Shakori Indians

Shakori Tribe: A native name but its significance unknown, though perhaps the same as Sugari, “stingy or spoiled people,” or “of the river whose-water-cannot-be drunk.” Also called:

  • Cacores, a misprint.

Shakori Connections. The Shakori belonged to the Siouan linguistic family, their closest connections being evidently with the southern division of the Siouan tribes of the East. Barnwell (1908) identified them with the Sissipahaw.

Shakori Location. The Shakori moved so frequently and there is so much uncertainty regarding their early history, that this is hard to give, but, as they usually kept company with the Eno, tenancy of the courses of Shocco and Big Shocco Creeks in the present Vance, Warren, and Franklin Counties is perhaps the location most closely connected with them in historic times. (See South Carolina and Virginia.)

Shakori History. It is possible that the Shakori gave their name to the province of Chicora visited by Ayllon and his companions in 1521. If so, we must suppose that they moved north later in the sixteenth century or early in the seventeenth, perhaps as a result of the Pardo expeditions. In 1650 Edward Blande and his associates found the “Nottoway and Schockoores old fields” between Meherrin and Nottoway Rivers, but the Indians were not there. In 1654 Governor Yeardley of Virginia was told by a Tuscarora Indian of an inland people called the “Cacores,” probably an attempt to indicate this tribe. In 1672 Lederer found them living in a village 14 miles from that of the Eno (Lederer, 1912), and in 1701 Lawson says these two tribes (the Shakori and Eno) were in one village called Adshusheer on Eno River (Lawson, 1860). The later fortunes of the Shakori were bound up with those of the Eno.

Shakori Population. Mooney (1928) estimates the Shakori, Eno, and “Adshusheer” at 1,500 in 1600.

Connection in which they have become noted. The two creeks, Shocco and Big Shocco, and a post office 9 miles south of Warrenton, Warren County, perpetuate the name of the Shakori. If Chicora refers to the same tribe, it appears prominently in Spanish narratives of American exploration, particularly because of the information regarding Indian customs obtained by Peter Martyr from an Indian, Francisco of Chicora.


Topics:
Shakori, Siouan,

Collection:
Swanton, John R. The Indian Tribes of North America. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 145. Washington DC: US Government Printing Office. 1953.

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