Saponi

The Saponi were a Siouan Indian tribe whose name means "red earth people". The Saponi suffered severely durning the Second Hundred Year War, which involved the Native Americans of the Great Lakes region and the Alantic seaboard. Durning this time, tribes also often fought bitterly against one another.Smaller tribes, such as the Saponi,were continually harassed, scattered, and driven from one refuge to another. The main group of the Saponi, known as the Saponi Tribe, moved north to New York state and were formally adopted by the Cayuga in 1753,thus being brought into the shelter of the Iroquois Confederacy. According to the Handbook of American Indians, the Saponi tribe had become fully assimilated by the end of the eighteenth century.

In Virginia in the early 1700's, the Saponi had formed a union with the Tutelo, Stuckanock, Meiponsky, and Ocannechi tribes known as the Saponi Nation. A group of these Indians remained behind after the main tribes's adoption by the Cayuga. Today, the Ocannechi refer to themselves as the Ocannechi Band of the Saponi Nation . The Ocannechi eventually adopted certain English surnames including Jefferies,Whitmore,Stewart,Watkins,Guy, Haitcock and many more. According to tribal sources, the current population is about 400 persons living in the Mebane area of Almance and Orange Counties of NC. All knowledge of the traditionsal language has been forgotten.

A third group of Saponi, along with unattached members of the southeast tribes, seeking to maintain their social identity as Indians, gathered in NC to form the Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe in the nineteenth century. The state reconized the Haliwa-Saponi as a tribe April 15, 1965. Their current population is listed as 3, 005, most of whom are residence of Halifax and Warren Counties. The membership today consists of descendants of the Saponi,Nansemond, Tuscarora, Occaneechi, Tutelo, and Gingaskin tribes. In the early 1900's ,some English family names were adopted by tribal members and still appear today. First to be adopted were the names of Richardson and Bass, and later Lynch, Silver, Mills, and Hedgepath.

North America was only one battle zone for the Second Hundred Year war. Hostilities between the embattled British, French, Dutch, and Spanish empires also raged in Spanish America, Europe, and on the seas. It eventually involved generations after generation of Native Americans fighting not only with or against the European powers, but also resisting colonial expansion and the migration of the tribes fleeing the whites. An even greater danger were epidemics of European diseases such as smallpox and measels, which constinally decimated the tribes.

Knowledge of the Saponi reaches the white world only in glimpses. The Handbook of American Indians noted in 1654-1655 war between the Saponi and the Virginia colonists. In 1670 the Saponi seemed to be a member of the Tutelo Confederacy, living on the Otter River southwest of the Lynchburg of today. The same source records a visit by one Thomas Batts on 1671 to a village called "Sapony Town". Harassed in this region not only by southern tribes, but also by the Iroquois war parties, the Saponi and Tutelo both moved to a location near today's Macklenburg County Virginia. 1671 found them located on the Radkin River, near present-day Salisbury. More than a generation later in 1701 the two small tribes located to newsettlement, Sapona Town in today's Bertie County, NC where they came under continuing attact from both southern tribes and the Iroquois.

About 1713 , Governor Alexander Spottswood of Virginia westablished a reservation around a trading post, calling it Fort Christianna.

In 1722 the aggressive Iroquois signed a peace with the tribes of Virginia and North Carolina. Durning the cource of another generation the main portion of the Saponi tribe allied with the Cayugam a member of the Iroquois Confederacy and moved north. In 1753 the Catyuga formally adopted both the Saponi & Tutelo tribes. Records from 1771 show the main body of the Saponi Tribe living with the Cayuga near present day Ithaca ,New York. About this time, the Tutelo, their brothers for so many years and wars, split away and fled off to Canada. The record of the main Saponi tribe at this point fades away.

However, the Occaneechi records notes at this time that some descendants of the Saponi Nation, as distinct from the main Saponi Tribe, and as represented by the Ocannechi, remained in southern Virginia, There many of the tribesmen acquired English family names: Jefferies, Whitmore, Stewart, Watkins, Guy, and Hancock. Under these new names, many of the Indians were able to recieve title to their ancestral lands. Later they moved to the northeast corner of Almance and Orange Counties in NC. Today they are organized as the Ocannechi Band of the Saponi Nation in the Eno-Ocannechi Indian Association Inc. They are currently engaged in efforts to gain formal state recognitation as a tribe.

The third group of Saponi, the Haliwa-Saponi Tribe does have state recongnition. This tribe was organized in the 1780's around the community of Saponi, Tuscarora,and Nansemond peoples located at the site known as the Meadows. Charles Hudson categotized them in The Forgotten Centuries:Indians and Europeans in the American South, 1521-1740 as a racially mixed peoples who have only a tenuous culture and genetic Indian background, but are establishing social identity as Indians.

The Indians of the southeast lived in a forested and well watered land where food was abundant. The Saponi relied on hunting, gathering, and agricultural production for their food. They harvested a variety of crops of which corn was the most important, as well as squash,gourds, and several kinds of beans, and fruits, fresh and dried. They gathered nuts, wild parsnips, turnips, and other plants. A rich variety of animals and fish awaited the hunters. Deer was an important source of meat and hides for trading. Techniques for the mass hunting of deer were well developed. Also hunted were bear,beaver,opossum, raccoons, rabbits, turkey,and a variety of fish.

The Saponi lived in semi-permanent, circular houses built around a wooden frame and covered with bark or animal skins. Other skins and rush mats covered the floor.

The Saponi were organized in a matrilineal society. The man's primary role was that of a warrior. Due to the frequent fighting, a man might be absent from home much of the time. The young passed through comming of age rituals involving isolation and probably the consumption of hullucinogens.

The Ocannechi Band of the Saponi Nation has a tribal Board of Directors which deals with community problems and relations with goverment at all levels. Their primary objective has been to gain recongnition as a tribe by the state of NC. The tribe is located in the Hillsboro area of NC. The Hiliwa-Saponi has a per capita income of 7,500 and published enrollment of 3,005 persons. They are governed by an elected ten member tribal council. The tribe has worked hard in recent years to revive their tribal culture, including the study of their traditional language. The tribes two main goals ,which have been accomplished,have been to establish a high school and to correct the public record by amending their birth certificates to show their Indian origins.


	updated 1/28/2002