Hatteras Indians facts for kids

The Hatteras Indians were a tribe of Native Americans in the United States who lived in the North Carolina Outer Banks. They inhabited a village on what is now called Hatteras Island called Croatoan. They lived in a small village consisting of 80 people.

Name

The meaning of the name Hatteras is unspecified. It was first used by English explorer John Lawson. Lawson was writing a book where he mentioned the Hatteras Indians for the first time. Although the meaning of Hatteras is unknown, the people from that island were known as "the people of shallow water". They are also known as Croatans.

History

They first had contact with English settlers in 1587 and were gone by the mid-18th century. In the 1711 Tuscarora War, the Hatteras Indians sided with the colonists and fought against the Tuscarora tribe and their allies for the colonists. This cost them heavily and many were driven from their lands by enemy tribes.

Several people from the Hatteras Island area are of white ancestry. According to some historians after the tribe was colonized some of them affiliated with other tribes such as the North Carolina Algonquian and Siouan-speaking tribes, and survivors of the Roanoke colony.

Some descendants of the Hatteras Indians may be part of the Lumbee Indians.

Language

The Hatteras Indians spoke a language in the Algonquian language family.