Coharie

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The Coharie are a Native American Tribe who descend from the Neusiok Indians on the Little Coharie River, in Sampson and Harnett County, North Carolina. The Coharie are one of eight state-recognized Native American tribes in North Carolina, the largest of which is the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. Others include the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Haliwa-Saponi Tribe of Indians, Sappony Indians of Person County, Meherrin Tribe of Indians, Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, and the Waccamaw Siouan Tribe.

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[edit] Demographics

The Coharie population of Harnett and Sampson counties has steadily increased from 755 in 1970 to almost 1,800 in 2000. The age distribution within the Coharie tribal nation in the TDSA is predominantly adults between the ages of 21 and 65.

According to the 2000 census, the Coharie population in Sampson County is 1029, and 752 in Harnett County, for a total of 1,781. The Coharie Tribe consists of 2,363 enrolled members, and approximately 20% reside outside of the tribal communities in Harnett and Sampson counties. The Coharie community consists of four settlements: Holly Grove, New Bethel, Shiloh, and Antioch.

[edit] Government

The state of North Carolina recognized the Coharie Tribe in 1971. Clinton, North Carolina is the tribal seat. In 1975, the tribe chartered the Coharie Intra-Tribal Council to serve as a private non-profit organization established to promote the health, education, social, and economic well-being of the Native people of Sampson and Harnett Counties.

The Coharie Intra-Tribal Council is housed in the old Eastern Carolina Indian School building, a school that served the Native Americans of |Sampson, Harnett, Cumberland, Columbus, Person, and Hoke counties from 1942 until 1966.

The Coharie Indian Tribe elected their first tribal chief in 1910. Tribal affairs are led by a tribal chief and seven tribal council members. The Coharie political leadership oversees the four communities of Coharie Indians from three geographical locations in Sampson County and one region in Harnett County. As is true of many Southeastern Native American groups, identifying each community of Indians is facilitated through local church membership:

The Coharie Tribal Center is located: 7531 North US 421 Hwy. Clinton, North Carolina 28328

[edit] Relationships to other North Carolina Tribes

The Coharie have intermarried predominantly with the Lumbee and Tuscarora Indians of Robeson County, as well as with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

[edit] History

[edit] Seventeenth Century

Historians generally contend that the Coharie are descendants of the Neusiok, Coree, Tuscarora, and Waccamaw, who occupied what is now the central portion of North Carolina. In the early seventeenth century, the Coree were ensconsed along the Big Coharie and the Little Coharie Rivers in present-day Sampson County.

[edit] Eighteenth Century

Between 1730 and 1745, intertribal conflicts as well as hostilities between Native peoples and English colonials turned the Southeast, and in particular, the Carolinas into a maelstrom of violent activity-- from the acceleration of the Deerskin and Indian Slave trades, to the spread of disease and disruptions of warfare. Families of Coree, Waccamaw, and Neusiok Indians began to seek refuge from colonial incursions in northern and northeastern North Carolina, and moved into what is now Harnett and Sampson counties, establishing a small, albeit effective political base.

[edit] Nineteenth Century

Throughout the 1800s, the Coharie built their political base in Sampson County. The Coharie held the right to own and use firearms, and vote in local elections. However, with the convergence of Indian Removal policy on the federal level, and the ratification of the 1835 amendment to North Carolina's constitution on the state level, the Coharie, much like their Native and free black neighbors, found themselves politically vulnerable. In 1835, the state of North Carolina disenfranchised the Coharie.

Nevertheless, in 1859, the Coharie established their own subscription school. In 1911, the Coharie asked North Carolina to provide Indian schools in Sampson County. In that same year, the Coharie established New Bethel Indian School in New Bethel Township, Sampson County. In 1912, they Coharie established a school in Herring Township, after the first year of which, the state stopped supporting the school. Following the precendent set by the Lumbee Indians of Robeson County, the Coharie established a semi-independent school system wherein North Carolina retained some oversight. While the state legislature rescinded its permission in 1913, it reinstated the separate Coharie school system four years later given the activism of the tribe and the assistance of its tribal attorney. Thus, in 1917, the East Carolina Indian School was built in Herring Township, and in 1942, East Carolina Indian School was established in Sampson County.

[edit] Sources

  • Brownwell, Margo S. "Note: Who Is An Indian? Searching For An Answer To the Question at the Core of Federal Indian Law." University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 34 (Fall-Winter 2001-2002): 275-320.
  • Lederer, John. The Discoveries of John Lederer. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1958.
  • McPherson, O.M. Indians of North Carolina: A Report on the Condition and Tribal Rights of the Indians of Robeson and Adjoining Counties of North Carolina. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1915.
  • "Pamphlet." N.C. Commission of Indian Affairs, 1990.
  • Smith, Martin T. Archeology of Aboriginal Culture Change in the Interior Southeast: Depopulation During the Early Historic Period. Gainesville, FLA: University of Florida Press, 1987.
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