Burlington-Occaneechi Indian Village.
The Occaneechi (also Occoneechee and Akenatzy) are Native Americans who lived primarily on a large, 4-mile (6.4 km) long Occoneechee Island and east of the confluence of the Dan and Roanoke Rivers, near current day Clarksville, Virginia in the 17th century. They were Siouan-speaking, and thus related to the Saponi, Tutelo,[1] Eno and other Southeastern Siouan-language peoples living in the Piedmont region of present-day North Carolina and Virginia.
In 1676, in the course of Bacon's Rebellion, the tribe was attacked by militias from the Colony of Virginia and decimated. Also under demographic pressure from European settlements and newly introduced infectious diseases, the Saponi and Tutelo came to live near the Occaneechi on adjacent islands. By 1714 the Occaneechi moved to join the Tutelo, Saponi, and other Siouan people living on a 36-square-mile (93 km2) reservation in current-day Brunswick County, Virginia. It included a fort called Christanna. The Siouan people had been drastically reduced to approximately 600 people. Fort Christanna was closed in 1717, after which there are few written references to the Occaneechi. Colonists recorded that they left the area in 1740 and migrated north for protection with the Iroquois.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, some remnant Siouan peoples gathered together and worked to retain their identity as Native Americans. Over the years, some married people of other ethnicities, but generally brought them within the tribe. In the late 20th century, they organized as the self-named Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation. In 2002 the tribe was formally recognized by the state of North Carolina. The members of the tribe live primarily in Alamance and Orange Counties.
The Occaneechi were first written about in 1650, by English explorer Edward Bland. He wrote that they lived on the Trading Path that connected Virginia with the interior of North America. Their position on the Trading Path gave the Occaneechi the power to act as trading "middlemen" between Virginia and various tribes to the west. In 1673, Abraham Wood, a Virginian fur trader, sent James Needham and Gabriel Arthur into the southern Appalachian Mountains in an attempt to make direct contact with the Cherokee, thus bypassing the Occaneechi. The party did make contact with the Cherokee. It was not until the last decades of the 17th century, when South Carolina colonists established a strong relationship with the Cherokee and other interior tribes, that the Occaneechi role as trading middleman was undermined.
In May 1676, the Occaneechi allied with Nathaniel Bacon and his British troops in a war with the Susquehannock; however, the British immediately turned on their allies and attacked three forts within the Occaneechi village. The British killed the Occaneechi's leader Posseclay, approximately one hundred men, as well as many women and children. A Susquehannock war party attacked Occoneechee Island in the summer of 1678.
For years lay people and researchers have discovered thousands of artifacts from "Occoneechee Town," "Saponi Town" and "Tutelo Town" on islands in the Roanoke River near Clarksville, Virginia. Prior to the flooding of the islands in 1952, this was one of the richest archeology sites on the East Coast. Since 1983 the Research Laboratories of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have been uncovering another "Occaneechi Town", a late 17th and early 18th century Occaneechi village on the Eno River near present-day Hillsborough, North Carolina.
In 1995, a community centered around Pleasant Grove, North Carolina claimed descent from the Fort Christanna confederation of Occannechi, Saponi, and Tutelo began hosting an annual powwow and organized under the name Occaneechi Band of Saponi. They are recognized by the state of North Carolina and primarily reside in Alamance County.
The contemporary Occaneechi and Haliwa-Saponi tribes are mostly descendants of multiracial people who settled on the frontier of Virginia and North Carolina as early as the mid-to late 18th century. They migrated and acquired land as did European or English neighbors from the Tidewater areas. 20th century researchers such as Paul Heinegg and Dr. Virginia Easley De Marce have conducted extensive research in colonial records: including court records, deeds of land, wills, etc. to trace back members of families in this area who were listed in the 1790 census. They have found 80 percent of those listed as free people of color, a category that then included Indians, could in fact be traced back to African Americans free in Virginia during the colonial period. Most of the free people of color were descended from relationships between white women and African men, often both indentured servants, during the 17th and 18th century when racial boundaries between groups were not as hardened as they later became. Some of the African men were slaves freed as early as the 17th century, as was John Jeffries, a "Negro man" belonging to Captain Robert Randall and freed in 1698 in Surry County, Virginia. Paul Heinegg believes he was the great-grandfather of Jacob Jeffries who settled in Orange County, North Carolina by 1790, but there is no documentary evidence for this.
In frontier areas, such peoples of mixed race sometimes identified themselves (or others did) as Indian, or Portuguese, or Spanish, to explain darker skin color or physical features not typical of northern Europeans. In some areas they may also have intermarried with a few American Indians. People in the mixed-race groups associated with different social groups over the decades: some marrying into the white community, some marrying other multiracial people and identifying as Indian, and others marrying into the black community.
The loss of freedoms in 1835 after the Nat Turner Rebellion affected all free people of color in North Carolina, who lost their ability to vote and other civil rights. The aftermath of the Civil War put more pressure on multiracial communities, known as "Old Issues", meaning free before the Civil War. While public schools were established for the first time under Reconstruction, whites insisted they be segregated. Free people of color were expected to send their children to schools with the children of freedmen. Some, such as ancestors of the current Lumbee tribe, sought another route in the late 19th century and gained official state recognition as Indians in the 1880s. They established an Indian school.
Many people who claimed Indian descent were described, either by themselves or others, as "Cherokee." The issues of ethnic identity are complex, and cannot be strictly tied to race. There were certainly numerous mixed-race unions during the colonial and antebellum years. The Seminoles of Florida are an example of a tribe formed in the 18th and 19th century, and including numerous European-American and African-American members. People of mixed-race have numerous ethnic ancestries to draw from.
As 20th century census policies changes, dramatic fluctuations appear in the number of American Indians recorded. In 1910 and 1930, efforts were made to list people of mixed ancestry as Indian. In 1960, the census asked individuals to classify their own race. Before 1960, the census worker's classified a person's race by their observation. Typically in 1970, a person of mixed ancestry was asked to choice one race, and if doubt existed, the race of the father was chosen. Being listed on tribal rolls or being recognized as an Indian by their community influenced people's racial designation. By 1990, an estimated 80% of all Indian people have mixed ancestries.
Only in the middle-to-late 20th century have the North Carolina and Virginia Piedmont Indian descendants officially reclaimed historical names such as Saponi and Occaneechi. A limited amount of information exists tying the present tribe to its Siouan ancestors.
The Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, now numbering 700, are the eighth and smallest tribe officially recognized by the state of North Carolina, receiving official status in 2002. The tribe presently owns 25 acres (100,000 m2) of land in NE Alamance County, North Carolina, where it is developing a tribal center.*
ETZNAB
Kin 58: White Rhythmic Mirror
I organize in order to reflect
Balancing order
I seal the matrix of endlessness
With the rhythmic tone of equality
I am guided by my own power doubled
I am a galactic activation portal
Enter me.
What we call the superhuman is merely the synthesis if consciousness with nature.*
*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2016-2017,
The Sacred Tzolk'in
Muladhara Chakra (Seli Plasma)
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