Lumbee

Lumbee

Total population
55,000
Regions with significant populations
United States
North Carolina Virginia South Carolina
Languages
English

The Lumbee belong to a state recognized Native American tribe in North Carolina. The Lumbee are concentrated in Robeson County and named for the primary waterway traversing the county. Originally called Drowning Creek by the European settlers, the part of the creek in Robeson County became known in the early 19th century as the Lumber River because of the extensive lumber trade in the region. Former councilwoman Sharon Hunt is the current tribal chairman of the Lumbee.

Although classified as "mullato" by the United States Census Bureau from 1790 through 1870, the Lumbee were in 1885 recognized by the State of North Carolina as Croatan Indians under the now discredited theory that the Lumbee were descended from the Lost Colony of Roanoke. On multiple occasions over the next 130 years, the Lumbee unsuccessfully sought federal recognition under the Croatan and other claimed Indian identities. In 1952, the Lumbee adopted a new identity, choosing the "Lumbee" name in a referendum conducted by the Robeson County Commissioners.

The ethnic origin of the Lumbee is controversial. Most Lumbee now claim to be descendants of the Cheraw and related Siouan-speaking tribes originally inhabiting part of the coastal regions of the state of North Carolina. However, a significant minority of Robeson County residents claim to be descendants of the Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora. Indian tribes opposing the Lumbee bids for federal recognition assert the Lumbees are principally descended from African slaves who escaped into the woods and intermarried with European frontier settlers and perhaps a few Indian stragglers.

In 1956, the United States Congress passed H.R. 4656, known as the Lumbee Act, which recognized the Lumbee as Native American people, but specifically withheld recognition as a "tribe." The language effectively prevents the Lumbee from receiving the federal services ordinarily provided to federally recognized tribes through the Bureau of Indian Affairs or even seeking tribal status through administrative means. As the only Indians in this circumstance, the Lumbee have since sought full federal recognition through the congressional legislation.

Congressional legislation extending federal recognition to the Lumbee is opposed by the U.S. Department of the Interior and most federally recognized tribes. The federally recognized Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the only recognized tribe in North Carolina, has consistently opposed Lumbee efforts to gain federal recognition.

The inhabitants of Robeson County who identify themselves as Tuscarora and who have organized together as the Tuscarora Nation of North Carolina, oppose use of the Lumbee name as "fictitious." The Tuscarora Nation of North Carolina is itself not recognized as an Indian tribe by either federal or state government.

History

Early References

Early English colonists exploring the Robeson County area did not recognize the ancestors of the Lumbee as Indians. When North Carolina Governor Matthew Rowan dispatched surveying parties in 1753 to count Indians in the state, the surveyors returning from Bladen County (from which Robeson County was subsequently created) reported there were "no Indians in the county."

Colonial tax records from 1768 to 1770 identified Thomas Britt as the only Indian in Bladen County. Britt is not a surname traditionally associated with Lumbee families. Inhabitants of Bladen County with surnames that have been traditionally associated with Lumbee families were classified as "Mullato," or non-White, or simply Other in the tax records.

A colonial proclamation in 1773 listed the names of Robeson County inhabitants who took part in a "Mob Railously Assembled together," apparently defying the efforts of colonial officials to collect taxes. The proclamation declared the "Above list of Rogus" [sic], which included many names of those since defined as traditionally Lumbee/Tuscarora families, "is all Free Negors [sic, Negroes] and Mullatus [mulattoes] living upon the Kings Land." Later a colonial military survey described, "50 families a mixt crew a lawless People possess the Lands without Patent or paying quit Rents."

In the first federal census of 1790, the ancestors of the Lumbee were among those enumerated as "free persons of color", a category used to describe all free non-whites (including mixed-race European-Africans and mixed-race European-Indians). In subsequent censuses, these people's names appeared under the category "all other free persons" or "Mulatto."

In 1840, thirty-six white Robeson County residents signed a petition complaining that Robeson County had been "cursed" by the presence of what they described as being a "free colored" population that migrated originally from the districts near the Roanoke and Neuse rivers.

The first recorded reference to any members of the "questioned" population as being Indian dates to 1867, during Reconstruction. Lieutenant Birney of the Freedman's Bureau, a federal agency created to deal with the newly emancipated slaves, was placed in charge of a multiple murder investigation focused on the outlawed Lowrie gang. Two suspects wrote a letter intended to cloud the Bureau's jurisdiction over the Lowries, referring to them as follows: "They are said to be descended from the Tuscarora Indians. They have always claimed to be Indian & disdained the idea that they are in any way connected with the African race."

In 1872, George Alfred Townsend published The Swamp Outlaws, a book about the Lowrie Gang. Townsend expounds on the Indian theory of origin, describing Henry Berry Lowrie, the leader of the gang, as being of mixed Tuscarora and white blood and then went on to say of Pop Oxendine, "Like the rest, he had the Tuscarora Indian blood in him"

Name and recognition

The "Lumbee" name was self-selected in the early 1950s. It is derived from the name of the primary waterway traversing Robeson County. Originally known as Drowning Creek, the Robeson County portion became known as the Lumber River in the 18th century owing to the extensive lumber trade in the region.

When the Lumbee officially identified as Indians in the 1880s, they called themselves "Croatan Indians" after the now discredited "Lost Colony theory" advanced by the Democratic politician Hamilton McMillan. In 1885, McMillan sponsored legislation in the North Carolina General Assembly officially recognizing the Lumbee as "Croatan Indians of Robeson County" and permitting them to open "Croatan" schools. In the otherwise segregated system, this decision enabled the Lumbee to have schools for their children separate from those for freedmen's children, where they would otherwise be required to attend. The people petitioned to the federal government for recognition as "Croatan" Indians. These petitions were uniformly rejected, in part because there was no historically existing "Croatan" tribe, only a coastal village by that name.^{[citation needed]} The village was located miles away from Robeson County with no apparent connection to the inhabitants of the county.

In 1911, at the request of the Croatans, the North Carolina General Assembly enacted legislation changing the name of the state-recognized tribe to "Indians of Robeson County." Tribal leaders then seized upon the idea of claiming "Cherokee" heritage. In 1913, over the objections of the existing recognized Cherokee tribes, North Carolina legislators added "Cherokee" to the name of the Robeson County tribe, renaming them "Cherokee Indians of Robeson County." This change was followed by a new round of petitions seeking federal recognition as "Cherokee" Indians. All were denied.

In 1924, the future Lumbee petitioned for federal recognition as "Siouan" Indians. This petition, was rejected, in part because "Siouan" is a language, not a tribe.^{[citation needed]} In 1934, the future Lumbee revived their claim to Cherokee identity, joining the National Congress of American Indians under the name, "Cherokee Indians of Robeson County."^{[citation needed]}

In 1952, under the leadership of D.F. Lowrie, the tribe voted to adopt the name "Lumbee," derived from their historic location along the Lumber River. The North Carolina legislature recognized the name change in 1953. The Lumbee petitioned for recognition as Indians, which was approved by the federal government in 1956, with the agreement that the tribe was not entitled to benefits normally given to federally recognized Indian tribes. Since the late twentieth century, the Lumbee have sought the full recognition and benefits available to other federally recognized tribes. In addition, the Lumbee tribal council has passed a resolution asking the North Carolina General Assembly to change the name of the Lumber River to the "Lumbee River." The Lumbee Constitution refers to these census lists as the“Source Documents.”Yet the individuals on these lists cannot be specifically identified and verified as"Cheraw Indians" on any source.*In fact, these individuals cannot be identified as belonging to any tribe whatsoever".

These are simply lists of people who self-identified themselves with the census as“Indian

Scuffletown(pembroke,NC)the Lumbee/Croatan Capitol,got its name from the long scuffle of the whites and the slaves and make freedom under the condition of color,contemptible among the "mulattoes".I conceive that these "negroes" have been the slaves of Tories driven from the State at the close of the Revolution,and of the emancipated slaves of the Quakers,that they increased and multiplied by accessions from runaways,by the birth rate of force exerted on them an by the necessity of union or the sympathy of all neighboring free negroes with a homogenous Negro settlement."NEW YORK TIMES 1872"note*negro not Indian*

Legends and theories of origins

Lost Colony of Roanoke

In 1885, the politician Hamilton McMillan proposed the theory that the Lumbee were the descendants of England's "Lost Colony of Roanoke", who intermarried with what he described as the "Croatan" Indians. The Roanoke colony disappeared during a difficult winter, its survivors reportedly leaving behind the word "Croatoan" carved into a tree. When other Englishmen found the carving two years later, they recognized "Croatoan" as a nearby village of some friendly Indians. They speculated that the Roanoke colonists sought refuge with the Croatoan villagers, but weather prevented the English from searching for any Roanoke survivors. The scholarly consensus, however, is that the colonists died of starvation on the island. Mainstream historians and anthropologists have uniformly rejected the McMillan "Lost Colony" theory of origins, and the Lumbees themselves have largely discarded the theory.

The state legislature accepted McMillan's proposal, passing a bill in 1885 recognizing the formerly Mullato inhabitants of Robeson County as the "Croatan Indians of Robeson County." Reconstruction era. It was a time when the Democrats were seeking to regain political power in North Carolina. They had lost the previous election to an interracial Populist-Republican coalition in which the newly emancipated slaves joined forces with the Robeson County mullatos. Some scholars argue that McMillan fabricated the Croatan origin story to split the votes of the Mullatos and newly emancipatd slaves. McMillan's success in gaining an Indian classification for these people gave them a distinct social status separate from the newly emancipated slaves and their descendants. It also allowed for a system of Indian schools in Robeson County that permitted the newly christened "Croaton" children to be educated separately from the children of emancipated slaves, but not with white children.

In 1709 Lawson had written of Algonquian-speaking Indians near Hatteras: "These tell us that several of their ancestors were white people, and could talk in a book, as we do; the truth of which is confirmed by Grey eyes being found frequently amongst these Indians, and no others." Lewis Barton, a 20th-century local historian who published a book on the Lumbee in 1967, contends records of the disappearance of the English colony are not inconsistent with accounts in the 1730s of Native-European mixed-bloods in Robeson County. Barton explained the apparent inconsistency of colonists' having moved 50 miles (80 km) "into the main" about 1587-88, and the Hatteras Indians seen by Lawson, by saying there was travel between the coast and the Robeson County site, 100 miles (160 km) from the coast. Barton said very old members of the tribe told him that, before the age of automobiles, there was annual horse-and-wagon traffic to the coast each fall to catch fish and gather salt. This practice is greatly diminished today, but it is still usual for members to make a week's camping stay on the coast, catching and preserving fish. The general consensus of older tradition continued to be that the people were descended from the Tuscarora, with perhaps some families descending from other tribes like the Hatteras, Mattamuskeet, and Saponi.

Cherokee descent

In his unpublished 1934 master's thesis, Clifton Oxendine held that the Lumbee descend from Iroquoian-speaking Cherokee. Relying on oral traditions among some Lumbee, Oxendine claimed that the Lumbee were the descendants of Cherokee warriors who fought with the British under Colonel John Barnwell of South Carolina against the Tuscarora in the campaign of 1711-13. He contended that the Cherokee warriors settled in the swamps of Robeson County when the campaign ended, along with their Tuscarora captives. These individuals, he said, were the ancestors of the Lumbee.

But, no Cherokee were listed in the record of Barnwell's company. . Other than stories told by some Lumbee, there is no documentation of Oxendine's claims. No other scholars support the Oxendine theory. The federally recognized Cherokee Nation rejects the connection to the Lumbee. The Lumbee officially abandoned the theory of Cherokee origin in the 1940s.

Siouan descent

The 1915 McPherson Report said in reference to the Cheraw (quoting the Handbook of American Indians, 1906): “Their numbers in 1715, according to Rivers, was 510, but this estimate probably included the Keyauwee. Being still subject to attack by the Iroquois, they finally—between 1726 and 1739—became incorporated with the Catawba……They are mentioned as with the Catawba but speaking their own distinct dialect as late as 1743 (Adair). The last notice of them in 1768, when their remnant, reduced by war and disease to 50 or 60, were still living with the Catawba.”

The McPherson Report also notes (quoting Indians of North Carolina, p. 216): “In 1738 smallpox raged in South Carolina and worked great destruction, not only among the whites, but also among the Catawba and smaller tribes. In 1759 it appeared again, and this time destroyed nearly half the tribe.” This report was the first related to Robeson County Indians in which the Cheraw were mentioned. Scholars did not suggest there was any significant, if any, influence from the Cheraw, or any other smaller Siouan-speaking tribes, in the Robeson County area.^{[citation needed]}

Swanton continued to do research on Native Americans of the Southeast. In 1933, he published his assertion (where?) that the Keyauwee and Cheraw of the Carolina Piedmont were most likely the primary ancestors of the people known from 1885 to 1912 as Croatan Indians. He also believed that there were likely remnant descendants from the Waccamaw of the lower Cape Fear region near Wilmington, and the Woccon of the central coastal region of North Carolina and the Bear River, all probably of Siouan linguistic stock. In the 21st century, these tribes are all extinct except for a small band of Waccamaw, who live on the shores of Lake Waccamaw in the heart of their old country.

Swanton traced the migration of tribes in the East. In addition to the Keyauwee, Cheraw, Bear River, Waccamaw, and Woccon already mentioned, the Eno and Waxhaw migrated from Piedmont, South Carolina northeast to the north-central part of North Carolina, then back south again to a point on the Pee Dee River just south of the border of the two Carolinas. Swanton said that all of them, with exception to the Keyauwee, were mentioned as travelling west to join the Catawba; Swanton argued that the Keyauwee were probably the most influential contributor to the self-identified Indian population of Robeson County.

Tuscarora descent

A number of Robeson County residents claim descent from the Tuscarora Indians. The Iroquoian-speaking North Carolina tribe suffered massive defeat at the hands of British colonists and their Indian allies in 1713. Most of the surviving Tuscarora fled their homes in northeastern North Carolina, migrating north to New York, where they joined the Iroquois League as its sixth nation by 1722. Tuscarora tribal leaders in New York determined that the emigration was complete by 1802, declaring that any Tuscarora who had failed to migrate to New York by that time would no longer be considered members of the tribe.

Because of this historic determination by the tribal council, the Lumbee claim to Tuscarora identity is contested by the federally recognized Tuscarora Nation of New York. The recognized Tuscarora tribe asserts that the Tuscarora who remained behind are no longer recognized as members. Also, their descendants could not claim to have continuity with the tribe and its traditions, which is required for federal recognition as a tribe.

In the 1920s, rural Robeson County inhabitants made contact with individual members of the Mohawk Nation, who are part of the Iroquois Confederacy, to which the Tuscarora were admitted to in 1722. They formed the Tuscarora Nation of North Carolina, which is recognized by neither the United States government nor the federally recognized Tuscarora Nation of New York.

Proponents of the Tuscarora hypothesis argue that the migration trail of Lumbee ancestors from coastal southern Virginia to Robeson County passed through the territory in which the Tuscarora had lived, making intermarriage with the Tuscarora a possibility. But, such ancestry is not the same as the tribe having maintained cultural continuity of Tuscarora traditions. However, the possibility of such intermarriage does not mean that it occurred, and in any event, there was no attempt to maintain a tribal culture. Proponents of the Tuscarora hypothesis note 19th-century references to members of the outlaw Henry Berry Lowrie gang of the Reconstruction era as of partial Tuscarora descent. However, these claims were advanced in an effort to cloud the jurisdiction of the Freedman's Bureau, which was investigating homicides allegedly committed by the Lowrie gang.

Robeson County inhabitants claiming Tuscarora identity strongly object to the Lumbee name and to the Cheraw theory of ancestry.^{[citation needed]}

Scholarly research

In the early decades of the 20th century, various Department of Interior representatives, described the Lumbee as having Native American origin, and assigned them variously to one tribe or another. In 1936, Carl Seltzer, a physical anthropologist engaged by the federal Department of the Interior, conducted an anthropometric study of several hundred self-identified Indian individuals in Robeson County. He concluded the majority were Indian. But, researchers no longer consider such tests as valid determinants of ethnicity, which is believed to be more of a cultural construct.

18th century

In 1754, a surveying party reported that Anson County was "a frontier to the Indians." Bladen County abutted Anson County which at that time extended west into Cherokee territory. The border between then Bladen and Anson counties was the present day Lumbee River, where present day Robeson County County and Scotland County meet. The same report also claimed that no Indians lived in Bladen County. Land patents and deeds filed with the colonial administrations of Virginia, North and South Carolina during this period show that individuals claimed as Lumbee ancestors were migrating into southern North Carolina along the typical routes of colonial migration from Virginia and obtaining land deeds in the same manner as any other migrants. In the first federal census of 1790, the ancestors of the Lumbee/Tuscarora were enumerated as Free Persons of Color. In 1800 and 1810 they were counted in "all other free persons."

In 1885, Hamilton McMillan wrote that Lumbee/Tuscarora ancestor James Lowrie received sizeable land grants early in the century and by 1738 possessed combined estates of more than two thousand acres (8 km²). Dial and Eliades claimed that another Lumbee/Tuscarora ancestor John Brooks established title to over one thousand acres (4 km²) in 1735, and Robert Lowrie gained possession of almost seven hundred acres (2.8 km²). But, a state archivist has noted that no land grants were issued during these years in North Carolina. The first land grants to documented individuals claimed as Lumbee/Tuscarora ancestors did not take place until more than a decade later, in the 1750s. The Lumbee petition for federal recognition did not use material from McMillan's claims.

Land records show that beginning in the second half of the 18th century, persons since identified as ancestral Lumbee/Tuscarora took titles to land described in relation to Drowning Creek and prominent swamps such as Ashpole, Long, and Back Swamp. According to James Campisi, the anthropologist hired by the Lumbee tribe, this area "is located in the heart of the so-called old field of the Cheraw documented in land records between 1737 and 1739."

But, the Lumbee petition for recognition based on Siouan connection, prepared by Lumbee River Legal Services in the 1980s, shows that the Cheraw Old Fields, sold to a Thomas Grooms in the year 1739, were located in South Carolina, near the current town of Cheraw. This was more than 60 miles (100 km) from Pembroke.

Pension records for veterans of the American Revolutionary War listed men with surnames later associated with Lumbee/Tuscarora families, such as Samuel Bell, Jacob Locklear, John Brooks, Berry Hunt, Thomas Jacobs, Thomas Cummings, and Michael Revels. In 1790, ancestral Lumbee such as Barnes, Bell, Braveboy (Brayboy), Brooks, Bullard, Chavers (Chavis), Cumbo, Hammonds, Hunt, Jacobs, Lockileer (Locklear), Lowrie (Lowry/Lowery), Oxendine, Revils (Revels), Strickland, and Wilkins were listed as inhabitants of the Fayetteville District; they were enumerated as "Free Persons of Color" in the first federal census. Indians living off reservations were not designated separately on the census until 1870.

Antebellum

The year 1835 proved to be critical for all free people of color in North Carolina. Following Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion of 1831, the state legislature passed amendments to its original 1776 constitution; it abolished suffrage for "free people of color." This was one of a series of laws passed from 1826 to the 1850s that historian John Hope Franklin characterized as the "Free Negro Code," erecting restrictions on that class. Free people of color were stripped of various political and civil rights which they had enjoyed for almost two generations. They could no longer vote, bear arms without a license, serve on juries, or serve in the state militia.

In 1853, the North Carolina Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the state's restrictions on free people of color's bearing arms without a license. Noel Locklear, in State v. Locklear, was convicted for the illegal possession of firearms. In 1857, William Chavers from Robeson County, considered a Lumbee/Tuscarora ancestor because of his surname, was arrested and charged as a "free person of color" for carrying a shotgun. Chavers, like Locklear, was convicted. Chavers promptly appealed, arguing that the law restricted only "free Negroes," not "persons of color from Indian blood." The appeals court reversed the lower court, finding that "free persons of color may be, then, for all we can see, persons colored by Indian blood".^{[citation needed]}

The twentieth-century anthropologist Gerald Sider published accounts of "tied mule" incidents repeated to him in the 1960s, which supposedly had caused losses of land for Lumbee ancestors during the 19th century. While Robeson County land records show an appreciable loss of Lumbee ancestors' title to land during the 19th century, the documented causes are failure to pay taxes and other common reasons. Not one "tied mule incident" has yet been discovered in Robeson County records.

Civil War

As the war progressed and the Confederacy began to experience increasing labor shortages, it began to conscript labor. A yellow fever epidemic in 1862-63 killed many slaves' working on the construction of Fort Fisher near Wilmington, North Carolina, then considered to be the "Gibraltar of the South." North Carolina's slave owners resisted sending more slaves to Fort Fisher. Robeson County, along with most eastern North Carolina counties, began to conscript young free men of color. Documentation of conscription among the free people of color in Robeson County is difficult to locate. The practice may have been limited to a few specific areas of the county.

Several dozen Lumbee/Tuscarora ancestors served in regular units in the Confederate army; they are documented as drawing Confederate pensions for their service. Others tried to avoid coerced labor by hiding in the swamps. During that period, some men from Robeson County operated as guerrillas for the Union Army, sabotaging the efforts of the Confederacy, and seeking retribution against their Confederate neighbors.

Lowrie Gang

Jamie Oxendine (Lumbee) poses with U.S. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur during the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian, 2004

When the Confederate Home Guard began conscripting the Lumbee as laborers for the Confederacy, Henry Berry Lowrie (also spelled Lowry) organized a gang and took to the nearby swamps. Most of the gang members were related, including two of Lowrie's brothers, six cousins (two of whom were also his brothers-in-law), the brother-in-law of two of his cousins, in addition to a few not related through kinship. The Lowries claimed to be Tuscarora Indians, although the Lowrie gang included escaped slaves.

The gang committed two murders during the Civil War and were suspected in several thefts and robberies. After an interrogation and informal trial, Robeson County's Home Guard executed Henry Berry Lowrie's father and brother. This was in the period of the Union General William T. Sherman's army entering Robeson County. Shortly after, Henry Lowrie and his band stole rifles and killed the county sheriff and several of the men responsible for his family losses. They aided Sherman's advance by skirmishing with the retreating Confederate Army and Home Guard. The insurrection of the Lowrie gang against the white establishment in Robeson County was a source of inspiration and pride to the Lumbee, who had suffered persecution by the whites, first under North Carolina's antebellum Free Negro Code and later at the hands of the Confederate Home Guard. Henry Berry Lowrie became a culture hero to the Lumbee.

In 1872, during the Reconstruction era, George Alfred Townsend published The Swamp Outlaws, a history of the Lowrie Gang. Townsend described Henry Berry Lowrie as being of mixed Tuscarora, mulatto, and European ancestry: "The color of his skin is of a whitish yellow sort, with an admixture of copper—such a skin as, for the nature of its components, is in color indescribable, there being no negro blood in it except that of a far remote generation of mulatto, and the Indian still apparent." Townsend wrote of Pop Oxendine, "Like the rest, he had the Tuscarora Indian blood in him...If I should describe the man by the words nearest my idea I should call him an Indian gypsy."

Post-Reconstruction: education and state recognition

In 1868 the legislature elected under Reconstruction created a new constitution, which established a public education system in North Carolina. The following year, the state legislature approved a measure that required segregated, separate schools for whites and blacks (in the binary society, traditionally free people of color, or mixed race, were mostly included in the latter category). Many Lumbee ancestors complied with the legislation and sent their children to Freedmen's Bureau schools. Other traditionally free people of color refused to enroll their children in schools for freed slaves. In Robeson County, this impasse ended when, in 1885, North Carolina formally recognized the historically free people of color in Robeson County as "Croatan Indians", through the effort of Democratic representative Harold MacMillan. He suggested that the free people of color were survivors of England's "Lost Colony" at Roanoke Island who had intermarried with the Hatteras, an Algonquian people. MacMillan was working to distinguish the mixed-race people from the freedmen, and to recruit them as Democratic voters. That same year, the North Carolina General Assembly approved legislation that authorized a public school system for Indians.

Within the year, each Croatan Indian settlement in the county established a school "blood committee" that determined students' racial eligibility.^{[citation needed]} In 1887, tribal members petitioned the state legislature to request establishment of a normal school to train Indian teachers for the county's tribal schools. North Carolina granted permission. Tribal members raised the requisite funds, along with some state assistance that proved inadequate. Several tribal leaders donated money and privately held land for schools. In 1899, North Carolina representatives introduced the first bill in Congress to appropriate funds to educate the Indian children of Robeson County. Another bill was introduced a decade later, and yet another in 1911. In 1913, the House of Representatives Committee on Indian Affairs held a hearing on S.3258 in which the Senate sponsor of the bill reviewed the history of the Lumbee and concluded that they had "maintained their race integrity and their tribal characteristics."

Robeson County's Indian Normal School evolved into Pembroke State University and later still, the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. By the 19th-century's end, the Indians of Robeson County established schools in eleven of their principal settlements.

Ku Klux Klan conflict

During the 1950s, the Lumbee came into conflict with the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist organization. Klan Wizard James W. "Catfish" Cole began a campaign of harassment against the Lumbee, claiming they were half-breeds who had overstepped their place in the segregated Jim Crow South. Klansmen burned a cross on the lawn of a Lumbee woman who was dating a white man. Cole planned a large Klan rally on January 18, 1958, near the town of Maxton. The Lumbee decided to confront the Klan.

The "Battle of Hayes Pond", or "the Klan Rout," made national news. Some 350-500 armed Lumbee overwhelmed and scattered the 50-100 Klansmen who showed up for the rally. The Lumbee encircled the Klansmen and confronted them. They opened gunfire, and four Klansmen were wounded in the first volley, none seriously; the remaining Klansmen panicked and fled. The Lumbee celebrated the victory by burning Klan regalia and dancing around the flames.. The Battle of Hayes Pond, which marked the end of KKK activity in Robeson County, is celebrated as a Lumbee holiday.

Attempts to gain federal recognition

When the Indians petitioned Congress for educational assistance, their request was sent to the House Committee on Indian Affairs. It took two years for the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, T.J. Morgan, to respond to the Croatan Indians of Robeson County, telling them that, "so long as the immediate wards of the Government are so insufficiently provided for, I do not see how I can consistently render any assistance to the Croatans or any other civilized tribes." [sic, in contrast to Indians on reservations.]

By the first decade of the 20th century, congressional legislation was introduced to change the Croatan name and to establish "a normal school for the Indians of Robeson County, North Carolina." Charles F. Pierce, Supervisor of Indian Schools, investigated the tribe's congressional petition, reporting favorably that "a large majority [were] at least three-fourths Indian" as well as law abiding, industrious, and "crazy on the subject of education." The normal school would allow the training of teachers. Pierce also believed that federal educational assistance would be beneficial. But, he opposed such legislation since, in his words, "[a]t the present time it is the avowed policy of the government to require states having an Indian population to assume the burden and responsibility for their education, so far as is possible."

In 1915, the report of Special Indian Agent O.M. McPherson of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, was sent to the North Carolina legislature by the US Senate. North Carolina had requested assistance in gaining information as to the status of Indians of Robeson County. The legislature was chiefly reviewing material and issues related to the state's treatment of the Cherokee, who had been mostly forced out of the state under the Indian Removal Act of 1830. McPherson found that the Indians of Robeson County, since 1885 called Croatan Indians, had developed an extensive system of schools and a political organization to represent their interests. While he, like Pierce before him, noted that Robeson's Indians were eligible to attend federal Indian schools, he doubted that these schools could meet their needs. Despite McPherson's recommendations, Congress decided not to act on the matter.

A committee report of 1932 acknowledged that the federal bill of 1913 was intended to extend federal recognition on the same terms as the amended state law. The chairman of the House committee abrogated assumption of direct educational responsibility to the Indians of Robeson County by the federal government. He believed they were already eligible to attend Indian boarding schools. Thus, the federal government was meeting its responsibility to the Indians of Robeson County through Indian boarding schools, such as Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

Indian New Deal

With passage of the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934, the Indians of Robeson County redoubled their efforts for access to better education and federal recognition. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) sent John R. Swanton, an anthropologist from the Bureau of American Ethnology, and Indian Agent Fred Baker to determine the origins and evaluate the claim of the Indians of Robeson County. Swanton speculated that Robeson's Indians were of Cheraw and other eastern Siouan tribal descent. At this point, the Lumbee population split into two groups. One group supported the Cheraw theory of ancestry. The other faction believed they were descended from the Cherokee, which had occupied territory in the mountains and western part of the state. North Carolina's politicians abandoned the federal recognition effort until the tribal factions agreed on an identity.

Lumbee Act

The Lumbee Act, also known as H.R. 4656, which recognized the Lumbee as having Native American origins but withheld recognition as a "tribe", was passed in late May 1956 and signed by President Dwight David Eisenhower on June 7, 1956. The Lumbee Act designated the Indians of Robeson, Hoke, Scotland, and Cumberland counties as the "Lumbee Indians of North Carolina." HR 4656 also stipulated that "[n]othing in this Act shall make such Indians eligible for any services performed by the United States for Indians because of their status as Indians." This restriction as to eligibility for services was a condition tribal representatives had agreed to at the time in order to achieve recognition. In testimony before Congress, Lumbee spokesmen repeatedly denied that they wanted any financial services; they said they only wanted recognition as American Indians.

Petitioning for federal recognition

The Lumbees have repeatedly sought federal recognition as an Indian tribe, going before Congress in 1899, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1924, 1932 and 1933 with petitions variously claiming to be Croatan, Cherokee, Siouan and Cheraw Indians.

In 1952, the Lumbees adopted their present name, after the Lumber River which winds through Robeson County. In 1956, Congress passed the Lumbee Act, saying that the Lumbee were entitled to call themselves the "Lumbee Indians of North Carolina" but as a condition of recognition as agreed upon by tribal representatives, denying them access to financial and other services accorded to other recognized Indian tribes. In testimony before Congress, Lumbee spokesmen had denied that they wanted any financial services; they said they only wanted recognition as American Indians.

In 1987, the Lumbees petitioned the U.S. Department of the Interior for federal recognition, in a bid for financial benefits accorded recognized Native American tribes. The petition was denied because of language in the Lumbee Act stating that the Lumbee were ineligible for federal benefits.

The Lumbee resumed lobbying Congress, testifying in 1988, 1989, 1991 and 1993 with bids for federal recognition by congressional action. All of these attempts failed in the face of opposition not only by the Department of Interior but also by the several recognized Cherokee tribes, including North Carolina's Eastern Band of the Cherokee, some of the North Carolina Congressional delegation, and some representatives from other states with federally recognized tribes. Some of the North Carolina delegation recommended an amendment to the 1956 Act that would enable the Lumbee to apply to the Department of Interior under the regular application process for recognition. The tribe made renewed bids for recognition with financial services in 2004 and 2006. In 2007 North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole introduced the Lumbee Recognition Act.

On January 6, 2009, US Representative Mike McIntyre introduced legislation (H.R. 31) intended to grant the Lumbee Indians federal recognition. The bill has since garnered the support of over 180 co-sponsors, including that of both North Carolina Senators (Richard Burr and Kay Hagan). On June 3, 2009, the US House of Representatives voted 240 to 179 for federal recognition for the Lumbee tribe, acknowledging that they are the descendants of the Cheraw tribe. The vote will go on to the US Senate. On October 22, 2009, the United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs approved a bill for federal recognition of the Lumbee. The bill includes a no-gaming clause. The bill still needs approval by the full Senate and the President before becoming law. The Senate adjourned for 2010 without taking action.

See also

• List of notable Lumbees
• Timeline of Lumbee history
• Brass Ankles
• Genealogical DNA test

References

• "Bad medicine for the Klan: North Carolina Indians break up Kluxers’ anti-Indian meeting", Life, 44 (27 January 1958), pp. 26–28.
• Blu, Karen I. The Lumbee Problem: The Making of an American Indian People. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001. ISBN 978-0-8032-6197-6.
• DeWitt, Robert M. The Red Wolf Series (comics), New York, beginning 1971
• Dial, Adolph L. and David K. Eliades. The Only Land I Know: A History of the Lumbee Indians, Syracuse University Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0815603603.
• Evans, William McKee. To Die Game: The Story of the Lowry Band: Indian Guerillas of Reconstruction. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977. ISBN 978-0807103791.
• Hauptman,Laurence M. “River Pilots and Swamp Guerillas: Pamunkey and Lumbee Unionists,” in Between Two Fires: American Indians in the Civil War. New York: Free Press, 1995. ISBN 978-0684826684.
• Hawks, Francis. History of North Carolina. Vol. I. Fayetteville, NC: E.J. Hale & Son, 1858.
• Heinegg, Paul. Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Delaware and Maryland, Baltimore, MD: Generations Publishing, 1999-2005 (text online)
• Hoffman, Margaret M. Colony of North Carolina (1735–1764), Abstracts of Land Patents, Volume I. Roanoke Rapids, NC: Roanoke News Company, 1982. ISBN 978-1854712820.
• Houghton, Richard H., III. “The Lumbee: ‘Not a Tribe.’ The Nation. 257.21 (20 December 1993)
• Lawson, John. A New Voyage to Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1967. ISBN 978-0807841266.
• Locklear, Lawrence T. “Down by the Ol’ Lumbee: An Investigation into the Origin and Use of the Word ‘Lumbee’ Prior to 1952.” Native South 3 (2010): 103-117.
• McMillan, Hamilton. Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony: An Historical Sketch of the Attempts of Sir Walter Raleigh to Establish a Colony in Virginia, with the Traditions of an Indian Tribe in North Carolina. Indicating the Fate of the Colony of Englishmen Left on Roanoke Island in 1587, Wilson, NC: Advance Press, 1888.
• McPherson, O.M. online text Report on Condition and Tribal Rights of the Indians of Robeson and Adjoining Counties of North Carolina. 63rd Congress, 3rd session, January 5, 1915. Senate Document 677 (This was submitted to the legislature of North Carolina, as they were considering issues related especially to the Cherokee and other tribal groups).
• Milling, Chapman J. Red Carolinians. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1940.
• Norment, Mary C. The Lowrie History, As Acted in Part by Henry Berry Lowrie, the Great North Carolina Bandit. Weldon, NC: Harrell's Printing House, 1895.
• Oxendine, Clifton. A Social and Economic History of the Indians of Robeson County North Carolina, M.A. Thesis, George Peabody College for Teachers, 1934.
• Rights, Douglas L. The American Indian in North Carolina. Winston-Salem: John F. Blair, 1957.
• Ross, Thomas E. American Indians in North Carolina: Geographic Interpretations. Southern Pines: Karo Hollow Press, 1999. ISBN 978-1891026010.
• Sider, Gerald M. Living Indian Histories: Lumbee and Tuscarora People in North Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003 (reprint). ISBN 978-0807855065.
• Thomas, Robert K. “A Report on Research of Lumbee Origins."; Lumbee River Legal Services. The Lumbee petition. Prepared in cooperation with the Lumbee Tribal Enrollment Office. Julian T. Pierce and Cynthia Hunt-Locklear, authors. Jack Campisi and Wesley White, consultants. Pembroke: Lumbee River Legal Services, 1987.
• Townsend, George Alfred. The Swamp Outlaws, or, The North Carolina Bandits: Being a Complete History of the Modern Rob Roys and Robin Hoods. New York: Robert M. DeWitt, 1872.
• U.S. Bureau of the Census. The First Census of the U.S.: 1790. Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States: North Carolina. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1908.
• Robert, Lawrence C. "The State of Robeson" New York: J.J. Little and Ives Company, 1939.
• Cameron, Jno. D. "The Croatan Indians of Robeson," North Carolina: The Fayetteville Observer, February 12, 1885
• Gorman, C. John “Gorman Papers,” State archives,c. 1875 and with the Gorman family, Durham N.C. c. 1917

External links

• Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, Official Web Site
• The Center for Lumbee Studies
• "Lumbee Language and the Lumbee Indian Culture", Native Languages
• "The Lumbee Indians": An annotated bibliography
• "Lumbee for Kids"
• Strike at the Wind Outdoor Drama
• U.S. Bureau of the Census