"The Battle of Weyanoke Creek": A Story of the Third Anglo-Powhatan War in Early Carolina

In early spring 1708, before the swampland foliage returned from the winter, five men appointed by the Virginian government travelled by boat down the Nansemond River. They had official orders to interview certain people familiar with the boundary area between Virginia and North Carolina. Given enough testimony they might amass evidence to prove that the true boundary line of Virginia lay twenty miles farther south than North Carolina claimed. Out of the boats, they mucked their way through the marshes and bogs to their destination at Corapeak at the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp. They had heard of an old swamp rat who had been among the first Virginians to see the Carolinian wilderness in a military expedition very long ago. They finally reached the ancient hermit's shack, and were ushered inside. An eighty-six-year-old Henry Plumpton offered his guests what hospitality he could, and sat them beside the hearth. The logs crackled in the fireplace and quills scratched at the parchment as Henry, to the appreciation of future historians, began his story: "After the Right Honble Sr Wm Barkley [Berkeley] was made Governor of Virginia . . . [I] was among divers others at sevll times sent out against the Southern Indians."¹

The Third Anglo-Powhatan War has been treated by only a few historians, and none of them in particularly great detail. The war had a much greater impact on the surrounding region than the previous two Powhatan wars. The scholarship in general states that the war was the Powhatan's last desperate attempt to rid the land of the English. When they failed they were subject to counterattack for two years, resulting in the breakup of the Powhatan paramount chiefdom and the decimation of their military capabilities.² Another school of thought proposes that instead of trying to eliminate the Virginia colony, the Powhatans were making an attempt to correct the behavior of the English, who had overstepped their bounds both territorially and culturally.³

As for the Virginia expeditions to Carolina discussed in this article, even less has been previously studied, although some note has been taken. Samuel Ashe was the first to note them in his 1908 history of North Carolina, although the expeditions are not put into the context of the Powhatan War. They are assumed to have been against the Carolina Algonquian people of the Albemarle Sound, whom Virginia militia engaged in battle at Weyanoke Creek. Historians usually depict the victory at the Battle of Weyanoke Creek as having opened the doorway for future settlement. This paradigm is based on the narrative by Henry Plumpton, but not on surviving Virginian court records, to which Ashe did not have access. In 1985 Martha McCartney mentioned that expeditions were planned against the Choanoac, and possibly Secotan, which was followed by at least one historian.⁴ In 1990 Helen Rountree increased our understanding of the Third Anglo-Powhatan War and briefly commented on the Carolina expeditions submitting that a single expedition was presumably against the Weyanokes, her supporting documentation being Virginian court records, but not Henry Plumpton's account.⁵ In 2002, Rountree wrote an essay that expanded her view of the results of the expedition, correctly asserting that it was an attempt to secure the Albemarle region as territory for Virginia, although still giving no detail on the military action itself.⁶ Several other authors have made brief reference to the battle using Samuel Ashe's perspective; however, the detailing of long-term effects of the expeditions for either the Powhatan or the English have not yet been established.⁷

Given that these expeditions have been little elaborated on and that a detailed study on the Third Anglo-Powhatan War has not been forthcoming (although much has been said of previous conflicts), this article attempts to answer a general question: What exactly happened on these expeditions and what were their long term effects for both the English colonists and the Powhatan paramountcy?⁸ It will be argued here that there were in fact two expeditions to Carolina in 1645, not one, and they were against the Weyanokes—as Rountree pointed out—not the Carolina Algonquians. Since Rountree's remarks regarding them have been brief, a more detailed description of the military action is herein given. They were not merely incidental, but critical to understanding future events in Powhatan, Virginian, and North Carolinian history. They represent the first time that common Virginians saw the Carolina frontier and met its Native people, heavily influencing their later decision to immigrate there. These expeditions also affected the terms of the treaty of 1646, in which Virginia laid claim to the Albemarle region. Additionally, the location of the battle would later become a point of extreme contention between Virginia and Carolina during their border dispute. These results themselves became critical factors influencing many other aspects of both states' history, and can be traced back to their origins at Virginia's assault against the Weyanokes in 1645 and the Weyanokes' subsequent emigration south. Within the Powhatan paramount chiefdom itself, the Weyanokes' departure from the paramountcy undermined the entire polity, and was the first tangible indicator of the breakup of Opechancanough's control of the James River chiefdoms.

To demonstrate this I examine two sets of documents—Henry Plumpton's narrative and Lower Norfolk County court minutes in their totality, as well as Native testimony recorded in the early eighteenth century—to form a more detailed analysis of events than previously undertaken. I hope to provide a needed contribution to the understanding of the Third Anglo-Powhatan War. The wide-reaching effects of these expeditions will then be demonstrated with various records and previous scholarship on early Carolina to show continuity between the soldiers of the Battle of Weyanoke Creek and the original settlers of the region as well as the later border dispute.⁹

Southern Algonquian History in Brief

In the early seventeenth century, the Native people of eastern Virginia and northeastern Carolina were many related chiefdoms who spoke a common Algonquian language, although the two groups were separated by the Great Dismal Swamp and appear largely to have been in competition with each other by the historic period. They arrived in the area in 200 CE at the latest—well over a thousand years prior to the English—and with the gradually increasing dependence on cultigens such as maize, squash, and beans, semi-permanent town sites appeared at about 1300 CE.¹⁰

The Powhatans lived in a corridor to the east of the Appalachians in which many trade and emigration routes reached from the south to the north and vice versa. This was a paramount chiefdom comprising over thirty smaller chiefdoms that paid tribute originally to Wahunsenaca, known as Powhatan to the colonists in the Chesapeake Bay region of Virginia. In between distinct cultural areas, the Powhatans became a cultural mixture of their Algonquian neighbors to the north and the vast Mississippian world to the south. Although certain things characteristic of a Mississippian society were absent from the Powhatan, such as a centralized mound at the capital town, they did exact tribute from subject simple chiefdoms and maintained hereditary leadership and priestly classes in a highly stratified society. Likewise, Algonquian cultural traits are observable in many religious and social customs of the Powhatans as well, showing them to be a mixture of both worlds.¹¹

Contact with Europeans came first to the Powhatans in Tsenacomoco (Virginia), when they encountered an attempt at a Spanish mission in the 1570s, which they destroyed.¹² Jamestown was founded in 1607, and an increase in hostilities led to the first Anglo-Powhatan War of 1610-1613. The Powhatans nearly decimated the English, destroying their outlying settlements and laying siege to Jamestown, but with fresh reinforcements the English were eventually victorious, expanding into the defeated people's territories as they received more settlers.¹³ This expansion came to a head in 1622, when the Powhatans were finding game less plentiful and had experienced a severe epidemic.

Under chief Opechancanough, a massive assault was carried out on March 22, 1622, killing about 330 colonists, a full 25 percent of the English population, perhaps more. The war that followed lasted a decade, leaving the Powhatans battered and weakened.¹⁴ The colonial expansion continued unabated and in fact gained momentum. Beginning in the 1630s at the close of the war, the beaver trade began among the Powhatans and continued for two decades. During this time a new generation of Powhatan young people grew up with trade items as a commonplace thing, whereas to the previous generation such things were reserved for the elite. This would serve to undermine the stratified leadership in times to come.¹⁵

One last effort to expel the English occurred April 18, 1644, when the remaining Powhatan chiefdoms killed over four hundred colonists. The blow was not as severe as the previous one, however, because of a massive increase in the colony's population. The English response throughout that summer dealt the Powhatans a crippling blow. The Third Anglo-Powhatan War had begun.¹⁶

The Third Anglo-Powhatan War

Records from the 1640s are very sparse, but what can be reconstructed shows that even though Opechancanough was very aged, to the point of being an invalid, he maintained control of the lesser chiefdoms to such an extent that long-term planning and communication was possible. Opechancanough no doubt learned from the last similar attempt that the April 18 attack was unlikely to dislodge the English, so it is difficult to ascertain his motives. It could be that because of Britain's civil war, he perceived weakness, and knowing that he was to die soon, he would get no other chance—or as the anthropologist Frederick Gleach suggests, he was attempting to discipline and correct the English who had overstepped their physical and cultural bounds.¹⁷ As for the rest of the Powhatans, it was a new generation of warriors since the last attack, and perhaps they were eager for their own chance for martial glory and to vent their anger on the English.

Unfortunately for the Powhatans, the English were swift in getting back onto a war footing. A strategy of divide and conquer was established, as it was later written, "it was by him [Governor William Berkeley] and the government thought the safest way setting all the lesser nations at Liberty from that obedience they paid to the house of Pamunkey [Opechancanough's people] to keep them divided and indeed the effect may be more advantageous to us for they like to war with each other and destroy themselves more that we can do it."¹⁸ Retaliation accordingly took the form of both foot marches and amphibious assaults on Powhatan towns, done by county militias charged with attacking whichever Indians inhabited their locality. The Pamunkeys and Chickahominies were attacked first, followed by most chiefdoms along the James River: the Nansemond, the Powhatan proper, the Appamatuck, and Weyanoke.¹⁹

Little is recorded to detail these attacks, but the militias likely burned the houses and crops, dealing a deadly blow. The Weyanokes must have experienced great loss, so much so that they faced the question of whether it was worth it to remain any longer on the James River. If they remained they would no doubt experience more crop loss, more attacks, and more death. Of course to leave meant to undermine the authority of the Opechancanough and potentially face his response. The Weyanokes, probably under the leadership of the weroance Ascomowet, made the precedent-setting decision to break away from the Powhatan paramountcy altogether and relocate south, in what is today called North Carolina. According to an interview with the Nansemond weroance Great Peter decades later, "After the Appachanckanouk massacre they went to settle at Towaywink upon the Roanoke River. The Tuscaroras who possessed the lands demanded upon what they came there for, the Wyanoke answering that they wanted a place to settle upon, the Tuscarora sold them all ye land from thence to ye mouth of Moratuch [Roanoke River] and up Chowan to Meherrin River, together with all the beasts upon the land and the fish in ye water."²⁰

Opechancanough clearly understood the significance of the Weyanokes' defection. They were not just a periphery group marginally in his rule. They were part of his core, one of the firsts to come under control of the chiefdom under Wahunsenaca.²¹ If they could leave the Powhatans, then any number of others could do the same, and his control would come to an end—along with the rest of the paramount chiefdom. He sent a strong force of eighty warriors in response. Possibly this force comprised Nansemond warriors, who were the most powerful chiefdom in the Weyanokes' proximity; otherwise they may have been Pamunkey.²² These "fourscore men [went] to look [for] them & bring [them] back," but the Weyanokes seem to have been prepared for such a response, and "all which Indians the Eynokes killed and fled Lower down Roanoke," to an uninhabited portion of land on the west side of the Chowan River, thereafter known to Virginia as Weyanoke Creek (the Carolinian colonists would later call this creek Wiccacon, causing a well-documented border dispute).²³ The Weyanokes were now estranged from all their former allies and had a host of new neighbors to reckon with (the Choanoacs, Meherrins, Nottoways, and Tuscaroras), but perhaps they were consoled by the thought that at least there were not any English there.

Thus, the first year of warfare went well for the Virginians. The English clearly had the upper hand and the first indications of the dissolution of the Powhatans were becoming evident with the departure of the Weyanokes. After the first winter was over the associated counties south of the James River (Upper and Lower Norfolk, with Isle of Wight counties) met together in a "Court of Warre holden [held] at the howse of Richard Bennett Esq: the 12 Mar" of 1645. Bennett himself was an up-and-coming colonial official who would later be promoted to major general and governor of the colony. Minutes of this meeting either were not kept or were lost, but by examination of later references from court orders an outline of the proceedings can be reconstructed. Those attending the meeting decided that scouts were to be frequently deployed for the defense of the settlements, indicating they felt there was still a perceived threat from the Indians. Accordingly, "all persons whatsoever being inhabitants of this County for theire safeguard and defence upon the salvages [savages] according the number of people in theire severall famylyes were proporconably allotted to sett [out] and mayntaine men in manner of a scout."²⁴ These scouts were to be equipped and financially supported by planters selected by Bennett's war captains. The soldiers seem to have been conscripts, but were nonetheless paid for their services by those planters selected to support them. These scouts were chiefly poor farmers, servants, and laborers.²⁵ They were supplied with "provisions of powder and shott and other necessarryes," such as "cheese" and "tob [tobacco, used as currency] or corne."²⁶

A critical issue facing the meeting seems to be the Weyanokes who had migrated south of the Great Dismal Swamp, an effective barrier between Virginia and land not settled since the Roanoke colony over fifty years earlier. Precisely why they took such an interest in the Weyanokes is not explained. The Weyanokes had already been retaliated against and had retreated to the unknown wilderness. Nevertheless plans were drawn up to find and assault them, wherever they may be. Revenge does not appear to be the motivation; retaliation for the April 18 attack had already been carried out, and the expedition would be financially quite costly. The Virginians may have understood that they would be in a more advantageous position by attacking them. If the Weyanokes used the southern land as a base to launch raids against the English—or, worse yet, if they forged an alliance with the Carolina Algonquians—the English could face a major roadblock to a successful outcome to the war or future settlement of Carolina, which the Virginia government had been contemplating for almost twenty years.

As reported by an exploratory party twenty years prior, the land was prime for settlement and the local Natives were friendly.²⁷ More intelligence seems to have been needed before making a decision regarding future military action to the south lands. Thus "it was ordered . . . that everyone that setts out a man for the Southward March [a scouting expedition] should paye & sattisfye unto him that went worke for his paynes equally and proporconably during the tyme of his absence from home upon the said service."²⁸ Although the target of the Weyanokes was not specifically mentioned, and veterans of the two expeditions later said simply that they marched "against the southern Indians"—it was certainly the Weyanokes, as the events of the expeditions show.²⁹

First Expedition—Scout by Land

Almost no detail is given for this first expedition, but because it was financially backed in the same way as scouts were (the second expedition, a full assault, was handled as a general levy), it can be established that this was a scout and not a large troop movement. Likely this expedition was for reconnaissance purposes to ascertain the location of the Weyanokes and their relationship to the surrounding Indians. Other scouts ranged in size from fifteen to forty men, so it is reasonable to assume that about twenty or thirty men made up this detachment.³⁰

Once organized that spring, the detachment departed for the southern wilderness "by land under the Command of Major Genll Bennett."³¹ The fact that Bennett himself headed the scout clearly shows the interest he took in the southern land. Later court cases involving two members of the expedition detail that they departed overland on a "Southward March" to the eastern side of the Chowan River, continuing south until they reached the Yeopim River and presumably some of the Algonquian peoples in the area. They returned to Virginia after taking enough time to gather ample intelligence about the Weyanokes and this new southern land, the scout taking just over a month to complete.³²

Thomas Ward, surgeon on the march, later stated specifically that they "serve[d] in an expedition against the Indians to Yawopyin als Rawanoake as Chirurgeon [surgeon] to the whole company and did divers Cures upon severall men in the said service."³³ This is significant because this is the first recorded reference to the Yeopim River, at which place lived the Yeopim Indians. Other records of that river are not mentioned until the 1657 Comberford Map.³⁴ One can therefore reasonably infer that the detachment learned the name of the river from the indigenous people, therefore interacting with them in some capacity. Quite probably they gained information regarding the Weyanokes and their location.

There is no record that indicates that there was any violence on this first expedition. For example, a financial statement of the second expedition shows expenses accrued for a wounded man, but no such record exists for the first march.³⁵ Also, Henry Plumpton, a member of both expeditions, later gave a short narrative of his experiences. He only briefly mentioned the scout, giving no detail, but he expounded on the second since a battle was fought and a man was killed. Finally, a Bass family record written decades later shows that "Edward Basse sonne of Nathll and Mary Basse . . . took in marriage one virtuous Indian maydn by the Christian name Mary Tucker and went to live amongst the Showanocs [Algonquians on the Chowan River, near the Yeopim] in Carolina in 1644 AD" (fig. 1).³⁶ Edward, a resident of Upper Norfolk, might have been a member of this expedition; nevertheless, this marriage shows a friendly relationship to the Natives of Carolina during this time period.

The presumed target of the "Southward March," the Weyanokes, turned out to be at Wiccacon Creek on the other side of the Chowan River, which is extremely broad, and there was no way for the scout to get to them in any case. Thus, with Ward's statement, the explanation that best fits the known facts is that they met with the local Natives (the Choanoacs and Yeopims), learned that they were not allied to the Weyanokes and learned their location. They left the Carolina Algonquians, apparently as friends, and returned to Virginia to plan the next assault against the Weyanokes.³⁷

Voyage by Sea

The intelligence that the detachment brought back must have been well received in Jamestown. There existed no alliance between the Weyanokes and the other southern Indians. In fact, the Choanoacs and Yeopims may have been eager to join forces to eliminate the Weyanokes who had encroached on their territory. It is unlikely at that point that the Virginians perceived the Weyanokes as a threat since firsthand intelligence had finally been gathered, yet plans for a further assault continued.

The motives for this assault are difficult to discern at first glance, but evidence indicates that it may have been a way for Virginia to extend its southern boundary. It is clear from the treaty between Virginia and the Powhatans at the end of the war—in which Virginia specified a claim to Yeopim Creek—that the English had a keen interest in the southern

Fig. 1.

Bass family prayer book record. This record shows one Edward Basse having gone into Carolina in 1644, and obtained a Choanoac wife named Mary Tucker. This almost certainly occurred during the 1645 expeditions. Courtesy of the Library of Virginia.

lands and took the opportunity to extend their borders. As stated by Helen Rountree, "[I]t is plain that the English had investigated and were now staking a claim to some of the land south of the James River drainage."³⁸ It may be said, therefore, that Virginia wanted to establish itself militarily in the Carolina region as an inroad to settlement. Earlier reports and now firsthand experience attested to the quality of the land in the south, and a growing colonial population would soon need a new frontier to settle. This could not be done easily, however, if a hostile Indian group blocked the way of progress, and so—in the effort of removing this obstacle and staking a claim on the land—the Virginians planned their next assault on the Weyanokes. As in an assault carried out against the Pamunkeys the previous summer, an amphibious assault was favored, which could make for a clean entry and exit if skillfully handled. It also afforded an opportunity for further exploration. Accordingly, eight riverboats were hired and fitted for the transport of troops. The voyage was provisioned with plenty of powder and shot, cheese, and other necessities. The supply requisitions mention no staples such as corn; it could be that the soldiers were expected to provide their own. Finally, a force of eighty soldiers—a larger number of troops than in the previous summer's assault against the Chickahominy, making this the second largest expedition of the entire war—were "hired" (probably conscripted) into service, and launched their assault "by Water under [the command of] Coll Dew."³⁹

So it was that the voyage departed the James River in early to midsummer 1645.⁴⁰ The eight riverboats would have carried about ten soldiers each, along with provisions. The sheer distance to carry out the attack was quite probably the longest range assault ever carried out against any Indian group, including the Powhatans. About two hundred miles were rowed battling the Atlantic waves and often the current in this extraordinary action. Master boatmanship was required to navigate into the Chesapeake Bay and out to the sea, hugging the coast until "they had entered Corrotuck [inlet]," the entrance to what would become North Carolina. They proceeded into the rear of the Outer Banks until entering the Albemarle Sound, then called the Roanoke or just "the Sound." This was the first known time since the Roanoke colony that English watercraft navigated the area. The entire voyage would have taken some time; ten to fourteen days were needed to complete their journey. As such they would have stopped to make camp at night along the northern bank of the sound—probably in contact with the Poteskeet, Pasquotank, and Yeopim Indians who lived there. Not all went well; it is noted that at one point a boat was cast away and the goods lost with an unknown number of casualties, reducing the fleet to seven boats. This may have happened during the tricky entrance to Currituck Inlet, or perhaps later during the battle. At another point a man was bitten by a venomous snake, although surgeon Christopher Ackely was able to treat him successfully.⁴¹ Finally the boats "proceeded up the Sound to [the] Chowan [River]," where the last twenty miles of the journey were made.⁴²

Historian Samuel Ashe suggested that these expeditions were against the Carolina Algonquians, the defeat of whom allowed for future settlement. This view, sometimes still cited, is taken without the context of the Third Anglo-Powhatan War. When put in the proper context, the true target of the Weyanokes is much more obvious, as Helen Rountree noted. Looking at Henry Plumpton's narrative, he specifically names their target and the place of their battle as Weyanoke Creek (known today as the Wiccacon), stating that they went "as far as the mouth of Weyanook Creek where they had a fight with the Indians and had a man killed by them."⁴³ Rivers of this time are well known to be named after whichever Indian group lived there. This is approximately the site of the Choanoacs' previous principal town, so the Weyanokes were in all likelihood occupying the Choanoacs' former town site. This is also confirmed by the testimony of some Meherrin Indians interviewed during the later border dispute, when they drew a detailed diagram of the Weyanoke town and cornfields at Wiccacon in the dirt.⁴⁴

The Virginians went up the Wiccacon Creek to "the Fork of the Creek where the Weyanoake Town stood."⁴⁵ There was no official battle report, except for the few comments that Henry Plumpton made about it. In truth it seems to have been a sharp skirmish, from which the Virginians sustained several casualties. At least one man was killed on the spot, and another critically wounded. There may have been others wounded as well, but none that required enough prolonged medical attention to accrue significant cost. The Weyanokes were at least partially armed with English weapons, but they were outnumbered.⁴⁶ They were noted as having one hundred warriors at the first arrival of the English in 1607, but in the face of much war and disease since then, they were far reduced and no match for the eighty well-armed soldiers.⁴⁷

Plumpton indicates that they buried the man who was killed at the site of the battle, so it is probable that the English were victorious, taking the field. In keeping to English tactics, they probably burned the Weyanoke houses and destroyed any crops, but nothing is specifically noted about this. Because they had critically wounded men, they could not tarry at the site, and returned with haste to James River in the same way that they entered, where the wounded soldier and snakebitten man made a recovery. Thus concluded military operations in the region of Carolina during the Third Anglo-Powhatan War (fig. 2).

One more year of warfare passed before victory was claimed by the English, although it was apparent nearly from the start that the English had the upper hand. Throughout the rest of 1645 and 1646 Virginia raids continued on the various groups of Powhatans, who were broken apart in their organization from the hostilities. The English offensive was very effective and the Powhatans were described as being "so routed and dispersed that they are no longer a nation, and we now suffer only from robbery by a few starved outlaws."⁴⁸ Opechancanough lost his grip on the various chiefdoms and his town was eventually stormed by Sir William Berkeley; he was captured and imprisoned in Jamestown, and shortly thereafter killed in prison by a soldier. He died, it is said, aged over a hundred years and crippled. With him died the Powhatan paramount chiefdom.⁴⁹ The lesser chiefdoms were briefly under the leadership of Necatowance, Opechancanough's successor, but within a few years the various groups acted predominately as individually small polities as the English purposely set them "at Liberty from that obedience they paid to the house of Pamunkey."⁵⁰ A treaty made with Necotowance at the end of the war shows English interest in Carolina, in which they staked a claim:

Art. 5. And it is further enacted that neither for the said Necatowance nor any of his people, do frequent, come in to hunt, or make any abode nearer the English plantations that the limits of Yapin [Yeopim, italics added], the Blackwater, and from the head of the Blackwater upon a straight line to the old Monacan town, upon such pain and penalty as aforesaid [death].⁵¹

The English, as stated, appear to have carried the day against the Weyanokes, after which the Weyanokes retreated farther south to the Tuscaroras. An interview with an old Nottoway Indian named Thomas Green decades later recalled that the Weyanokes retreated afterward because "the English [were] following them [so] they Removed to Roanoke River to a place called . . . Towaywink," where they lived for three years.⁵²

The underclass settlers of southern Virginia did not forget their experiences there. Henry Plumpton, along "with Thomas Tuke of the Isle of Wight County and severall others" who had been a part of the expeditions, (or were inspired by those who were), returned to Weyanoke, this time coming in peace:

Fig. 2.

Virginia expeditions against the Weyanokes in 1645. Native towns along the Chowan River are taken from the 1657 Comberford Map (reprinted in "The Earliest Settlement in Carolina: Nathaniel Batts and the Comberford Map," American Historical Review 45 [October 1939]: 82-89). Other town locations are approximations from later records.

About two years after a peace being concluded with the Indians . . . [they] made a purchase from the Indians of all the Land from the mouth of the Morratuck River [Roanoke] to the mouth of Weyanook Creek [Wiccacon] aforesaid which the Indians then shewed them, Which the deponent knew to be the same place where the man above mentioned was Killed and lyes.⁵³

The Weyanokes, who originally lived there by permission of the Tuscaroras, sold the land, the purchase price being unknown. They seem to have honored the transaction, for in 1649—about the same time as the abovementioned purchase—they moved north. Their weroance, Ascomowet, was among other Powhatan weroances to be granted land tracts for their people; the Weyanokes being on the south side of the James River in Virginia. They seem to have abandoned or sold this land shortly thereafter, however, and removed away from English settlements into Carolina yet again.⁵⁴

Weyanoke and Carolina Algonquian Postwar Behavior

It might be said that the lack of description of Natives involved in the two expeditions still leaves open the possibility that Virginia troops attacked the Carolina Algonquians, and that any information garnered from them about the Weyanokes may have been given under duress. However, notwithstanding the statement from the Nottoway Thomas Green confirming English harassment, behavior of both the Weyanokes and the Carolina Algonquians after the war belies this argument. As it stands there is nothing in the long-or short-term behavior of both Indian groups in the following decade that would indicate that the Carolina Algonquians had recently received bad treatment from Virginia and every reason to believe that the Weyanokes had a rocky relationship with them.

In 1650, just five years following the expeditions, Edward Bland departed Virginia on an exploratory expedition into the wilderness of Carolina. His mission was to establish contact with the Tuscaroras for trade purposes and to contact several English rumored to be living among them. Throughout the entire expedition he reported that the Weyanokes attempted to foil the expedition by sending out emissaries to all the surrounding Indians with news that the English were coming to kill them and cheat them in trade. Weyanoke spies were constantly watching them so that they slept in shifts, watching in the dark for signs of trouble. This is obviously not the behavior of those who have had friendly relationships with the English.⁵⁵

He also recorded information demonstrating that some of the Carolina Algonquians were in enmity with the Powhatan people (which would have included the Weyanokes), suggesting that the Carolina Algonquians had some common ground with Virginia. In addition, the Carolina Algonquian mindset at this time is exemplified in a letter from colonial official Francis Yeardley. He writes that in 1653 a European trader found himself on Roanoke Island near the mouth of Albemarle Sound. Once there he met a local chief and arranged a friendly series of meetings between the Indians and Francis Yeardley in Virginia. Yeardley's letter is very enthusiastic about settlement possibilities in Carolina. Likely he was influenced at the outset by positive reports from Colonel Dewe and Richard Bennett, who had been on the expeditions eight years earlier. Massive delegations on the part of the Carolina Algonquians (in the form of the weroances of all the Algonquian towns, and even some Tuscaroras) traveled north to Virginia to meet at Yeardley's house to forge an alliance. The Roanoke weroance even wished his son to be brought up a Christian and be taught to read and write. Yeardley dispatched craftsman to Carolina to build the weroance an English-style house equipped with English goods, and at the end of the letter expressed his hope in future settlement of the region and good relations with the people. Clearly the Algonquians of Carolina had, at that point, a friendly mindset toward the English. This behavior would be difficult to explain if they had suffered a series of attacks without warning less than ten years previous.⁵⁶

All would not be well forever. Yeardley's hopes of settlement were realized, but relationships with the Indian people eventually deteriorated. In 1676 the Chowan River War broke out as the Choanoacs struck at passing travelers in response to violence during Bacon's Rebellion. The counterattack by the English cleared all Choanoacs along the Chowan River, confining them to a reservation, where a remnant persisted until the early 1800s.⁵⁷ The small groups that formerly made up the Weapemeoc communities were the most inundated by English settlement. A lack of records makes their fate unclear past the 1740s. Those south of the Albemarle Sound also entered into war with the English during the Tuscarora War, when they joined their Iroquoian neighbors in battle. Even when the Tuscaroras surrendered in 1713, the Algonquians continued their war until 1715, when the colony sued for peace. Like the Choanoacs, they were given a reservation until it was sold in the 1760s, although descendants of the Choanoacs, Croatoans, and Mattamuskeet people are known to live in the area to this day.⁵⁸

The Weyanokes found little respite, and traveled from river to river, never seeming to make friends among other Indians. Several times they found themselves at war with their neighbors—namely the Tuscaroras, Nottoways, and Nansemonds. Ironically they would often be forced to seek refuge among English settlements. Eventually they became too few in number to carry on independently, and the remnant was absorbed by the Nottoway Indians, an Iroquoian-speaking people who persist in southern Virginia.⁵⁹ This story is similar to many of the Powhatan chiefdoms; as Thomas Ludwell noted in 1678, "I never thought it in the interest of this Colony to hinder them from cutting each others throats so we had no hand in it and its plain that upon the conquest of Apechancoenoe and the setting all the tributary nations to that house at Liberty they have weakened themselves more by Intenstine Broyls than we could doe by all the Warrs wee have had with them."⁶⁰ Despite this period of decline, several groups of Powhatans, both on reservations and off, persisted throughout the historical record and today are recognized by the state of Virginia.

Conclusions

It would be easy to brush over these expeditions as insignificant, being that there were only a handful of English casualties and no apparent strategic advantage was gained at first glance. However, besides the fact that the expeditions influenced the terms of the 1646 treaty as previously noted, the precise location of this battle would come under great scrutiny in later years during the border dispute between Carolina and Virginia, significantly affecting state history. The real significance, however, resulted from those eighty conscripted soldiers. For the first time since the founding of Jamestown, they had gazed on the Carolina landscape, and are truly the ones who benefited from these events. They are the ones who would make history as a result. They were indentured servants, laborers, and poor farmers. As shown by a few individuals connected to the expeditions, such as George Rutland, many carried debts that were not easily repaid. It was these eighty soldiers that truly began the colonial history of North Carolina, for it was they who would first settle it.

It has been repeatedly shown that the first settlement of Carolina was not a corporately backed colonial effort, but a trickling of settlers from southern Virginia, particularly Nansemond County. The first settlers were debtors, servants, and all in all the bottom rung of Virginian society—exactly the same as the soldiers who participated in the "southward march." Virginia was very quickly becoming an imitation of England, with a clearly stratified social order of gentry and servants, and no way for those of the lower order to break the chain and better themselves. When the eighty soldiers approached Weyanoke Creek, they not only saw a new and beautiful land, they found the possibilities of a fresh start.⁶¹

The land was isolated from the reach of Virginia by the Dismal Swamp to the north and the shoals of the Outer Banks in the east. To the south the Albemarle Sound offered a barrier against any hostile Indians in that direction. The ground was fertile, the winters mild, and game plentiful. Truly the first settlers of Carolina had found a place of seclusion that favored their purposes, and it all started with those eighty soldiers. After all, only three years had passed before "divers" former soldiers returned to Carolina to purchase the land they saw. The first definitely known resident, Nathaniel Batts, set up his trading post on that very land that was purchased from the Weyanokes, just above the Moratoc (Roanoke) River. The oldest deeds that survived show several transactions conveying land from Chief Kilcocanen of the Yeopim people, who lived on the river of the same name. It will be remembered that the first scouting expedition traveled to this same river as stated by Thomas Ward. Even if the members of that expedition did not directly settle Carolina, they certainly brought back information about the land to their friends, family, and fellow laborers, and it was only a decade later that the underclass of southern Virginia began their descent into Carolina.⁶² As historian Jonathan Barth recently stated, "the Proprietors increasingly shifted their attention to the South Carolina Lowcountry and its lucrative rice staple, leaving a vacuum of power in the Albemarle region of North Carolina and attracting 'undesirables' from Virginia, including runaway slaves, former indentured servants, religious dissenters, and debtors." He went on to say that "the original inhabitants from the previous decade [1650s] reacted bitterly to government interference, detesting the aristocracy that many of them had intentionally left behind in Virginia." This is a view agreed upon by virtually all scholars on the region, and now it can be said that the first time such a class of people from Virginia viewed what would become Albemarle was during the Third Anglo-Powhatan War in 1645.⁶³

The entire reason the narrative of Henry Plumpton is available is because of the scrupulous investigating of Virginian authorities concerning the true location of Weyanoke Creek after a failed attempt at surveying a boundary in 1710. Prior to a surveying team's running a final line in the upper waters of the Chowan and settling the matter, the agreement based on the 1665 charter was that the border between Virginia and Carolina would be from "the north end of Currituck river or inlet, upon a straight westerly line to Wyonoak creek."⁶⁴ The trouble was that multiple rivers bore that name, since the Weyanokes had moved from place to place, leaving their name at several locations. The Virginians, of course, viewed the southernmost river, today's Wiccacon Creek (the battle site), as the true location, whereas the Carolinians viewed it as where the Weyanokes settled later on at the time the charter was written, at present-day Nottoway River. Plumpton was among several "old timers" interviewed to give testimony to Virginia's perspective. This borderland became a no man's land where various "undesirables" from English society came to live. Abused Native groups such as the Meherrin, Nansemond, and Nottoway sought refuge there as well. This border dispute became extremely heated for decades, and was a major factor in the enmity between the two colonies throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The dispute was finally resolved with a new survey in 1728 that favored North Carolina's argument for the Nottoway River.⁶⁵

In short, the expeditions into Carolina may, at first glance, seem trifling affairs in the context of the Third Anglo-Powhatan War, but the effects on North Carolina history are wide ranging and many. In truth, the Battle of Weyanoke Creek is remarkable as the first event to trigger the wave of settlement to Carolina from Virginia. To the poor farmers frustrated with Virginian society, this land had everything they were looking for: isolation, natural barriers of defense, good tillage, fishing and game, and opportunities for lucrative trade; little was to be wanted. These expeditions introduced the land to the future settlers for the very first time. Additionally, a large body of documentation shows that the decades-long border dispute had many of its roots in the Battle of Weyanoke Creek, with the precise location of Weyanoke Creek becoming a great controversy—and as Rountree noted, "did much to set the stage for the major trading efforts that occurred later."⁶⁶ In all, the Third Anglo-Powhatan War, in particular the Weyanoke Indians' decision to immigrate south, clearly deserves its proper place as a major factor in the birthing of North Carolina.