King Hagler


King Hagler or Nopkehee was a chief or King of the Catawba Native American tribe from 1754 to 1763. Hagler is known as the "Patron Saint of Camden, South Carolina." He was the first Native American to be inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame. He is known for opposing the sale of alcohol to Catawbas and other Native Americans and for attempting to negotiate fair land rights for the Catawba people.
Hagler is also known by several other names and other spellings, such as King Haigler, Haiglar, Nopkehe, Arataswa and Oroloswa. Hagler's anglicized name is possibly a nickname derived from his tendency to bargain or "haggle" over political decisions, although there is no conclusive evidence to support this.

Early life

Hagler was probably born around 1700 in the region traditionally occupied by the Catawba along the Catawba River in what is now North Carolina. Little is known of Hagler's early life. He may have attended a European school in Virginia, because in April 1717 King Whitmannetaughehee agreed to send eleven Catawba boys to be educated for one year at Fort Christanna in Virginia. The boys were in fact hostages sent to guarantee the Catawba's promise to withdraw from the Yamasee War. Hagler may have been one of these boys, which would account for his fluency in English, much commented-on in contemporary records.

Election as chief

Hagler became eractasswa after the death of King Yanabe Yalangway, who was murdered by a group of Iroquois warriors in October 1750. In keeping with Catawba tradition, the new chief was the former chief‘s sister's son. Immediately after Yalangway's death, Hagler was elected by the Catawba General Council to the lead the tribe. Tribal politics were in chaos at the time, as fifteen of the most prominent Catawba leaders had attended a conference in Charles Town in the fall of 1749 and had all died of infectious diseases acquired from European settlers. In spite of the danger, Hagler traveled to Charleston in late 1750 to receive a military commission as Chief of the Catawbas from Governor James Glen, a form of colonial recognition of tribal leaders.

Peace treaties with other Native American groups

One of Hagler's first tasks was to negotiate a peace treaty with the Iroquois Six Nations. In June 1751 Hagler, accompanied by Lieutenant Governor William Bull and a delegation of Catawba leaders, attended a peace conference in Albany, New York, where Hagler smoked a peace pipe with the Mohawk leader Hendrick Theyanoguin. In 1752 an Iroquois delegation visited the Catawba and an exchange of prisoners followed. The Catawba also brokered a peace treaty with the Shawnee, who were not members of the Six Nations federation. The Catawba were invited to incorporate with the Cherokee but Hagler refused this offer.

Opposition to the sale of alcohol to the Catawba

Hagler became well-known for being one of the first Native American leaders to publicly oppose the sale and distribution of alcohol in indigenous communities. On August 29, 1754 he stated, in a speech in Catawba to James Carter and Alexander Osborne, Commissioners of the State of North Carolina:
Brothers, here is One thing You Yourselves are to Blame very much in: That is, You Rot Your grain in Tubs, out of which you take and make Strong Spirits. You sell it to our young men and give it them; many times they get very Drunk with it. This is the Very Cause that they oftentimes Commit those Crimes that is offensive to You and us and all thro' the Effect of that Drink. It is also very bad for our people, for it Rots their guts and Causes our men to get very sick and many of our people has Lately Died by the Effects of that strong Drink, and I heartily wish You would do something to prevent Your People from Daring to Sell or give them any of that Strong Drink.

On 26 May 1756, he met with North Carolina Chief Justice Peter Henley in Salisbury, North Carolina to discuss the provisions of a recent treaty. Hagler took another opportunity to decry the sale of alcohol to the Catawba:
I desire a stop may be put to the selling of strong Liquors by the White people to my people especially near the Indian Nation. If the White people make strong drink, let them sell it to one another or drink it in their own Families. This will avoid a great deal of mischief which otherwise will happen from my people getting drunk and quarreling with the White people.

Hagler also attempted to discipline Catawbas who committed crimes while intoxicated, contrary to the traditional Catawba custom of pardoning such behavior as a form of temporary madness. In 1754 Hagler supported the execution of a Catawba warrior who, while drunk, had murdered a young girl. The execution was carried out by the perpetrator's cousin in the presence of colonial witnesses, "the White people, in Order to shew our Willingness to punish such offenders."
In response to Hagler's complaints, regulations adopted at the Augusta Conference of 1767 attempted to limit the amount of alcohol brought into Native American communities: "Any Trader who by himself, substitute, or servant, shall carry more than fifteen Gallons of Rum, at any one time, into any nation of Indians...shall forfeit his bond and license."

Hagler and Catawba land rights

Fort Catawba

In May of 1756 Hagler was asked to provide Catawba warriors to support the British during the French and Indian War, and he pledged to contribute the services of forty warriors. In return, Hagler requested that North Carolina Governor Arthur Dobbs supply gifts and ammunition and construct a fort to protect the Catawba while their warriors were away fighting for the British. Dobbs reluctantly agreed, and a site was selected and purchased near what is now Old Fort, North Carolina. He then sent General Hugh Waddell and a troop of rangers to begin building. The project was interrupted several times, as relations between Hagler and Dobbs were not always good, but the fort was eventually completed in late 1760.

Pine Tree Hill Treaty

Between 1738 and 1759, a series of smallpox epidemics ravaged Native American communities along the east coast of North America. In the fall of 1758, twenty-five Catawba warriors returning from General John Forbes' campaign against the French, brought smallpox to South Carolina. By 1759, the Catawba nation had been severely reduced, so that no more than a thousand Catawbas survived. European settlers began encroaching on the Catawbas' traditional lands, now sparsely populated, leading Hagler to negotiate the Pine Tree Hill Treaty in 1760, with Edmond Atkin, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern District at Camden, South Carolina. This guaranteed the Catawba a territory near Waxhaw, North Carolina occupying some two million acres along the Catawba River, in exchange for 55,000 square miles that the Catawba considered to be their traditional home, occupying part of North Carolina and much of South Carolina and extending into Virginia.
Mortality from smallpox, influenza and other infections continued to reduce the Catawba population. On July 5th, 1762, Governor Arthur Dobbs wrote:
"Their number of Warriors have been reduced in a few years, by Haglar's Confession, from 300 to 50 and all their males do not exceed 100, old and young included, so they are now scarce a nation but a small village."

Death and burial

On August 30, 1763, Hagler was traveling to Waxhaw when he was ambushed and killed by a band of seven Shawnees. He was reportedly shot six times and then scalped. The motive for the killing was never clearly determined. Hagler was interred with his most valuable possessions, but the grave site was desecrated by white settlers soon after his burial. His body was later moved to a secret location. Following Hagler's death, the conditions of the Pine Tree Hill Treaty were forgotten and the Catawba were forced onto a tiny reservation of 15 square miles near Lancaster, South Carolina.

Legacy

James H. Merrell characterizes Hagler as a shrewd negotiator who struck a balance between preserving Catawba tradition and adapting to the pressures of the growing colonial population:
On the one hand, operated within a dual colonial and Catawba framework he had not constructed and could not escape. He was not the first Eractasswa to acknowledge his people's dependence upon Anglo-America, nor was he the first to negotiate with colonial officials...On the other hand, however, Nopkehe was particularly well suited by background and temperament to fulfill the simultaneous demands of old and young, settlers and distant officials. By birth and upbringing he fit a traditional mold; through experience he had learned at once the futility of challenging colonial society openly and the means of manipulating that society covertly...At a critical time in the life of the Nation Hagler was instrumental in maintaining intercultural peace and internal unity, charting a course through the troubled waters of depopulation, dependence, and despair on which so many other Indian nations foundered.