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John BRAVEBOY, Beaufort, NORTH CAROLINA
John Braveboy was born in the Beaufort Precinct of colonial NC. He was tithable there on December 25, 1712. This precinct was formed from Pamtecough and previously Bath County. This Precinct included well known Tuscarora locales such as Neyuhęrù·kęʔ. This was also where a Tuscarora man was killed by immigrants, which was the atrocity that ignited the Tuscarora war. What can safely be assumed about John Braveboy is that he was given a Tuscarora name at birth and eventually was forced to choose a European name or perhaps was assigned a European name if he attended school. He had no surname at birth, consistent with Indian culture. When the Tuscarora war began in 1711, he would have been approximately 13 years old and for performing some meritorious act in battle during the war, he was given the name “Brave Boy.” John is the patriarch of all Braveboy/Brayboy Tuscaroras in Robeson County today. Through accent, the name morphed from Braveboy to Brayboy generally in the early 1800’s, but varies by family.
There has been some confusion on the Braveboy nationality. John Braveboy has in recent years been mistaken as being from the Yeopim tribe, a coastal Algonkian speaking tribe whose territory was Perquimans, Pasquotank and Camden Counties, NC. Two likely reasons for this are that “Bray” was a common surname among the Yeopim and that one of John’s sons was given land along the Yeopim River in Chowan County. The Yeopim were our allies and after the war, the remnants of the tribe were absorbed into the Tuscarora, although some individuals remained scattered around the Great Dismal Swamp and their traditional territory. The photo will show that the Braveboy and Bray surnames were in use at the same time, in different regions.
It is safe to assume that John married Sarah Thomas (circa 1700-1770) in a traditional Tuscarora wedding ceremony, because they were known as being married and he was later summoned to the district Chowan court for living as married without a marriage certificate issued by the colonial state of NC. Sarah was born in Windsor, Bertie County, which is adjacent to Indian Woods Tuscarora reservation. Bear with us while we explain that Edgecombe County was formed in 1741 from Bertie County which in turn was formed as Bertie Precinct in 1722 from the part of Chowan Precinct of Albemarle County lying west of the Chowan River. These Euro-American geopolitical borders!
In 1761, David Braveboy (circa 1730-1785), John and Sarah’s son, entered 100 acres of land on the east side of Five Mile Branch, Bladen Precinct (present day Robeson County), which is adjacent to Saddletree swamp, where Tuscarora Chief William “Billy” Pugh was issued a land grant in 1753. Where the Chiefs went, the people followed. David’s wife was Lydia Ivey (1720-1797).
An interesting note here is that on the 1770 Bladen County, NC tax list (present day Robeson County), Archibald McKissack recorded “John Blunt and sons Jacob and James.” One of John Blount’s closest neighbors was David Braveboy and Blount was living with a man by the name of Braveboy.
John and Sarah’s granddaughter, Patience Braveboy (1745-1765), married Horatio Hammonds (1744-1810). Patience Braveboy’s birthplace is not certain (although logical to assume Bertie or Edgecombe), but we do know she died in Robeson County. Horatio Hammonds was born in the Tuscarora stronghold of Bertie County and died in Robeson County.
Mary Braveboy, a “free person of color,” born circa 1734 in Bertie County, was tithable in the 1761 tax list of William Gray. She was also tithable with her son on an unnamed 1766 Bertie County tax list.
Patty Braveboy was in one of the migrations south. She was born in Bertie County, NC circa 1750 and was enumerated on the 1790 SC census in the Cheraw DISTRICT and stayed next door to a Sam Braveboy. Both were enumerated as “Free Person of Color,” which was the government’s legal designation for Indians, in an attempt to erase us. The Cheraw were a Siouan speaking tribe and our blood enemies. By the time they arrived in SC, they had been reduced to nomadic war refugees from decades of attacks by Senecas and Tuscaroras. The Catawba acknowledge that they absorbed the remnant of the Cheraw circa 1726, where the Cheraw had their own village. A historic 1756 Catawba reservation map shows the location of the Cheraw village. An interesting fact is that the Saponi took some of the already decimated Cheraw with them when they left the Catawba reservation and migrated back to Virginia in 1730 and subsequently to NY, where they were absorbed into the Haudenosaunee. Because some Tuscaroras migrated to a place called Cheraw, that did not make them Cheraw. This has sadly caused much confusion in Robeson County.
The Braveboy/Brayboy family has been one of the more prominent Tuscarora families in Robeson County since migrating here.
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