His one Netev ples

The Chowans and the Politics of Native Petitions in the Colonial South

Bibliographic Data

ID3514487
AuthorsDixon, Dixon Dixon (corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume76
Issue1
Pages41
Publication date2019-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe William and Mary Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0043-5597 • E-ISSN: 1933-7698
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.5309/willmaryquar.76.1.0041
OpenAlexW2913394829
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited34

His one Netev ples"The Chowans and the Politics of Native Petitions in the Colonial South Bradley J. Dixon (bio) One morning, about the year 1730, Thomas Hoyter rose before sunup in his cabin near Bennett's Creek, North Carolina. Hoyter donned the scarlet coat of a soldier, earned perhaps in one of "Eight expeditions against the Indyan Enemys" of the colony.1 His "Soldiers red Coat, Wastecoat, and Breeches" Hoyter reserved for the times when business called him southward through Chowan precinct to Edenton, the colonial capital. He put on that uniform maybe once or twice in a year—more often when Hoyter needed to sell land or sue a troublesome neighbor. For Hoyter the journey that day was most certainly an important event, a "State Visit" with his whole family—wife, brothers, children, and kin—joining him on his progress to meet the colony's governor for an annual renewal of the ties that bound them and their peoples.2 As his errand that [End Page 41] day suggests, Hoyter's uniform notwithstanding, he was not simply a military leader. Hoyter was a headman and, to the English, the "King" of the Chowans.3 John Brickell, an Irish traveler and physician, watched as Hoyter arrived at the governor's house with "his Queen, Children, Physician, Captains of War, and his Guards" in train. The "Guards were well Armed, with each Man a Gun, good store of Powder and Ball, and a Tamahawk by his side, which is a kind of small Hatchet." Hoyter's "Retinue" befitted his station. At the governor's house, he rendezvoused with the other "Indian Kings in this Province, who are civilized" and who had brought their own attendants dressed in garb just as dazzling. Together they delivered deerskins as tribute and joined the governor for dinner. The "small Tribute," Brickell explained, was "an Acknowledgment of their Subjection." After dinner, the "Kings" rejoined their companions and went to trade in town. On the street Hoyter and the Chowan delegation performed what Brickell called "the Indian War [dance] ... Hooping and Hollowing ... while stamping altogether like Madmen." The Chowans and the other tributary Indians present were likely demonstrating the military skills they used during the war and making a show of unity with the colonial government. It was a pledge of renewed loyalty and an affirmation of their duty as defenders of the colonists, "ready upon all occasions to assist them when ever they are required so to do."4 Hoyter's standing as a tributary Indian king made him a player in colonial politics. On display that day at the governor's house was a confident political leader. But no Indigenous person in a tributary relationship could take for granted what his or her status really meant. In court appearances, conferences with governors, and especially their petitions to colonial authorities, Natives defined their status in terms more copious and with further-reaching rights than either English theory or colonial law seemed [End Page 42] to allow. And they disputed over not just the practical questions regarding the rights they were entitled to but also their place in the colonial world. In so doing, they proved to be influential in shaping the policies that came to govern relations between themselves and the colonists. Historians have worked to place tributary systems within the framework of settler colonialism. In Virginia, where the pattern of the tributary relationship was established early, scholars have argued that tributary status generally served the interests of settler colonists. By confining Natives within limited tracts of land, distinguishing Native friends from foes with badges and special clothing, and insisting on obedience by claiming for colonial officials the power to appoint loyal Native leaders and depose surly ones, colonists effectively reduced the Powhatans to tribute-paying "vassal[s]" living on "islands" of land in a swelling sea of boisterous settlers.5 Calling them "vassals," in fact, merely underscores the difficulty of their condition. To be sure, for many Natives, especially those who were, in Daniel R. Mandell's phrase, living "behind the frontier," the turn toward what scholars have seen as an English colonial legal system was the result of diminished options and usually

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