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.
This is my blood family's journey through the heart of Tuscarora territory in Eastern North Carolina.
This documents a history that survived despite the "Paper Genocide," where the state of North Carolina frequently used the labels "White" or "Colored" to erase Indigenous identity from the official record.
The Tuscarora Ancestral Facts of the Brooks-Braxton Line
The 1700s: The Resilience in the Tidewater
The record begins with Lt. James Brooks and Nancy Edwards in Carteret County. Living along the coastal sounds in the early to mid-1700s, they resided in the traditional lands of the Tuscarora and Coree. While James's military service record often defaults to "White" to fit the era's legal requirements for an officer, his presence in these coastal enclaves is the foundation of the family's Tuscarora roots. His son, John (Royal) Brooks (1750–1833), maintained the family’s presence in Straits, a region where indigenous families remained connected to the water and the land long after the colonial wars ended.
The Early 1800s: The Heart of the Homeland
By the late 1700s and early 1800s, William A. Brooks Sr. (1776–1865) moved the lineage further inland toward Pitt County. This move brought the family into the direct vicinity of the Indian Woods reservation in neighboring Bertie County—the final legal stronghold of the Tuscarora in North Carolina. In these records, the family navigated the shifting racial lines of the South, where maintaining land ownership often meant being documented as "White" in deeds, even as the community recognized their tribal origins.
The Mid-1800s: Navigating the Binary
As Asa Brooks (b. 1815) and his wife Sarah "Sallie" Leffers raised their family, the racial climate in North Carolina tightened. Following the 1835 Constitutional Convention, which stripped "Free People of Color" of their rights, many Tuscarora descendants found themselves categorized as "Mulatto" or "Colored" by census takers who refused to acknowledge Native identity. When their daughter Susan M. Brooks married Levi Allen Braxton, two families from the indigenous corridors of Pitt and Lenoir counties united, reinforcing their ancestral ties to the Neuse River basin.
The Late 1800s to 1900s: The Invisible Communities
By the time John A. Braxton (b. 1876) married Maggie Carmon, the family was deeply rooted in the agricultural communities of Pitt County. The names on my tree from this era—Carmon, Harper, Kittle, and Brown—represent a network of families who lived in self-contained communities. In these decades, my ancestors like Luby Harper, Victoria Carman, and Adam Harper were often listed in the census as "Colored," a label the state used to group all non-whites together, effectively hiding their Tuscarora heritage behind a generic racial category.
The Modern Era: Reclamation
The lineage continues through Louis Ray Braxton and Nora Harper, into the lives of Haywood Howard and Agnes Lee Howard. Living in the shadow of Neoheroka (the site of the final Tuscarora stand in Greene County), these generations preserved the family structure within the very territory their ancestors defended. Today, as this tree reaches Me (Sonya Braxton), the narrative shifts from one of survival under false labels to one of active reclamation, identifying the "White" and "Colored" markers of the past as the paper trail of a hidden Tuscarora history.
Chronological Summary of the Lineage
Era
Primary Ancestors
Key Territory (Tuscarora Heartland)
1725–1812
Lt. James Brooks & Nancy Edwards
Carteret County (Coastal Territory)
1750–1833
John (Royal) Brooks & Lydia Shackleford
Carteret County (Straits/Whitehurst)
1776–1865
William A. Brooks Sr.
Carteret/Pitt County (Neuse River Basin)
1815–1860
Asa Brooks & Sarah Leffers
Carteret County
1840–1900
Susan Brooks & Levi Allen Braxton
Pitt/Lenoir County (Interior Settlements)
1876–1930
John A. Braxton & Maggie Carmon
Pitt County (Greenville/Carolina area)
1900–1950
Louis Ray Braxton & Nora Harper
Pitt/Greene County (Neoheroka Region)
1960–Present
Sonya Braxton
North Carolina (Modern Reclamation)
Executive Summary: The Brooks-Braxton Lineage
The genealogical record of the Brooks-Braxton and Howard-Suggs families presents a classic example of Tuscarora and southeastern indigenous persistence within their ancestral homelands. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries in North Carolina, indigenous identity was systematically obscured by a legal "Paper Genocide," where the state utilized binary racial labels—"White" and "Colored"—as administrative tools of control.
Patterns of Classification
Paternal Lineage (Brooks/Braxton): Early ancestors like Lt. James Brooks were historically documented as White, a legal necessity for military officers and landowners in the 1700s to protect property rights. Later generations, such as Asa Brooks and Levi Braxton, exhibit the frequent "flipping" between White and Mulatto status in census records—a definitive hallmark of Native ancestry where classifications shifted based on the subjective perceptions of census takers.
Maternal Lineage (Howard/Suggs): The Suggs and Howard families occupied the heart of Tuscarora territory along Contentnea Creek. While early records often used the White label to facilitate settlement, later generations like Haywood Howard were reclassified as Colored or Black as Jim Crow-era laws eliminated "Indian" as a recognized category for non-reservation families.
Royal
In the tradition of my ancestors who remained in our North Carolina heartlands, the name Royal in the Brooks-Braxton lineage is more than just a name—it is a testament to our sovereign identity and ancestral status. In the 18th century, as our people navigated the aftermath of the Tuscarora War, the English world often used titles like "King" to describe our leaders, such as Tom Blount, to fit their own understanding of authority. By carrying the name Royal, my ancestor John "Royal" Brooks preserved a connection to a high-status bloodline or clan leadership that was recognized within our community. It served as a cultural bridge, translating our hereditary greatness into a term the colonial system had to respect. For my family, this was a firm, quiet assertion of our right to the land and our status as a distinct, sovereign people, providing a layer of dignity that remained even as "Paper Genocide" began to cloud our true history.
Conclusion of Identity
The most compelling evidence of Native American ancestry in this lineage is the consistency of geography paired with the inconsistency of racial labeling. For over 250 years, my family blood lines remained anchored in the Tuscarora heartlands of Carteret, Pitt, and Greene counties.
Had these lines been strictly European or strictly of African descent, their racial designations would have remained static. Instead, the fluid movement between labels confirms they were a Native people navigating a oppressive colonial system that refused to acknowledge their true identity, effectively hiding a vibrant Tuscarora blood heritage behind the generic and oppressive classifications of those times.
JOHN 3:16 ♥️
