Lumbee

Lumbee

Official logo of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina
Total population
55,000
Regions with significant populations
United States ( North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee)
Languages
English
Related ethnic groups
Tuscarora, Coharie, Waccamaw Siouan

The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina is a state recognized tribe of approximately 55,000 enrolled members, most of them living in Robeson and the adjacent counties in southeastern North Carolina. The Lumbee Tribe is the largest tribe in North Carolina and the ninth-largest organized tribe in the nation that have not received federal recognition. Additionally, the Lumbee are also the largest tribe living east of the Mississippi River who have not been recognized by the U.S. federal government. According to the 2000 US Census report, the population of the city of Pembroke, North Carolina, is 89% Lumbee Indian and that of the county is nearly 40% Lumbee.

The Lumbee are one of eight state-recognized Native American tribes in North Carolina; they have been recognized by the state since 1885. They participate at the state level in many ways, including in the North Carolina Commission of Indian Affairs. They also participate in such national organizations as the National Congress of American Indians and the National Indian Education Association. They do not have federal recognition.

History

Archaeology

Archaeological evidence shows that Native American cultures have long occupied present-day Robeson County. Artifacts have been collected from Paleo-Indian times through early, middle, and late Archaic, early, middle, and late Woodland times, and into the historic period. According to Stanley Knick, the evidence of diverse cultural influences in prehistory is a characteristic of the region, and repeated among Indians of diverse cultures during the historical period after European colonization.

Beginning in the middle Archaic period between 6,000–8,000 years ago, relatively unusual artifacts such as an Eva-like basal-notched projectile points began to appear. The presence of stone and, later, ceramic artifacts suggests cultural exchange from elsewhere, which continued through the archaeological record. Artifacts more commonly found in Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia, on the outer Coastal Plain as well as in the Piedmont and the mountains, have been found alongside local artifacts more typical of prehistoric Indians in Robeson County. This suggests that the region has for thousands of years been a zone of cultural interaction.

Early historical references

The earliest document showing Indian communities in the area of the Lumber River is a map prepared in 1725 by John Herbert, the commissioner of Indian trade for the Wineau Factory on the Black River. Herbert identifies the four Siouan-speaking communities as the Saraw, Pee dee, Scavano, and Wacoma. Modern-day Lumbee claim connection to these settlements, but none was located within the boundaries of present-day Robeson County.

When this area was first surveyed by the English in the 1750s, the colonial surveying parties reported in 1754 that "No Indians" lived in Bladen County, which at that time included parts of present-day Robeson County. Colonial Welsh timber survey parties of the same areas also reported "No Hostile Indians, in fact "No Indians to be found at all". The adjacent Anson County, which at that time included parts of present-day Robeson County, was identified as "a frontier to the Indians". In 1754 present-day Robeson County was split in two, with everything north of the Lumber River made part of Bladen County and everything south of the Lumber River a part of Anson County. Anson County's border stretched west to Cherokee territory and it is unclear which parts of Anson County were occupied by Indians.

Some ancestors of the Lumbee, identifiable by surname, are documented in Robeson County land records beginning in the 1750s. A 1772 proclamation by North Carolina Governor Arthur Dobbs, derived from a report by his agent, Col. Rutherford, head of a Bladen County militia, listed the names of 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] is all living upon the Kings Land without title." Later a colonial military survey described, "50 families a mixt crew, a lawless People possess the Lands without Patent or paying quit Rents." The families have been identified by surname as direct ancestors of numerous modern-day Lumbee. They were classified at the time as "mullatos," a term used most commonly in that era to describe African-European mixed-race persons, as well as a variety of non-white people including Native American-European, tri-racial, Middle East, and East Asians.

Following the Reconstruction era, in 1885 Democratic state representative Hamilton McMillan supported an effort by Lumbee ancestors to gain separate schools for their children, as they had been free before the war and did not want their children to be educated with freedmen's children. (He was seeking to gain Democratic voters.) In making his case, he wrote that Lumbee ancestor James Lowrie had received sizable 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 ancestor, John Brooks, established title to over one thousand acres (4 km²) in 1735, and Robert Lowrie gained possession of almost 700 acres (2.8 km²). These claims, however, were in error. A state archivist noted that no land grants were issued during these years in North Carolina. The first land grants made to documented individuals claimed as Lumbee ancestors did not take place until the 1750s, more than a decade later. None of the various petitions for federal recognition has relied on the McMillan, Dial or Eliades claims.

Land patents and deeds filed with the colonial administrations of Virginia, North and South Carolina during this period show that individuals now claimed as Lumbee ancestors migrated from southern parts of Virginia and northern parts of North Carolina. In the first federal census of 1790, the ancestors of the Lumbee were enumerated as Free Persons of Color, another term used for a wide variety of non-White people including, non-reservation American Indians, mixed race between American Indian/European, and mixed race African/European. In 1800 and 1810, these families were classified as "all other free persons" in the census (after white and black).

Land records show that beginning in the second half of the 18th century, persons since identified as ancestral Lumbee took titles to land described in relation to Drowning Creek (Lumber River) and prominent swamps such as Ashpole, Long, and Back. 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." The location of the Cheraw Old Fields is documented in the Lumbee petition for recognition based on Siouan descent, prepared by Lumbee River Legal Services in the 1980s. But, other researchers point out that the Cheraw fields were located in South Carolina, not in North Carolina. In 1771, a convicted felon by the name of Winsler Driggers, captured "near Drowning Creek, in the Charraw settlement," was hanged under the Negro Act. This mention, along with no evidence that a new settlement was established or the old settlement was abandoned, does not confirm that the settlement on Drowning Creek in 1754 was a Cheraw settlement.

American Revolution

Pension records for veterans of the American Revolutionary War in Robeson County listed men with surnames later associated with Lumbee 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.

Antebellum

Following the Nat Turner Slave Rebellion of 1831, the state legislature passed amendments to its original 1776 constitution, abolishing suffrage for free people of color. This was one of a series of laws passed from 1826 to the 1850s which the 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 or serve on juries, bear arms without a license from the state, or serve in the state militia. As these were obligations traditionally associated with citizenship, they were made second-class citizens.

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, identified as a free man of color in State v. Locklear, was convicted for the illegal possession of firearms. In 1857, William Chavers from Robeson County was arrested and charged as a free person of color for carrying a shotgun without a license. 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".

Civil War

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." As the state's slave owners resisted sending more slaves to Fort Fisher, the Confederate Home Guard intensified efforts to conscript able-bodied free persons of color as laborers. Documentation of conscription among the free people of color in Robeson County is difficult to locate.

Some Lumbee ancestors aided the Confederacy, serving mostly as enslaved laborers. Others are documented as drawing Confederate pensions for their service. Larger numbers sought 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 robbing local whites.

The Lowrie War

Main article: Lowry War

Early in the Civil War, North Carolina turned to forced labor to construct her defenses. Several Lowrie cousins, excluded from military service because they were mulatto, had been conscripted as laborers to help build Fort Fisher, near Wilmington, North Carolina. Henry Berry Lowrie and several of his relatives took to the swamps where mulattos resorted to "lying out" to avoid being rounded up by the Home Guard and forced to work as impressed laborers.

The Lowrie gang, as it became known, resorted to crime, committing robberies and murders against white Robeson County residents and skirmishing with the Confederate Home Guard, growing bolder as the war turned against the Confederates. In December 1864, the Lowrie gang killed James P. Barnes after Barnes been involved in conscripting workers including the Lowries for work on local defenses and had earlier accused Henry's father, Allen Lowrie, of stealing hogs. Next, the gang killed James Brantley Harris, a Confederate conscription officer who killed a Lowrie relative.

The Confederates struck back, searching Allen Lowrie's home in March 1865, finding firearms which he was forbidden to possess as a free man of color. The Home Guard convened a summary court, convicted Allen Lowrie and his son William, and executed them. Henry Lowrie reportedly was watching from the bushes.

Even after the Civil War, the Lowrie gang continued to commit robberies and murders. The attempts to capture the gang members became known as the Lowry War. The Lowrie gang consisted of Henry Lowrie, his brothers Stephen and Thomas, two cousins (Calvin and Henderson Oxendine), two of his brothers-in-law, two escaped slaves who had joined the Lowries, a white man of unknown identity who was likely a Confederate deserter, and two other men of unknown relation and identity. On December 7, 1865, Henry Lowrie married Rhoda Strong. Arrested at his wedding, Lowrie escaped from jail by filing his way through the jail's bars.

Lowrie's gang continued its actions into the Reconstruction era. Republican governor William Woods Holden outlawed Lowrie and his men in 1869, and offered a $12,000 reward for their capture: dead or alive. Lowrie responded with more revenge killings. Eluding capture, the Lowrie gang persisted after Reconstruction ended and conservative Democrats gained control of North Carolina government, imposing white supremacy.

As most of the gang's crimes were directed against whites, the Lowrie gang gained the sympathy of locals, who refused to cooperate with efforts to stop them. The pursuit of the Lowrie gang that the documentation of local mixed Indian peoples heritage first is recorded. The Lowries and the other local mulatto families are continuously described in these early account as being mixed mulatto/Tuscarora /white settlers.

In February 1872, shortly after a raid in which he robbed the local sheriff's safe of more than $28,000, Henry Berry Lowrie disappeared. It is claimed he accidentally shot himself while cleaning his double-barrel shotgun. As with many folk heroes, the death of Lowrie was disputed. He was reportedly seen at a funeral several years later. Without his leadership, all but two members of the Lowrie gang were subsequently hunted down, and either captured or killed.

State recognition as Indians

Following Reconstruction in the 1880s, Democratic state representative Hamilton MacMillan came up with an idea to thwart the success of the biracial Populist movement in the 1880s which combined the strength of poor whites and blacks. MacMillan proposed to officially recognize the Indians of Robeson County as the "Croatan Indians" and create a separate system of Croatan Indian schools. MacMillan's success in gaining an Indian recognition and separate status for the Lumbee gave them a social status above blacks, but still below whites. The group of "Croatan Indians" gratefully voted for MacMillan and his fellow Democrats and were authorized to have Indian schools in Robeson County. By the end of the 19th century, the "Indians of Robeson County" (as they then identified) established schools in eleven of their principal settlements.

An Indian school system

In 1887, the Indians of Robeson County petitioned the state legislature to establish a normal school to train Indian teachers for the county's Indian schools. With state permission, they raised the requisite funds, along with some state assistance, which proved inadequate. Several tribal leaders donated money and privately held land for schools. Robeson County's Indian Normal School developed into Pembroke State University and subsequently as the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

In 1899, North Carolina Congressional representatives introduced the first bill in Congress to appropriate federal funds to educate the Indian children of Robeson County. They introduced another bill a decade later, and yet another in 1911. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs, T.J. Morgan, responded to Congress and the Croatan Indians, writing 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, civilized tribes were defined in contrast to Indians on reservations, who were wards of the government.] Those Indians who were not on reservations, such as those in Robeson County, were considered United States citizens and the responsibility of state governments, not the federal government. The federal government funded Recognized historical tribes not individuals who self-identifying as Indians for educational funds.

By the first decade of the 20th century, a North Carolina Representative introduced a federal bill to establish "a normal school for the Indians of Robeson County, North Carolina," to be paid for by the federal government. Charles F. Pierce, U.S. Supervisor of Indian Schools in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, opposed the legislation since, "[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.

Ku Klux Klan conflict

Main article: Battle of Hayes Pond

During the 1950s, the Lumbee made nationwide news when they came into conflict with the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist organization headed by Klan Grand Dragon James W. "Catfish" Cole. Cole began a campaign of harassment against the Lumbee, claiming they were "mongrels and half-breeds" whose "race mixing" threatened to upset the established order of segregated Jim Crow South. After giving a series of speeches denouncing the "loose morals" of Lumbee women, Cole burned a cross in the front yard of a Lumbee woman in St. Pauls, North Carolina, as a "warning" against "race mixing." Emboldened, Cole called for a Klan rally on January 18, 1958, near the town of Maxton. The Lumbee, led by recent veterans of the Second World War, decided to disrupt the rally.

The "Battle of Hayes Pond", also known as "the Klan Rout", made national news. Although Cole had predicted over 5,000 Klansmen would show up for the rally, less than 100 and possibly as few as three dozen attended. Approximately 500 Lumbee, armed with guns and sticks, gathered in a nearby swamp, and when they realized they possessed an overwhelming numerical advantage, attacked the Klansmen. The Lumbee encircled the Klansmen, opening gunfire and wounding four Klansmen in the first volley, none seriously. The remaining Klansmen panicked and fled. Cole was found in the swamps, arrested and tried for inciting a riot. The Lumbee celebrated the victory by burning Klan regalia and dancing around the open flames.

The Battle of Hayes Pond, which marked the end of Klan activity in Robeson County, is celebrated as a Lumbee holiday.

Early efforts to gain federal recognition

The people achieved state recognition as "Croatan Indians" in the 1880s. In 1911, at the request of the tribe, the North Carolina General Assembly passed legislation changing their name to "Indians of Robeson County." In 1913, over the objections of the existing federally recognized Cherokee Nation tribes in Oklahoma, which were federally recognized, the North Carolina legislators based on a petition lobbied for and created by the croatans added "Cherokee" to the name of the Robeson County tribe. The tribe petitioned for federal recognition as "Cherokee" Indians, but it was denied. From 1913 to 1932, North Carolina legislators introduced bills in Congress as petitioned for by the croatan faction to change the name of the people to Cherokee and gain federal recognition, but did not succeed.

In the early 20th century, North Carolina requested federal assistance for information related to the status of Indians in the state. The Southeast tribes had been subject to Indian Removal in the 1830s, and had reservations in Oklahoma. Those Indians remaining in the state were considered state and federal citizens; there were no Indian reservations in the state. The legislature was chiefly reviewing issues related to the state's treatment of the Cherokee living in the state.

In 1915, the report of Special Indian Agent O.M. McPherson of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, was sent to the North Carolina legislature. He primarily reported on the Cherokee in the state. He noted that the Indians of Robeson County had developed an extensive system of schools and a political organization. He thought that, as state-recognized Indians, they were eligible to attend federal Indian schools. But, as they were highly assimilated, spoke English, and already worked in the common state culture, he doubted that the federal Indian schools could meet their needs. Congress did not provide any additional funding to support education for Indians in North Carolina.

In 1924, the Cherokee Indians of North Carolina petitioned for federal recognition as "Siouan Indians;" their request was rejected by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Congressional committees continued to refuse to have the federal government assume educational responsibility for the Indians of Robeson County, as they were state citizens and part of that public responsibility.

Federally commissioned reports

In the last century, numerous federally commissioned studies related to the Lumbee were conducted by anthropologists, ethnologists, and historians. They reflect changing concepts of what constituted Indian identity. In 1912, legislation was introduced to the US Senate to establish a school for the Indians of Robeson County. When the bill was sent to committee, it requested information from the Department of the Interior. The Indian Office sent Charles F. Pierce, the Supervisor of Indian Schools, to Robeson County to conduct a study of the tribe. Pierce reported that the state and county were providing funds to educate the 1,976 school-age Indian children. He also stated in his report that "…one would readily class a large majority [of the Lumbee] as being at least three-fourths Indian.

On April 28, 1914, the Senate called for an investigation into the status and conditions of the Indians of Robeson and adjoining counties. The Indian Office sent Special Indian Agent O.M. McPherson to the county to obtain information regarding the educational system of the tribe. In his report, submitted to the Senate on January 4, 1915, he wrote:

"While these Indians are essentially an agricultural people, I believe them to be as capable of learning the mechanical trades as the average white youth. The foregoing facts suggest the character of the educational institution that should be established for them, in case Congress sees fit to make the necessary appropriation, namely the establishment of an agricultural and mechanical school, in which domestic science shall also be taught."

John Reed Swanton, a noted anthropologist-historian, reported on possible origins of the Indians of Robeson County in his work on Southeast Indians. He wrote:

"The evidence available thus seems to indicate that the Indians of Robeson County who have been called Croatan and Cherokee are descended mainly from certain Siouan tribes of which the most prominent were the Cheraw and Keyauwee, but they probably included as well remnants of the Eno, and Shakori, and very likely some of the coastal groups such as the Waccamaw and Cape Fears. It is not improbable that a few families or small groups of Algonquian or Iroquoian may have cast their lot with this body of people, but contributions from such sources are relatively insignificant. Although there is some reason to think that the Keyauwee tribe actually contributed more blood to the Robeson County Indians than any other, the name is not widely known, whereas that of the Cheraw has been familiar to historians, geographers and ethnologists in one form or another since the time of De Soto and has a firm position in the cartography of the region. The Cheraws, too, seem to have taken a leading part in opposing the colonists during and immediately after the Yamasee uprising. Therefore, if the name of any tribe is to be used in connection with this body of six or eight thousand people, that of the Cheraw would, in my opinion, be most appropriate."

In 1935, Indian Agent Fred Baker was sent to Robeson County in response to a proposed resettlement project for the Lumbee. At the time, it was attempting to organize as a tribe under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which largely applied to Indians on reservations. Baker reported:

"…I find that the sense of racial solidarity is growing stronger and that the members of this tribe are cooperating more and more with each other with the object in view of promoting the mutual benefit of all the members. It is clear to my mind that sooner of later government action will have to be taken in the name of justice and humanity to aid them."

D'Arcy McNickle, from the United States Office of Indian Affairs, came to Robeson County in 1936 to collect affidavits and other data from Lumbee people registering as Indian under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. McNickle stated, "…there are reasons for believing that until comparatively recently some remnant of language still persisted among these people."

In the 1960s, Smithsonian ethnologists Dr. William Sturtevant and Dr. Samuel Stanley described the Lumbee as "…larger than any other Indian group in the United States except the Navajo", and estimated their population as 31,380 Lumbee (from North and South Carolina) in 1960.

Indian New Deal

The federal Indian Reorganization Act in 1934 was chiefly directed at Native American tribes on reservations. It encouraged them to re-establish self-government, which had been diminished since the founding of reservations and the supervision by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

At this time, the Indians of Robeson County renewed their petition for federal recognition as a tribe. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) sent John R. Swanton, an anthropologist from the Bureau of American Ethnology, and the Indian Agent Fred Baker to evaluate the claim of the Indians of Robeson County to historical continuity as an identified Indian community. 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.

Swanton speculated that the group were of Cheraw and other eastern Siouan tribal descent, as these were the predominant Native American peoples historically in that area. At this point, the Indians of Robeson County split on their identification as Native Americans: one group supported the Cheraw theory of ancestry. The other faction believed they were descended from the Cherokee, although the tribe had historically occupied territory in the mountains and western part of the state rather than the area of Robeson County. North Carolina's politicians abandoned support for the federal recognition effort until the tribal factions agreed.

In 1952, under the leadership of D.F. Lowrie, the tribe voted to adopt the name "Lumbee." The North Carolina legislature recognized the name change in 1953. The tribe petitioned for federal recognition.

Lumbee Act

The Lumbee Act, also known as H.R. 4656 (Pub.L. 84–570, 70 Stat. 254), passed by Congress in late May 1956 as a concession to political lobbying and signed by President Dwight David Eisenhower, designated the Lumbee as an Indian people. It withheld recognition as a "Tribe", as agreed to by the Lumbee leaders. The Lumbee Act designated the Indians of Robeson, Hoke, Scotland, and Cumberland counties as the "Lumbee Indians of North Carolina. "as requested by the Lumbee HR 4656 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." It also forbids a Government relationship with the Lumbees and forbids them from applying through the BARS, B.I.A. process for recognition. This restriction as to eligibility for services was a condition which tribal representatives agreed to at the time in order to achieve the name for their group. The Lumbee assimilated into early colonial life prior to the formation of the United States. They lived the same as any other colonial and U.S. citizens as individuals. Lumbee spokesmen repeatedly testified that they were not seeking financial services; they said they only wanted a name designation as Lumbee people.

Petitioning for full federal recognition

In 1987, the Lumbees petitioned the U.S. Department of the Interior for full federal recognition. This is a prerequisite to receive the financial benefits accorded federally recognized Native American tribes. These were generally associated with tribes who had reservations established for them and a history of a tribal relationship with the federal government. The petition was denied because of the Lumbee Act.

The Lumbee resumed lobbying Congress, testifying in 1988, 1989, 1991 and 1993 in efforts to gain full federal recognition by congressional action. All of these attempts failed in the face of opposition by the Department of Interior, the 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 separately recommended an amendment to the 1956 Act that would enable the Lumbee to apply to the Department of Interior under the regular administrative process for recognition. In 2004 and 2006 the tribe made renewed bids for full recognition, to include financial benefits.

In 2007, US Senator Elizabeth Dole from North Carolina introduced the Lumbee Recognition Act. It was not acted on. Lumbee Tribal Chairman Jimmy Goins appeared before the United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in September 2007 to lobby for federal recognition of the tribe. Goins testified on the Lumbee's decades long efforts to gain recognition. On January 6, 2009, US Representative Mike McIntyre introduced legislation (H.R. 31) to grant the Lumbee full 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 descendants of the historic Cheraw tribe. The bill went 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., which adjourned for 2010 without taking action.

Theories of origins

Lost Colony of Roanoke

In 1885, the Democratic politician Hamilton McMillan proposed a fanciful theory that the mixed race inhabitants of Robeson County were 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, but the colonists reportedly left the word "Croatan" carved into a tree, hence the name McMillan gave the proto Lumbee.

McMillan's theory was part of a Reconstruction era effort to woo the proto Lumbee to the Democratic Party by creating an "Indian" school system that would free these new "Croatan Indians" from sending their children to school with the children of the recently emancipated slaves. By the early 1900s, "Cro" had become a racial epithet, used by Robeson County whites with a knowing sneer to describe their "Indian" neighbors. The Lumbee themselves abandoned the Lost Colony theory of origins in 1911, dropping "Croatan" from their tribal name, calling themselves the generic "Indians of Robeson County."

Mulatto descent

Mulatto identity, or theory of origin, was researched by genealogists Dr. Paul Heinegg and Dr. Virginia E. Demarce. Their research on the Lumbee ancestral origins included historic documents, Primary source records, published state records and many types of civil records, and proposed that the Lumbee are a politically invented tribe, and descend mainly from the mixed race unions of African males and European females referred to as Mulatto. In their book Free African Americans, Heinegg and Demarce trace the migration of some of the ancestors of the people now calling themselves Lumbee, to Robeson County from the Tidewater area of Virginia as individual colonists.

An article in the February 1872, New York Herald, entitled "The Mulatto Capitol" lists Robeson County, Scuffletown, (Pembroke) North Carolina as the "Mulatto Capitol" and as an "Immemorial Free Negro Settlement". "A Homogenous free Negro settlement". Kings Colonial census count surveys list the residents of Robeson/Bladen county as "is all Mulatto and Negro, No Indians".

Cherokee descent

The proto Lumbee first began identifying as Cherokee Indians in 1915, when they changed their name to the "Cherokee Indians of Robeson County." Four years earlier, they had changed their name from the "Croatan Indians" to the generic "Indians of Robeson County."

In his unpublished 1934 master's thesis, graduate student Clifton Oxendine theorized that the Lumbee descended from Iroquoian-speaking Cherokee. Citing "oral traditions," Oxendine suggested that the Lumbee were the descendants of Cherokee warriors who fought with the British under Colonel John Barnwell of South Carolina in the Tuscarora campaign of 1711-13. He said the Cherokee settled in the swamps of Robeson County when the campaign ended, along with their Tuscarora captives.

The Oxendine theory of Cherokee origin has been uniformly rejected by mainstream scholars. First, no Cherokee warriors are listed in the record of Barnwell's company. Second, the Lumbee do not speak Cherokee or any other Indian language. Third, Oxendine's claims of oral traditions are completely unsubstantiated; no such oral traditions survive or are documented by any other scholar. The Lumbee have abandoned this theory in their documentation supporting their effort to obtain federal tribal recognition. The federally recognized Cherokee Nation categorically rejects any connection to the Lumbee, dismissing the Oxendine claims as "absurd" and disputing that the Lumbee qualify as Native American.

In 1934, calling themselves the "Cherokee Indians of Robeson County," the proto Lumbee joined the National Congress of Indians. They were subsequently expelled at the insistence of the recognized Cherokee tribes.

The Lumbee have largely abandoned claims to Cherokee descent.

Cheraw descent

Shortly after abandoning the Croatan label and changing their name to the generic Indians of Robeson County, the proto Lumbee seized on the speculations of Indian agent McPherson that they may be related to the defunct Cheraw, a band of Siouan speaking Indians that had been reduced by war and disease to 50 or 60 individuals by 1768.

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 Catawba are a federally recognized tribe. The McPherson Report does not explain how or when the remaining four or five dozen Cheraw identified in 1768 separated from the Catawba and became the ancestors of the Lumbee.

Siouan descent

After repeated rejections under the Croatan, Cherokee and Cheraw labels, the proto Lumbee petitioned the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1924 for recognition as "Siouan" Indians. This petition was rejected largely on the grounds that Siouan was a language, not a tribe. Moreover, there was no record of the Lumbee or their ancestors having ever spoken the Siouan or any other Indian language.

Keyauwee descent

In 1933, John Swanton wrote that the Siouan-speaking Keyauwee and Cheraw of the Carolina Piedmont were the most likely Indian ancestors of the people known from 1885 to 1912 as Croatan Indians and later as the Indians of Robeson County. He suggested that surviving descendants of the Waccamaw and the Woccon likely lived in the central coastal region of North Carolina. In the 21st century, these tribes are extinct as groups, except for a small band of Waccamaw that live on Lake Waccamaw and have been recognized by the state.

Swanton traced the migration of Southeast tribes. In addition to the Keyauwee, Cheraw, Bear River, Waccamaw, and Woccon already mentioned, he noted that 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.

According to Blu, by the 1770s remnant Indians, from the once distinct tribal communities of the Cheraw, Keyauwee, Hatteras, Waxhaw, Sugaree, Eno, and Shakori, gathered along the Lumbee River, near the border that now divides North and South Carolina. Some of these Indians moved further southward to join with the few surviving Catawba, but the majority settled near the pines, web of wetlands, and river that bear the name of the Lumbee. Over time in a process of ethnogenesis, they identified as a people.

Tuscarora descent

Several "Indian" families of Robeson County have oral traditions first recorded in the 1870s that they are descended from the Tuscarora, an Iroquoian-speaking tribe that migrated from the Great Lakes area and established themselves in present day North Carolina near the Roanoke and Neuse Rivers prior to the period of European colonization. The proto Lumbee never made application under the Tuscora label, as those Robeson County Indians claiming Tuscora descent dispute the Indian origins of their so-called Lumbee neighbors.

The Robeson County Tuscora have likewise failed to find acceptance. In the 1920s, they made contact with the Mohawk Nation, and when rebuffed, organized the Tuscarora Indians of North Carolina.

The actual Tuscarora were defeated by British colonists and their Indian allies in the Tuscarora War of 1713, and those who survived migrated north to New York. By 1722, they had been accepted by the Iroquois League as its sixth nation. Tuscarora tribal leaders in New York declared that the migration was "complete" by 1802 and that any Tuscarora stragglers remaining in North Carolina were separate and not under the "same council fire."

Robeson County residents claiming descent from the Tuscarora dispute the Indian origin of the Lumbee and criticize the Lumbee for attempting to hijack their Tuscarora identity. The Tuscarora claimants believe their attempt to achieve recognition have been hurt by the Lumbees and their wildly fluctuating theories of Indian origin.

Descent from "seven different Indian tribes"

In 1955, when petitioning the United States Congress for recognition as "Lumbee Indians," Robeson County community leader D.F. Lowry testified that the Lumbee were descended from "an admixture of seven different tribes, including the Cherokee, Tuscarora, Hatteras, Pamlico and Croatan." The name "Lumbee" is drawn from the principal waterway traversing Robeson County, the Lumber River, and was chosen in a tribal referendum.

Settlements

The Lumbee are heavily concentrated in Robeson County on the southern border of the state. Over the years, the Lumbee have migrated to other areas primarily for employment. Sizeable Lumbee settlements are in Cumberland, Sampson, Hoke, Scotland, and Columbus counties; in Greensboro, Charlotte, Detroit, Baltimore, and Claxton, Georgia (settled from 1865 to the 1920s to work turpentine and cotton).

An unrecognized group in Shasta County, north central California, called the United Lumbee Nation, claims Lumbee origin.

Culture and traditions

Lumbee Homecoming

Lumbee Homecoming is a celebration held annually since 1970. Homecoming is important in bringing together members of families, many from great distances, for a weeklong celebration of Lumbee culture. Festivities include a parade, a powwow, pageants, and other cultural events.

Communities

Lumbee communities were linked together by their extensive kinship ties, church affiliations, their sense of themselves as Indians, and their control of their educational system, all of which served as a mechanism for defining tribal membership and maintaining tribal boundaries. Communities are basically self-governing. One form of self-governance in the early 20th century was exhibited by a fraternal organization known as the Red Men's Lodge. By 1914, lodges existed in Prospect, Magnolia, Pembroke, Saddletree, Oxendine, and Union Chapel. Lodge members maintained social order, carried out ceremonies, marched in parades, and conducted funerals. The 1987 Lumbee Petition states that, "[w]ith so many prominent leaders it is easy to understand how the lodges could maintain order and, at the same time, protect the tribal members from organized violence from whites in the area"

Lumbee Patchwork

Lumbee patchwork is a traditional Lumbee craft. Drawing on the abundant flora around them, they adapted the end of the Long Leaf Pine cone into a design for their blankets, rugs, and clothing. Patchwork can be seen at the UNCP Native American Resource Center, powwows, cultural events, quilting bees, and culture classes around Robeson County. In 1993, the Lumbee patchwork dress was recreated for Miss Lumbee Natasha Wagner, who went on to become the 8th Miss Indian USA. The dress, designed by Hayes Alan Locklear and sewn by Kat Littleturtle, set a standard for the Lumbee Misses and became cultural symbol.

Religion

Today the Lumbee primarily practice Christianity, and attending church is an important social activity. Churches have Sunday schools, youth organizations, senior citizens' programs, Bible study programs, and choir practices. Gospel songs are popular. Ministers are highly respected. When a sizeable number of Lumbee people move to a city, they tend to settle in a particular section or neighborhood and establish a church. This took place in Lumbee communities in Baltimore, Greensboro, Fayetteville, Charlotte, and Claxton, Georgia.

A study documented Lumbee Methodism back to 1787. Lumbees created two church conferences of Indian congregations: the Burnt Swamp Baptist Association, founded around 1880, and the Lumbee River Conference of the Holiness Methodist Association in 1900. In 1984 Bruce Barton documented 104 Lumbee churches. Prospect Methodist Church, with 603 members in 1990, has purportedly the largest congregation of Native Americans in the United States.

Government

According to its constitution, adopted in 2000, the Lumbee tribal government is organized into three branches: the tribal chairperson (executive), the 21-member Tribal Council (legislative), and Supreme Court (judicial). The tribal chairperson and the Tribal Council are elected to three year terms. Paul Brooks was elected Tribal Chairman in December 2011.

Services

After state recognition, the tribe established a normal school to train teachers for Indian schools in Robeson County. The Lumbee Tribe operated primary and high schools for its children. That has developed and been integrated into the state's University of North Carolina system. The University at Pembroke is now open to all races.

Veteran Affairs

This VA program is not affiliated with supported or endorsed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Veterans Affairs of the Lumbee Tribe offers assistance with educational benefits, community resources, and assistance for homeless veterans. They can also help with concerns such as: how to get into the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, how to get prescription medications from the Veterans Affairs pharmacy, and how to arrange transportation to the VA Medical Center for appointments. links http://www.va.gov/

Elder Services

The mission of The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina Elder Services is to assist Elders in maintaining an independent, healthy, and productive life by providing opportunities for services though a network of various community resources. Elder Services will support and uphold quality of life for our Elders though love, respect, and honor.

Youth Services

Youth Services provides the children of the Lumbee Tribe a healthy, positive environment. The Lumbee Tribe is committed to protect and support the tribal youth through their growth into becoming contributing members in the community. Programs offered include:

• Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina Boys and Girl Club (located at multiple locations within Robeson County)
• Cultural Enrichment Classes
• Tobacco Prevention & Cessation Program
• Homicide and Motor Vehicle Death Program

Teen Impact/Volunteerism and Community Service

Teen Impact is a tribal based community service club for teenage members of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. The Volunteer Program of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina assists and mentors the teen volunteer as he/she donates service hours to a community cause of their choice

Department of Energy

The Tribal Low Income Energy Assistance Program(LIEAP) provides a one-time payment to assist eligible American Indian families pay their heating cost. The application process is held the first two weeks of November each year.

Housing

The mission of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina Housing Program is to provide opportunities for affordable, safe and sanitary housing options for Lumbee Indian families in the service areas of Cumberland, Hoke, Robeson and Scotland Counties. Programs offered under the Lumbee housing program include:

• Housing/Rehabilitation Program
• Section 184 Loan Guarantee Program
• Down Payment Assistance Program
• Home-ownership Program
• New Construction Program
• Transitional Housing Program
• 37-Stock Program
• Emergency/Rental Assistance Program
• Mortgage Assistance Program
• Housing RFP's

Lumbee Tribal Vocational Rehabilitation Services

This program provides vocational rehabilitation to any Lumbee Indian with a disability living in the Lumbee Tribal area. The objective of the program is to prepare for, obtain or retain gainful employment. It is our goal to improve the quality of life for Lumbee Indians with disabilites.

Tuscarora Tribe of North Carolina

In the 1920s, some rural Robeson County inhabitants made contact with individual members of the Mohawk Nation, traditionally part of the Iroquois Confederacy when it was based in present-day New York. They began to organize and form a government under the Tuscarora, independent of the Indians of Robeson County (the later Lumbee). The group has not been recognized by the United States government nor by the federally recognized Tuscarora Nation of New York. By the second half of the 20th century, after internal conflict, several independent bands had formed in North Carolina under the Tuscarora name.

Because of the historic determination in the 19th century by the Tuscarora Tribal Council that remnants of the people in North Carolina were no longer part of the tribe, the federally recognized Tuscarora Nation of New York contests the efforts by people in Robeson County to claim or be recognized under Tuscarora tribal identity. The Tuscarora Nation asserts that descendants of the people who remained behind cannot be recognized as successors to the tribe and its traditions. As of 2010, the North Carolina bands united in the interim Tuscarora Nation One Fire Council in Robeson County; they are organizing their government prior to seeking state and federal recognition as a separate sovereign tribe, not enrollment in the Tuscarora Nation of New York.

See also

• List of notable Lumbees
• Timeline of Lumbee history

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.
• Dial, Adolph L. and David K. Eliades. The Only Land I Know: A History of the Lumbee Indians, Syracuse University Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0-8156-0360-3.
• Evans, William McKee. To Die Game: The Story of the Lowry Band: Indian Guerillas of Reconstruction. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977. ISBN 978-0-8071-0379-1.
• 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 978-0-684-82668-4.
• Hawks, Francis. History of North Carolina. Vol. I. Fayetteville, NC: E.J. Hale & Son, 1858.
• Hoffman, Margaret M. Colony of North Carolina (1735–1764), Abstracts of Land Patents, Volume I. Roanoke Rapids, NC: Roanoke News Company, 1982. ISBN 978-1-85471-282-0.
• Houghton, Richard H., III. “The Lumbee: ‘Not a Tribe,’ The Nation. 257.21 (20 December 1993)
• Knick, Stanley G. 1988 Robeson Trails Archaeological Survey: Reconnaissance in Robeson County; Native American Resource Center Publications; UNC Pembroke.
• Knick, Stanley G. 1993 Robeson Crossroads Archaeological Survey: Intensive Testing; Native American Resource Center Publications; UNC Pembroke.
• Knick, Stanley G. 2008 Because It Is Right; Native South 1 (2008): 80-89. (http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/native_south/v001/1.knick.html).
• Lawson, John. A New Voyage to Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1967. ISBN 978-0-8078-4126-6.
• Locklear, Lawrence T. “Down by the Ol’ Lumbee: An Investigation into the Origin and Use of the Word ‘Lumbee’ Prior to 195.”, 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,unpublished 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 978-1-891026-01-0.
• Sider, Gerald M. Living Indian Histories: Lumbee and Tuscarora People in North Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003 (reprint). ISBN 978-0-8078-5506-5.
• 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
• History of the Old Cheraws, Alexander Gregg (1819-1893)

Primary documents

• BIA BARS.. H.R.4656 shall, from and after the ratification of this Act, be known and "Designated" as Lumbee Indians of North Carolina, Whereas these people are naturally and understandably proud of their heritage, and desirous of establishing their social status and preserving their history .Public Law 570 | Chapter 375 June 7, 1956 | [H. R. 4656] 70 Stat. 254
• 1. PETITION OF CROATAN INDIANS.. To the Congress of the United States, December 1887. For recognition as "Croatan Indians"

"The undersigned, your petitioners, a part of the Croatan Indians.. Swear Descent from the Lost Colony of Roanoke." The Bill did not pass.

• 2. 1910 (January 24). Introduction of a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to change the tribe's name from Croatan to Cherokee. The bill did not pass.
• 3. 1913 (July 10). Introduction of a bill in the U.S. Senate to change the tribe's name from Indians of Robeson County to Cherokee Indians of Robeson County. The bill did not pass.
• 4. 1924 (March 20). Introduction of a bill in the U.S. House to change the tribal name to Cherokee. The bill did not pass.
• 5. 1932 (May 9). A bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate to recognize and enroll the tribe as Cherokee Indians. The bill did not pass.

External links

• Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, Official Web Site
• Native American Resource Center, UNC Pembroke [1]
• Tuscarora Nation One Fire Council, Official Website
• The Center for Lumbee Studies
• "Lumbee Language and the Lumbee Indian Culture", Native Languages
• "The Lumbee Indians": An annotated bibliography
• "Lumbee for Kids"
• [2]
• Strike at the Wind Outdoor Drama