Location: Lumbee Tribal Headquarters, 6984 NC Hwy 711, Pembroke.
County: Robeson
Original Date Cast: 2023
The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina is one of the largest American Indian tribes east of the Mississippi River. Located in southeastern North Carolina, along the Lumbee River, tribal territory includes Robeson, Hoke, Scotland and Cumberland counties, with the majority of tribal members residing in Robeson. Significant Lumbee communities also thrive in Baltimore, Maryland, and Detroit, Michigan, resulting from the pursuit of jobs and opportunity following World War II.
For thousands of years, the ancestors of the Lumbee belonged to the lands from present-day lower Virginia to upper South Carolina. Post-contact, a variety of factors compelled Lumbee ancestors to converge within the protection of the lands along the Lumbee River. These factors included disease epidemics (smallpox, malaria, influenza); war (Tuscarora War and Yamasee War); and oppression (Indian slavery and loss of traditional lands). The Lumbee are survivors of tribal nations from Algonquian, Iroquoian, and Siouan language families.
Though the swamps and pines of the Lumbee River offered a relative safety in the years before the American Civil War, Lumbee ancestors continued to face loss of land and loss of rights. Up until 1835, Indians in Robeson County could vote and had some semblance of rights. Those rights and others were stripped away in 1835 through changes to North Carolina’s state constitution. Then, during the Civil War, many Lumbee ancestors were conscripted and carried away to build Confederate fortifications at Fort Fisher. These compounding privations and losses culminated in seven years of vigilante justice, better known as the Lowrie War, in which Henry Berry Lowrie became a Hero of his People, fighting against the active oppression of Indians.
The North Carolina Constitution restored voting rights and the right to bear arms to Indians in 1868. Soon after, in 1885, the State recognized ancestors of the Lumbee, providing a new avenue for the People to create their own Indian schools. The Normal School that grew out of that recognition evolved and became, for about 15 years, the only state-supported, four-year college for Indians in the entire nation (1939-1953). Today, that school is known as the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
Shortly after the Normal School’s creation, in 1888, ancestors of the Lumbee petitioned Congress for federal recognition to “gain additional educational assistance.” Thus began a long road to federal recognition, paved with political landmines, intergovernmental conflict, and simple discrimination. In 1956, the Lumbee finally won a partial recognition. During this time of termination, when the federal government was essentially dismantling tribal structures, Congress recognized the Lumbee as an Indian tribe while denying the People any federal benefits that are associated with such recognition.
As of 2023, the Lumbee continue to fight for full federal recognition. Pressing forward is a hallmark of Lumbee ingenuity and resilience. Indigenous doctors, lawyers, farmers, teachers and scholars continue to spring forth from that first post-colonial focus on education. The tribal government still seeks to uplift the People in every path. Tribal headquarters are located in the town of Pembroke, NC and the Tribe operates several for-profit and non-profit organizations as a means to enrich the lives of all Lumbee People.
With deep roots and strong vision, the Lumbee People hold close to the land that has held them for centuries; as the land and the river remain, so do the Lumbee.
References:
Bird, Karen Dial. History and Culture. The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, 2017. https://www.lumbeetribe.com/history-and-culture.
Dial, Adolph L. and David K. Eliades. The Only Land I Know: A History of the Lumbee Indians. The Indian Historian Press: San Francisco, 1975.
Eliades, David K., Lawrence T. Locklear, and Linda E. Oxendine. Hail to UNCP!: A 125 –Year History of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. Chapel Hill Press Inc., 2014.
Evans, William McKee. To Die Game: The Story of the Lowry Band, Indian Guerrillas of Reconstruction. Syracuse University Press: Syracuse, 1995.
Knick, Stanley. The Lumbee in Context: Toward An Understanding. Native American Resource Center: University of North Carolina at Pembroke, 2000.
Lowery, Malinda Maynor. Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South: Race, Identity, & the Making of a Nation. University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 2010.
McMillan, Hamilton. Sir Walter Raleigh’s Lost Colony: An Historical Sketch. Advance Presses: Wilson, 1888.
Seib, Rebecca S. Settlement Pattern Study of the Indians of Robeson County, NC, 1735-1787. Pembroke, NC: Lumbee Regional Development Association, 1983.