Integration or Disintegration

For Robeson County Indians, choosing the tribal name “Lumbee” for themselves was a monumental act of self-determination. The “Lumbee” bill in 1956 granted the Robeson County a form of official, yet limited, federal acknowledgement. In Robeson County, World War II sparked exposure, awareness, and change. At its zenith as an Indian place in the 1950s, the town of Pembroke was remarkable in the otherwise biracial South as its Indian residents continuously found new ways to make the place more their own. Some Indians opposed school integration because it meant sacrificing their distinct independence, control over their identity, and the primary institution—the schools—that had sustained the recognition of that identity for a century. Indians expressed pride in their heritage through their actions and words. With the court case Maynor v. Morton, Tuscaroras defied the federal government’s insistence that they were not deserving of federal recognition. The legal victory against double voting showed that Indians would not be silenced at the ballot box. Rebuilding the Old Main heritage building at Pembroke State College, creating Lumbee Homecoming, and opening Lumbee Guaranty Bank showed that Indians would continue asserting control over their own affairs and celebrating themselves.

The Justice to Which We Are Entitled

As the lines between “white” and “colored” hardened in North Carolina in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Indians participated in segregation and the institutionalization of race in an attempt to ensure two things: that whites would recognize their “Indianness” and that Indians would retain control of their own institutions. The creation of Indian schools became a main part of the fight for recognition. Indians recognized the game of race and addressed it by consistently trying to move it to an arena where they had power. Picking and choosing tribal names and pursuing federal and state recognition of those names became one way of dealing with this problem. Throughout the twentieth century, the name of the Robeson County Indians changed from “Croatan” to “Cherokee Indians of Robeson County” to “Siouan Indians of the Lumbee River”. The name changes frequently led to conflict within and outside the community. Supporters of Cherokee or Siouan names pursued different paths to recognition. Robeson County Indians had to navigate standards of authenticity set forth by the federal government, such as blood-quantum provisions. Even after some Indians were finally granted official recognition, they were often still denied their full benefits from the government.

They Can Kill Me, but They Can’t Eat Me

In the 1980s, some Indians in Robeson County began to fill the economic gap by participating in the black-market economy with illegal drugs. Death and injustice followed: Indians were arrested for violent and drug crimes at disproportionate levels compared to whites and blacks, in part because Lumbee kinship networks extended to information networks that facilitated the process of investigating and convicting criminals. Police corruption was rampant, and members of the police department, including Sheriff Hubert Stone, were suspected of involvement with the drug trade. Several murder and suspicious death investigations were mishandled or quickly open-and-shut, such as the fatal shooting of Jimmy Earl Cummings by Deputy Kevin Stone, Hubert’s son; the murder of activist-turned-district-judge-candidate Julian Pierce; and the murder of James Jordan, Michael Jordan’s father, whose death brought national attention to Robeson County. The fight against corruption in Robeson County made a sense of unity possible. Whites, blacks, and Indians began to organize and work together more consistently on issues of concern to everyone. More Indians and blacks ran for elected office and won. The national spotlight provided by the drug war also propelled the Lumbees to reignite their campaign for federal recognition and self-determination.

Disposed to Fight to Their Death

When the American Revolution came to Lumbee communities, Lumbees fought for their own independence in their homes within the pines and lowlands. Indians in the Settlement—a place of twelve or fifteen square miles where Lumbee founding families lived—had their own distinct community and struggled to maintain possession of it. Two fundamental issues in the American Revolution affected Indians and Highland Scots who had settled in Indian territory: who would own the land they lived on and who would govern it. In 1775, every family had to decide whether to side with the Patriots (Whig) or Loyalists (Tory). Drowning Creek Indians remained divided on which side better served their interests. Some Lumbees acted not as allies of the British or Patriots but on their own behalf. By 1800, the Lumbees’ Settlement was known by outsiders as Scuffletown. Scuffletown residents fervently cooperated with one another, especially in church and family matters, while fiercely competing with one another to make a living and assert a political voice. Protestant Christianity and church organizations expanded rapidly through rural America, and in Scuffletown, Methodists actively recruited Indian and free black believers. As a result, Christianity became a crucial aspect of Lumbee life.

Introduction

Today, the Lumbees are the largest tribe of American Indians east of the Mississippi. They are the descendants of dozens of tribes in that territory, as well as of free European and enslaved African settlers who lived in what became their core homeland: the low-lying swamplands along the border between North and South Carolina where Lumbee history has unfolded since before the formation of the U.S. Lumbees have insisted on both their kinship with the United States and the value of their difference from other Americans. In addition, being Lumbee has historically been more complicated than identifying with a racial group. This is because tribes are not static societies; they are composed of dynamic networks of kinship and place. Knowledge of kinship—the relationships between different families—and place—the stories told about families in certain locations—is critical to Lumbee identity. The federal government’s refusal to accord the Lumbees federal recognition provides important triggers for Lumbee demands to have their story heard. Sovereignty, however, exists whether a tribe has federal recognition or not, so long as that tribe exercises its right to make and remake its own community and nation through the stories its members tell.

Epilogue

The Epilogue describes the Lumbee community musical show Strike at the Wind!, and uses it as a lens to reflect on and examine the progress and history of Lumbee Indians throughout the years. The show offers a way for Lumbees to connect to being American. Federal recognition has eluded Lumbees, but a lack of federal recognition does not disrupt their ability to exercise their sovereignty as indigenous people. Nor does it constitute a “struggle for identity;” Lumbees know exactly who they are and what it means to belong. The struggle is for fair treatment within an unfair system. Political will, generated through money, compromise, or consensus, is a key ingredient of federal acknowledgment for Lumbees. At the same time, history shows that Lumbees do not always work toward progress peacefully. They have been targets of violence, and also used violence to insist that others see them for who they are, not for who they wish Lumbees would be. Henry Berry Lowry, Julian Pierce, Bricey Hammonds, Helen Maynor Schierbeck, and many others did not live their lives in vain. They were warriors in the Lumbee struggle for independence as a people. Their stories belong to all of us.

A Creative State, Not a Welfare State

Lumbee advocates believed that Lumbees should harness the full power of self-determination provided by the federal government. Federal recognition does not legitimize a tribe’s identity, but it does give a tribe’s inherent sovereignty a unique place within the American political system. This chapter outlines the Lumbee fight for federal recognition throughout the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Opposition came from the federal government, Washington political infighting, and other Indian tribes. Despite disappointment at the federal level, Lumbee organizations worked together to create a tribal government and constitution for the Lumbee people, as well as debated with each other about how best to do that. The topic of gaming was particularly controversial. Eventually Lumbees decided on an electoral system of government with representation on a district basis. The Lumbee constitution defined two important aspects of Lumbee identity: kinship and place.Important players in the Lumbee fight for sovereignty included Arlinda Locklear, Julian Pierce, Helen Maynor Schierbeck, and Dalton Brooks.

In Defiance of All Laws

As the new U.S. nation emerged, its government began restricting the rights of free people of color to ensure white supremacy and protect slavery. The North Carolina government took away Indians’ and free blacks’ rights to vote, and their political, legal, and economic power. Since Lumbees owned their land individually, the government couldn’t seize their lands directly. But Lumbees experienced other insidious methods of land loss. Lumbees did not all choose the same side during the Civil War. Some opposed the Confederacy to regain freedoms they had lost, while others focused on a strategy that would allow them to maintain the freedoms they had. During the Civil War, a group of Indian men from the Lowry and Oxendine families, along with some outsiders, camped out in swamps to avoid conscription into the Confederate army. After the war, as racial violence flared in the community, the group, eventually headed by Henry Berry Lowry, began to fight against white supremacy via raids and revenge killings. The Lowry Gang was hailed as folk heroes by some and dangerous outlaws by others. The Lowry War, as the conflict became known, showed Lumbees’ willingness to fight against a racial hierarchy.

We Have Always Been a Free People

In the 1580s, Sir Walter Raleigh’s soldiers and settlers, including Arthur Barlowe and Ralph Lane, ventured into Roanoke. They forged alliances with Wingina, a leader of Roanoke and his allies Wanchese and Manteo, but Lane attacked Manteo’s village of Croatoan, killing Wingina. Wanchese retaliated against Lane’s group. Manteo left and returned in 1587 with Governor John White. After failed negotiations with the Croatoan, White decided to attack Wanchese but mistakenly attacked Croatoan villagers. White left for England, and when he returned to Virginia three years later, the colony was gone, the settlers having taken refuge with the Croatoan. Other settlers, such as the ones in Tuscarora territory, established their societies under Indians’ authority and agreed to live by Indians’ rules. The society that blossomed under Tuscarora supervision was multiracial and prospered from trade. The Tuscarora War was a violent explosion of tensions between the Tuscarora, Europeans, and their Indian allies. By the 1750s, the people of Drowning Creek and its swamps traced belonging through kinship, spoke English, farmed, and adopted European land-tenure systems. They regenerated their identity as an Indian community and developed a nation that operated independently and valued autonomy, freedom, and justice.