Last week U.S. Sen. Richard Burr wrote a newspaper column criticizing the Eastern Band of the Cherokee for opposing the South Carolina-based Catawba Tribe’s efforts to acquire land near Kings Mountain to build a casino. Burr also criticized the Cherokees for lobbying against full recognition for the Lumbee Tribe because they view it as a threat to their federal benefits and gaming business.
In a response published in the June 23 News & Observer, Richard Sneed, principal chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, stated, “Actually, the Eastern Band has opposed Lumbee recognition legislation for literally a century, long before tribal gaming. The Lumbees have claimed to be a Cherokee tribe and at least three other historic tribes over the years, and their identity as an historic tribe and as individual descendants of an historic tribe has been questioned for many, many years.”
So, what are the facts? Where did the Lumbee people come from? How are they different from other Native Americans and how are they alike?
Malinda Maynor Lowery
Malinda Maynor Lowery, UNC-Chapel Hill associate professor of history and director of the Center for the Study of the American South, takes on this challenge in her new book, “The Lumbee Indians: An American Struggle.”
As a member of the Lumbee Tribe with deep family roots in the Lumbee community, Lowery brings more than scholarship to her explanation of her people’s origins and history. She weaves her family’s experience with the defining events in Lumbee history. The main characters in Lumbee and family history turn out to be a fascinating blend of characters, heroes and scoundrels, preachers and bootleggers, lawyers and lawbreakers, and farmers, all deeply attached to the swampy lands along the Lumber River in Robeson County.
In the early 1700s, as early American Indian tribes were decimated by disease and the relentless pressure from European settlement, remnants from these groups made their way to the Lumber River (then called Downing Creek). By the 1750s, she writes, “the people of Downing Creek and its swamps knit together families and places. They traced belonging through kinship, spoke English and farmed.”
Lowery cites a reports of violent action in 1773 at Downing Creek that included the names of “Chavis, Locklear, Grooms, Ivey, Sweat, Kearsey, and Dial families, all ancestors of today’s Lumbees.”
During and after the Civil War, Henry Berry Lowry and his gang made war on the white establishment. Though Lowry escaped punishment, a cohort, Henderson Oxendine, was captured and hanged in 1871. For his last words he sang “Amazing Grace“ and “And Can I Yet Delay,” an old Methodist hymn. Oxendine is Malinda Lowery’s great-great-grandfather. Henry Berry Lowry is remembered and revered in the community as the Lumbee Robin Hood.
In the post-Civil War and Jim Crow times, Lumbees fought for Indian schools, state recognition, and a tribal name, finally settling on the Lumbee name in the 1950s.
One defining event in Lumbee history occurred in 1958 when a large group of Lumbees disrupted a Ku Klux Klan rally near Maxton, and chased its leaders away, gaining positive national attention for the Lumbee.
The Lumbee effort for federal recognition gained partial success in 1956 with the passage of the Lumbee Act. It recognized the tribe as Indian, but did not make its people eligible for the benefits accorded other recognized tribes.
As for the future, Lowery closes her book with a strong argument for full recognition of the Lumbee. “Under pressure of European settlement, our ancestors abandoned many of our oldest homeplaces, but having existed for nearly 300 years along the Lumber River, we will not forsake this place.”
Lowery may not persuade everyone that the Lumbee Tribe should gain full recognition. But what she has shown conclusively is that the Lumbee people are entitled to respect, admiration, and appreciation for their 300-plus years struggle to build and hold their community together.
(Note: Malinda Maynor Lowery discusses her book and sings “Proud to be a Lumbee Indian” on North Carolina Bookwatch on Sunday, June 30 at 11 A.M. and Tuesday, July 2 at 5 P.M. or on line at https://video.unctv.org/video/malinda-maynor-lowery-the-lumbee-indians-2tco1y/)
D.G. Martin hosts “North Carolina Bookwatch,” Sunday 11:00 am and Tuesday at 5:00 pm on UNC-TV. The program also airs on the North Carolina Channel Tuesday at 8:00 pm and other times.
To view prior programs: http://video.unctv.org/show/nc-bookwatch/episodes/
There’s only one tribe. Cherokee are legitimate. Lumbee are not recognized by other tribes or the federal government. They do have a great history. They should’ve proud of that. It’s unfortunate that their identity issues have clouded their unique history of a multicultural group. Year, they are Not a Native American tribe.
Why can’t the folks from Lumbwrton just be proud of being multiracial folks that survived slavery and accepted people from other places. Why do some want to take another tribes culture as their own? For federal status? Yes- Lumbee have a long history of adopting (some day stealing, others appropriating) other cultural traditions. They don’t have a language (some try to speak cherokee and some plains Indian language), they don’t have their own dances (doing plains Indian dances) and now I’ve heard they’ve had lessons on how to play stickball.. WTF!? rEALLY? This is so damn disrespectful. Don’t buy this lady’s load of bull. They have more people and power than the poor tribe that has really suffered. Lumbee have people in all areas of academia and federal office. This is an assault on Cherokee. They steal culture, and now they want federal status to take more.
New York herald 1872 (,Pembroke) Origin of the free negro settlement,”The Mulatto Capitol”aka Lumbee Origins
Scuffletown a few miles distant from Lumberton was one of the largest free negro settlements in the United States before the war against slavery, and it was besides, an almost immemorial free negro settlement.existing outlawry would have been precluded.
Scuffletown, over whose name and etymology there seems to be debate, possibly got its name from the long scuffle of the whites and the slaves to reduce it to peonage and make freedom under the condition of color, contemptible among the mulattoes.
Nobody in the whole region could account for this free negro settlement–one of the two large aggregations of yellow men which has existed in North Carolina since the organization of society.
There were many theories, but no reasons at hand for them.
I conceive that these negroes might have been the slaves of tories driven from the State at the close of the Revolution, or of the emancipated slaves of the Quakers, and 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 settlement.
The comely mulatto women, the strange mulatto men, both sexes decently clad, were plentiful in town.
The Lumbee used Cherokee identity on 4 Federal recognition bills from 1910 thru 1940,no wonder the Cherokee disagree with lumbee a made up tribe for benefits ,casino and free HUD the lumbee received 22$ million from HUD this year as a state tribe.
As someone with Native American ancestry, I do find the idea that anyone can just make up a tribe and ‘be Indian’ quite disturbing. Lumbee should be proud of their multiracial heritage. No need to steal from legitimate tribes.
I’m so glad to see that people know the history and struggles of the Lumbee people. You 5 people that replied think you know our history. Please tell use more.
Yes, we are a mixed race of people. Yes, we don’t know what our native language is. Yes, some of use have blue eyes and blonde hair.
The Lumbee people are a product of what the white man wanted. We learned their language and tried to become self-sufficient while living in a swamp. It is messed up that our ancestors didn’t keep better records of our origins, it’s messed up that we changed stories about what tribe we belong to. But what’s even more messed up is that the Cherokee people don’t want to recognize other native tribes simply because they’re afraid they’re going to get less money.
Being a lumbee , it’s hard to read the comments of the first three here , if you don’t no or have ant facts you should just keep your objection to you and yours , we’ve payed the price to be who we are , and still paying it , we where out gunned and out numbered , we fought and we’re still here , all the forces against us made us stronger , the native way , not by begging but by standing up for who we are , we have suffered long enough , when the treaties was being signed the Cherokee was the first to give in , not stand in fight , which went against everything we stood for and they’re still doing it today , the Europeans didn’t care what tribe you where from , a indian was a indian and a scalp was a scalp , ones left , they took our children and forced their ways on to them , does that make us a less Than , no ! not then ,and not now.
May I say , talking about made up , what nationality is white american.