Meherrin
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The Meherrin Tribe is one of eight state-recognized tribes of Native Americans in North Carolina and received formal state recognition in 1986. The Meherrin currently have an enrollment of 557 people.
The Meherrin are Iroquoian-descent Native Americans who reside in rural northeastern North Carolina, and are proximate to the river of the same name on the Virginia-North Carolina border. The Meherrin tribal seat is Winton, North Carolina and the tribe is principally located in and around the "Little California/Pleasant Plains" of Hertford County, North Carolina.
[edit] History
"Meherrin" means, "people of the muddy water." The Meherrin are an amalgam of the Meherrin, Chowanoke, and Conestoga, or Susquehannock of upper Maryland, and were closely related to the Nottoway. In 1650, Edward Bland led an expedition into the interior of Virginia colony. Accompanied by an Appamatuck guide, Bland wandered into a Meherrin village located west of present-day Emporia, Virginia, within thirty miles of where the Meherrin presently reside.
In the 1669 Virginia census, the Meherrin are listed as the "Menheyricks." It is possible that the influx of refugee Susquehannock who had been dispersed by the Haudenosaunee a few years earlier may have so overwhelmed the Meherrin as to give rise to the impression that subsequently they were for the most part comprised of Susquehannock. However, one should well consider that in 1720, the Meherrin concluded a treaty of peace with a number of tribal peoples in present-day Pennsylvania. The Conestoga, or Susquehannock were among those mentioned in the negotiations.
By the late seventeenth century, the Meherrin had fallen under the jurisdiction of Virginia, although Carolina colony also lay claim to their territory. The Meherrin and Virginia colony had signed a treaty in 1677. However, incursions by Virginia colony into what remained of Meherrin territory effectively nullified the treaty and the Meherrin were forced to flee southward into North Carolina.
By 1729, the Meherrin were consigned to a reservation tract by the North Carolina General Assembly in Bertie County, now a part of Hertford County. At the time, the six-mile tract was called, "Meherrin Neck." Later, the name was changed to "Maney's Neck," and today it is called "Parker's Ferry." North Carolina colonials began to trespass on Meherrin land as had Virginia's colonials in the previous century. Already depleted in number due to warfare and disease, the Meherrin receded into the neighboring swamps and less desirable areas of Hertford County. In order to protect what lands they had managed to salvage, the Meherrin parcelled out their tribal holdings into individually-owned lots. In so doing, and throughout the nineteenth century, the Meherrin managed to stave off as best they could, continuous incursions into their ancestral homeland.
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