[Linda]

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1C4HiPHcT2/

Lawrence Dunmore just posted this to Facebook.  He’s a great person to follow.

Remembering the Loss of the Saponi Nation Reservation …

On December 10, 1730, 295 years ago, the Virginia House of Burgesses abrogated the Treaty of Peace with the Saponi Nation of Indians and dissolved the Fort Christianna reservation.

This was done in response to a petition for the “former” Saponi lands by land-hungry colonists. The Saponi peoples had fled their reservation for the protection of their kinspeople in the Catawba Nation in South Carolina. The greedy petitioners were awarded the former reservation lands.

The House of Burgesses may have justified this action by executing Article V of the 1713 Treaty of Peace, which stated that if the reservation’s population ever fell below a certain number, the treaty with Virginia could be abrogated. However, it is unclear if this action was, in fact, legally taken.

At the time of the treaty’s abrogation, the fort’s colonial rangers had failed to protect the Saponi peoples during an escalating war of vengeance with the Nottoway Indians and their allies, the Six Nations Iroquois.

This war forced the majority of the Saponi people to flee the reservation, going south to seek protection from their relatives in the Catawba Nation. The House of Burgesses claimed that the Saponi peoples had become part of the Catawba Nation and granted several petitioners the reservation land.

The Saponi Nation Reservation was the size of an English township or 6 miles-square (equivalent to an area of 36 square miles) located in Brunswick County, Virginia near the present-day town of Lawrenceville. It was parceled out in large tracts to wealthy English elites.

The parcels were 6,000 acres to Henry Harrison, 12,000 acres to John & Joseph Allen, 1,200 acres to Thomas Cock, and 2,000 acres each to Thomas Ravencroft and Benjamin Edwards.

These opportunistic colonial landowners took advantage of the dire situation that the people of the Saponi Nation found themselves in. They stole all the land a year after the Saponi, Occaneechi, Eno, Shakori, and Tutelo peoples had left Virginia to live with the Catawba people.

• This topic was modified 1 week, 6 days ago by Linda.
• This topic was modified 1 week, 6 days ago by Linda.
• This topic was modified 1 week, 6 days ago by Linda.

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