The Saura Indians of the Dan River Basin
Long before European settlers arrived in the Piedmont of North Carolina, the Dan River Valley was home to Native American communities. Among the most important of these were the Saura, a Siouan-speaking people whose settlements became particularly prominent along the Dan River in what is now Stokes and Rockingham counties. Archaeological evidence indicates that Native communities had been living along the Dan for centuries before the historic Saura villages appeared. Research on the region places the development of organized village communities in the Dan River drainage as early as about A.D. 1000.
The Saura are sometimes identified in historical sources as Sara or Cheraw. Their earlier history is difficult to reconstruct because they left few written records of their own. Much of what is known comes from archaeology, European explorers, traders, colonial records, and later maps. The first European reference to the Saura came from the Hernando de Soto expedition in 1540, when the people were encountered farther west in the Carolina interior. Over the following century, the Saura moved northeastward into the Piedmont and eventually established major settlements along the Dan River.
By the seventeenth century, two important Saura communities had developed along the Dan.
By the seventeenth century, two important Saura communities had developed along the Dan. Upper Saura Town was located in present-day Stokes County, near the Dan River and Town Fork Creek. Lower Saura Town was approximately thirty miles downstream in present-day Rockingham County, near the modern community of Eden. Together, these settlements represent one of the best-documented Native American occupations of the Dan River Basin.
Archaeology provides an unusually detailed picture of life at Upper Saura Town. Excavations conducted during the twentieth century revealed that the village contained circular houses constructed from flexible saplings, which were bent together to form domed frameworks. These structures could be covered with bark, deerskin, or thatching. The settlement was also surrounded by a palisade of closely spaced wooden posts, indicating that protection was an important consideration.
The Dan River itself was central to Saura life. Its fertile bottomlands provided productive agricultural ground. The Saura grew corn, beans, and squash, while archaeological evidence also indicates the cultivation or use of peaches. Gardens were maintained near the houses, while the river bottoms provided additional agricultural land. Hunting remained equally important, with white-tailed deer being especially valuable.
Deer were not simply a source of food. Their hides became an important trade commodity as European traders entered the Piedmont. Saura hunters supplied deerskins, which could be exchanged for European manufactured goods. Archaeological discoveries at the Upper Saura site include European trade materials such as glass beads and copper ornaments, demonstrating that the Saura were participating in an expanding commercial network while maintaining their own traditions and way of life.
European contact, however, brought enormous disruption. Epidemic diseases to which Native populations had little resistance caused severe population losses. Warfare and increasing pressure from neighboring peoples added to the difficulties. By the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the Saura population had declined substantially. The Saura settlements along the Dan were ultimately abandoned, with the people moving southward and joining the Keyauwee in the upper Pee Dee region.
By about 1710, the Saura had left their Dan River villages.
By about 1710, the Saura had left their Dan River villages. Their departure did not erase their presence from the landscape. When Virginia surveyor William Byrd II traveled through the region in 1728 and 1733, he encountered the abandoned Saura settlements and documented them. His maps helped preserve the locations of Upper and Lower Saura Town for later generations.
The Native population continued to decline after leaving the Dan Valley. A 1715 South Carolina census counted approximately 510 Saura, and later the remaining Saura became incorporated into the Catawba Nation. By 1768, historical records indicate that only approximately fifty or sixty Saura survivors remained.
Yet the Saura did not disappear completely from the geography of the Dan River Basin. Their name survives in Sauratown, the former Stokes County community, in the Saura Town Mountains, and in other regional place names. The abandoned villages also remain important archaeological sites, providing evidence of a Native society that occupied and shaped the Dan River landscape long before the arrival of European settlers.
Upper and Lower Saura Town are therefore more than historical names. They are evidence that the Dan River Basin was a settled Native landscape with agriculture, hunting, trade, political relationships, warfare, and established communities centuries before the modern towns of Stokes and Rockingham counties existed.
Sources
- North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Upper Saura Town (J-43).
- North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Lower Saura Town (J-44).
- NCpedia, Saura Indians, Lindley S. Butler.
- North Carolina Office of State Archaeology, Sauratown Woman.
- North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office, Rockingham County Survey.
