occupy the lower part of the
peninsula until about the year 1725, at which time, according
to a well-substantiated tradition, they were driven from the
section. “Roger Moore, because of his wealth and large number
of slaves, was called ‘King’ Roger. There is a tradition on the
Cape Fear that he and his slaves had a battle with the Indians
at Sugar Loaf, nearly opposite the town of Brunswick. Goyv-
ernor Tryon, forty years later, mentions that the last battle with

*Mooney, James. The Siouan Tribes of the East. Bulletin Bureau of

Ethnology, Washington, 1894, p. 65.

 

Exploration and Settlement 17

the Indians was when driving them from the Cape Fear in
1725. The tradition would seem to be well founded.”?

At the present time, nearly two centuries after the expulsion
of the last Indian inhabitants from the peninsula, we find many
traces of their early occupancy of the area. Oysters and other
mollusks served as important articles of food, and vast quantities
of shells, intermingled with numerous fragments of pottery of
Indian make, are encountered along the mainland, facing the
Sounds. These masses of shells do not necessarily indicate the
Sites of villages, or of permanent settlements, but rather of places
visited at different times by various families or persons for the
purpose of gathering oysters, clams, ete. The majority of these
were probably consumed on the spot, while others, following the

Indians. Many

Scientific Society, June 3, 187 8, Mr. W. B. McKoy described
this stage of pottery-making, after the clay had been proper!

prepared: “The mortar is then pressed by the hand on the if
side of a hastily constructed basket of wickerwork and allowed
to dry for a while; the basket is then inverted over a large fire
of pitch pine and the pot is gradually hardened and blackened
by the smoke, having the appearance of a thick iron pot. By
constant use afterwards the particles of carbon that have en-
tered the pores of the clay are burnt out and then the pot has a
red appearance,’ "2 Fragments occur upon which the designs are
characteristic of pottery from the interior and farther south)
other pieces are undoubtedly the work of the southern Algon-
as tribes. Within a radius of about one hundred miles were
ribes of the Algonquin, Siouan, and Iroquoian stocks. Small
— of the different tribes were ever moving from place to
p ace, and it is within reason to suppose that members of the
various tribes, from time to time, visited the Cape Fear penin-

; thus explaining the presence of the variety of pottery dis-

covered among the shell-heaps on the shore of the sound.
i NEN

z
b, ae S. A. History of North Carolina. Greensboro, 1908. Vol. 1,

2 >
Published in the Daily Review, Wilmington, July 6, 1878.
2

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