NORTH CAROLINA'S PAPER GENOCIDE AGAINST TUSCARORA INDIAN FAMILIES WHO REMAINED IN NORTH CAROLINA AFTER THE WAR OF 1715. 

I AM OF THOSE TUSCARORA INDIAN BLOODLINES. 

MY PATERNAL AND MATERNAL SIDES, LIVED IN HISTORICALLY TUSCARORA AREAS OF NORTH CAROLINA. 

UPDATED HISTORY -  TBA

Reclaiming 300+ years of Tuscarora history is a tedious process. Because of Paper Genocide, I must manually cross-reference every birth, marriage, and land record from the 1700s to the present. This effort takes time and precision to ensure our ancestors' true identities are restored.

The Tuscarora Surnames: From Braveboy to Braxton

While my personal research is a work in progress, it aligns with a well-documented pattern in Tuscarora genealogy: the likely connection between the Braxton surname and the ancient Braveboy lineage.

Oral and Historical Context: The name Braveboy (originally "Brave Boy" or Brayboy) originated from a young Tuscarora warrior. Because the Tuscarora language does not naturally include the "v" sound, the name was frequently recorded as Brayboy, and over centuries of administrative record-keeping—the very Paper Genocide that reclassified our identities—these names were often further anglicized into variants like Braxton.

A Shared Heritage: Historical studies have already identified specific Braxton families who descend from notable figures like Moses Braveboy and Joshua Braveboy. My set of Braxtons lived in the same Tuscarora heartlands where the Braveboys were historically documented.

The Braxton-Brooks Kinship: A Network of Survival

My research also points to a significant historical and kinship connection between the Braxton and Brooks lineages. The Brooks surname is a cornerstone of our community’s history, famously tied to the Brooks Settlement Longhouse, which served as a center for Tuscarora identity and governance for generations.

Seeing Braxton and Brooks names side-by-side in records of Greene, Pitt, and Craven counties is no coincidence. It reflects a centuries-old pattern of intermarriage between free Indigenous families who remained on their land. Like the shift from Braveboy to Braxton, these families used kinship and community to survive the state's attempts at erasure. Whether illegally recorded as White, Colored, or Black, the Braxton and Brooks families shared a common history of freedom and a common Tuscarora bloodline that refused to be silenced by the stroke of a pen.

A Distinct and Original Bloodline: The Pitt County & Contentnea Creek Braxtons

It is important to clearly distinguish my family lineage from other "Braxton" families found in different regions of the South. My set of Braxtons is indigenous to the Contentnea Creek region of Pitt and Greene Counties.

Geographic Roots: While the "Braxton" surname can be found elsewhere, our specific line has been anchored in the Tuscarora heartlands of Contentnea Creek, Snow Hill, and the surrounding areas since the early 1700s.

A Unique Historical Origin: Unlike Braxton families in other regions whose presence may be tied to different historical movements, my ancestors were a pre-1865 Free Indigenous people. We were already established, land-owning, and legally recognized as free citizens on this specific soil long before the Civil War.

The Paper Genocide Distinction: The "Black" "Colored" label attached to the Contentnea Creek Braxtons in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was a bureaucratic reclassification of a local Tuscarora population. It was an attempt by North Carolina officials to erase the specific Indigenous identity of families rooted in the Pitt County region, forcing us into a broad racial category that ignores our unique 300+ year history on this land.

This is not just another branch of a common name; this is a distinct, localized Tuscarora bloodline.

TUSCARORA

With a documented presence in the Tuscarora heartlands—including Contentnea Creek, Snow Hill, Greene, Pitt, counties, etc., my family Tuscarora blood lineage represents over 300 years of continuous history in North Carolina.

Tracing back to the early 1700s, the fluctuating racial labels found in these records, moving between White, Colored, and then Black are not a change in blood ancestry, but the direct result of Paper Genocide, . This was a deliberate bureaucratic process where government officials used the "stroke of a pen" to reclassify Indigenous people into whichever category best served the political agenda of the time.

Whether labeled "White" to force assimilation and dissolve tribal land claims, or "Colored" to fit the strict racial binaries of the Jim Crow era, and then "Black" to drive the illegal paper genocide nail even deeper, these shifting records are evidence of a state-sponsored attempt to erase North Carolina Tuscarora identity from the official archive. Despite this administrative erasure, my family history and records serves as a 300+ year map of a family that remained rooted in its ancestral lands.

The Historical Fact of Tuscarora Freedom

Our family history is defined by a continuous, documented presence in the Tuscarora heartlands—including Contentnea Creek, Snow Hill, Greene, Pitt, Craven, and Pamlico counties—dating back to the early 1700s. These records provide irrefutable evidence of our status as a free Indigenous people who remained on our ancestral lands after the War of 1715.

The Evidence of Our Legal Status:

Records Pre-1865: Our ancestors were never documented as enslaved property. Throughout the entire pre-1865 era, they appear in records as free individuals, proving they held legal personhood, autonomy, and the right to exist outside the system of slavery long before the Civil War.

State Marriage Records: Unlike enslaved individuals, who were legally barred from marriage, our ancestors entered into state-sanctioned marriage bonds and licenses. These legal contracts prove they were recognized by the state as free citizens with the right to own property and build legally protected families centuries ago.

Paper Genocide and the Erasure of Identity

The shifting racial labels in census and vital records are the direct result of Paper Genocide—a state-sponsored process where bureaucratic labels were changed to align with the political goals of the era, rather than the reality of a family's ancestry.

How Paper Genocide Forced Labels to Shift:

Erasure through "White" Classification: In many instances, government officials recorded Indigenous people as "White" to force assimilation and legally "dissolve" the tribe. If a family was documented as white on paper, the state could claim they were no longer "Indian," thereby justifying the termination of tribal land rights and the ending of treaty obligations. These shifting records are the "smoking gun" of a state-sponsored attempt to erase our Tuscarora identity. While the state changed our labels, our records of freedom and our 300+ year tie to this land remain unbroken.

Erasure through "Colored" or "Black" Classification: In the early 20th century, eugenics-based laws (like Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act) sought to create a strict racial binary. Officials systematically reclassified Indigenous people as "Colored" or "Black/Negro" to uphold segregation. By removing the "Indian" category entirely, the government "illegally" on paper stated that the tribes had ceased to exist.

Unilateral Bureaucratic Action: These shifts were not choices made by Tuscarora individuals; they were the result of clerical abuse of power. A census enumerator or registrar could move a Tuscarora family from "White" to "Colored" to "Black/Negro" based solely on their own biased opinion or oppressive new state mandates.

In every case, the goal of Paper Genocide was the same: to use the census and vital records as a weapon to erase the distinct legal and cultural existence of Indigenous people, making Natives "disappear" into other populations on paper, like other brown tribes they tried to erase our Indigenous blood.

Note: Taino Indians in Puerto Rico Rico/ and Mainland U.S. also faced this illegal Paper Genocide. Many persons in other the Latino communities as well still face this today, language does not change DNA.

Sonya Braxton, a North Carolina Tuscarora Indian

JOHN 3:16 ♥️