While disease had compelled independent peoples to consolidate and trade had pulled these remnant groups toward English settlements, the catalyst in these developments--the force driving survivors together and then pushing them out of the Piedmont--was Iroquois warfare, the third and final major change Piedmont groups endured in the Historic period. The beginnings of this bitter conflict date from the last half, perhaps even from the last quarter, of the seventeenth century. Before that time the Five Nations of Iroquois were preoccupied with native peoples elsewhere. Only after 1660 did northern visitors begin to penetrate the Southern Piedmont, and even then intruders were rare--colonial explorers like Lederer made no mention of them. The real threat to the uplands came in the late 1670s, when the Susquehannock--driven from Maryland by colonial militia in 1675, attacked the next year by upcountry warriors in Virginia, the year following incorporated with the Five Nations--returned south with their new friends to settle old scores. Before long, northern war parties regularly "infested" the southern upcountry, attacking villages and carrying off prisoners (Merrell 1984a:3).
Warfare was hardly new to the Piedmont. Archaeological research at earlier village sites has turned up unmistakable signs of palisades, clear evidence that inhabitants of the pre-contact world feared attacks from someone (Benthall 1969:20; Holland 1970:115; Egloff 1980:130). Nonetheless, these Iroquois incursions were probably unprecedented in their frequency and their ferocity. The peoples Lawson met between the Catawba and the Tuscarora huddled in their fortified villages in daily fear of another raid. Lest they forget the dangers, piles of stones marking the graves of earlier victims or the occasional escapee from Iroquois captivity served as painful reminders of the harsh reality (Lefler 1967:50, 59). The recent discovery of two burials at Occaneechi Town--one showing signs of scalping, the other with a musket ball lodged in its leg--further attests to the precarious existence of Piedmont Indians in this period (Dickens et al. 1984:32, 37, 48). They banded together, acquired firearms, captured prisoners, even ventured north to gain revenge--but nothing they did could halt enemy incursions (Lefler 1967:53; Hazard 1851:138). Ultimately it was the search for shelter from this Iroquois storm that drove the Sara and their confederates into South Carolina's embrace while the Occaneechi and others sought refuge in Virginia (Wright 1966:398; Lefler 1967:242).
Peace proved elusive, however. For a time the Sara and their Keyauwee and Eno compatriots along the Pee Dee River enjoyed the best of both worlds: they kept their ties to Virginia while making new friends with South Carolina. When men from Charleston stopped at the Sara village in 1712 on their way to fight the Tuscaroras then raiding North Carolina, 42 Sara warriors were heading in the opposite direction to join the Yamasee and others in an attack on South Carolina, and they carried on the fight with grim determination long after most Indians had made peace. As if South Carolina's enmity were not enough, the Sara also learned that they could run from the Iroquois invaders, but they could not hide. In 1716 and again in 1723, war parties from the Five Nations wreaked havoc along the Pee Dee River. By the end of the 1730s, most of the inhabitants had abandoned their new homes to take refuge among the Catawba. They soon discovered that the Catawba Nation was more target than refuge, and during the 1740s Sara leaders were again talking of moving someplace "where they might have fewer Enemies." Colonists and Catawbas convinced them to stay, and they agreed, perhaps in large part because past experience had taught them the futility of escaping their implacable northern foes (Merrell 1982a:223, 234, 250, 303, 309, 363, 390).
The Occaneechi, Tutelo, and Saponi followed a path in some ways different but also quite similar. In 1714, they signed a treaty with Virginia's Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood that formalized their relationship with the province. The Indians would live beside the Meherrin River in the shadow of Fort Christanna, an outpost to be built by a trading company and manned by colonial rangers. In return for their promises to help defend the frontier and pay tribute to Williamsburg, the natives were to receive protection, trade, a reservation, and--Spotswood's pet project--instruction in "civilization" and Christianity. Spotswood was optimistic, the Indians pronounced themselves satisfied, and a visitor to the settlement in 1716 found native children sitting attentively in a classroom under the watchful eye of an English tutor (Beaudry 1981:2-13; Alexander 1972:90-99).
For all the high hopes, the experiment was short-lived. Competing trade interests managed to get the trading company abolished before the end of the decade, and in the 1720s the "Christanna Indians" found themselves harassed by nearby settlers, attacked by northern war parties, and abandoned by colonial officials. In 1728, they marched back into the Piedmont along the old trading path to join other refugees heading toward the Catawbas. Their stay in the Nation turned out to be as brief as the Christanna experiment, however. By 1732, they were back in Virginia, from whence they scattered in several directions. Some went to live with the Tuscarora still in North Carolina; others drifted into the backwaters of Virginia society; still others found a home with a North Carolina planter engaged in trade with the Catawba; most eventually drifted north to join their old enemies, the Six Nations, and became one of the "props" in the Iroquois Longhouse (Merrell 1982a:305-308; McIlwaine 1930:239; Saunders 1968:537-538, 5:321, 6:616; Holland 1982:42; Grinnan 1895-1896:189-191; White 1981:65-69; Hale 1883:5-10).