Road To Recognition: LUMBEES Learn From Travails Of Texas Tribe - HISTORY
Bianca:
Despite the lack of direct genealogical proof, in the early decades of the 20th century, various Department
of Interior representatives also described the Lumbees as having Native American origin, and assigned them variously to one tribe or another.
Skeptics of McMillan's theories argue that the North Carolina politician may have been motivated by a desire
to court the votes of the Lumbee. Free people of color were enfranchised again after the Civil War by the 15th Amendment, which protected suffrage for all male citizens, regardless of race, at the same time protecting suffrage of the new citizens who were emancipated slaves. Reclassification as Indians of McMillan's colored Robeson County constituents gave them a social status above the newly emancipated slaves.
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 determined that twenty-two were of at least half-Indian blood descent.
In 1972, Dr. William S. Pollitzer published a combined anthropometric and serologic study of the Lumbee population. He estimated that the Lumbees had 47% African ancestry, 40% white, and 13% Indian. Most contemporary scholars no longer consider such types of studies valid for determining racial or ethnic identities.
In the late 20th century, genealogist Paul Heinegg and historian Dr. Virginia E. DeMarce performed extensive research in primary source documents, such as deeds, land records, wills, tax lists and court records to develop detailed genealogies of free people of color in the Chesapeake Bay area during the colonial years and later.
They were able to trace the migration of numerous primary Lumbee ancestral families from the Tidewater region of Virginia into northeastern North Carolina and then into present-day Robeson County, North Carolina.
They found that 80% of those identified as free people of color (or other) in the Federal censuses in North Carolina from 1790-1810 were descended from African Americans free in Virginia during the colonial period. Most of those free African-American families in Virginia were descended from unions between white women (servant or free) and African or African-American men (servant, slave or free), reflecting the fluid nature of relationships among the working classes.
From documenting family histories through original documents, Heinegg and DeMarce have traced most Lumbee ancestors and have been able to construct genealogies that show the migration of specific families and individuals from Virginia to North Carolina.
Bianca:
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 same report also claimed that no Indians lived in Bladen County (which at that time contained what today is Robeson County).
Land patents and deeds filed with the colonial administrations of Virginia, North and South Carolina during this period reveal that Lumbee ancestors were migrating into southern North Carolina along the typical routes of colonial migration and obtaining land deeds in the same manner as any other migrants.
In the first federal census of 1790, the ancestors of the Lumbee 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 ancestor James Lowrie received sizeable land grants early in the century and by 1738 possessed combined estates of more than two thousand acres (8 kmē). Dial and Eliades claimed that John Brooks established title to over one thousand acres (4 kmē) in 1735, and Robert Lowrie gained possession of almost seven hundred acres (2.8 kmē).
However, according to a state archivist, no land grants were issued during these years in North Carolina, and the first land grants to documented Lumbee ancestors did not occur until more than a decade later. The Lumbee petition for federal recognition backed away from McMillan's claims.
Land records show that beginning in the second half of the 18th century, ancestral Lumbees took titles to land described in relation to Drowning Creek and prominent swamps such as Ashpole, Long, and Back Swamp.
The Lumbee settlement with the longest continuous documentation from the mid-eighteenth century onward is Long Swamp, or present-day Prospect, North Carolina. Prospect is located within Pembroke and Smith townships.
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." However, this appears to be pure conjecture on Campisi's part, since the Lumbee Siouan petition prepared by Lumbee River Legal Services in the 1980s clearly shows that the Cheraw old fields, which were sold to a Thomas Grooms in the year 1739, were actually located in South Carolina not far from the current day town of Cheraw, more than 60 miles (100 km) from Pembroke.
Pension records for veterans of the American Revolutionary War listed men with Lumbee surnames such as Samuel Bell, Jacob Locklear, John Brooks, Berry Hunt, Thomas Jacobs, Thomas Cummings, and Michael Revels. And in 1790, ancestral Lumbees such as Cumbo, "Revils" (Revels), Hammonds, Bullard, "Lockileer" (Locklear), Lowrie, Barnes, Hunt, "Chavers" (Chavis), Strickland, Wilkins, Oxendine, Brooks, Jacobs, Bell, and Brayboy were listed as inhabitants of the Fayetteville District, and enumerated as "Free Persons of Color" in the first federal census.
Through documenting and tracing family histories, Heinegg has found that 80% of those people in North Carolina counted as "all other free persons" in the 1790-1810 federal census were descendants of African Americans free in Virginia during the colonial period. He found the surnames Cumbo, Gowen/Goins, and Driggers could be traced to slaves who had been freed in the mid-17th century in Virginia. Chavis was another family whose ancestors had been free since the 17th century.
Bianca:
Antebellum
The year 1835 proved to be critical for Lumbee ancestors in North Carolina.
The state passed amendments to its original 1776 constitution that 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 and thus could no longer vote, bear arms without a license, serve on juries, or serve in the state militia.
Anthropologist Gerald Sider recorded accounts of "tied mule" incidents in which a white farmer tied his mule to the post of a neighboring Indian's land or let his cattle graze on the Indian's land. The white farmer then filed a complaint for theft with the local authorities who promptly arrested the Native farmer. "Tied mule" incidents were resolved with the Indian's agreeing to pay a fine, or in lieu of a fine, by giving up a portion of his land or agreeing to a term of labor service with the "wronged" white farmer. Sider did not document such incidents; instead he recounted stories which he had been told in the late 1960s. Robeson County land records do show an appreciable loss of Indian title to land during the 19th century, but mostly because of failure to pay taxes and other more common reasons. No tied mule incident has yet been discovered in Robeson County records.
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 with the conviction of Noel Locklear in State v. Locklear for the illegal possession of firearms. But in 1857, William Chavers, another Lumbee ancestor from Robeson County, 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."
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, or persons descended from Negro ancestors beyond the fourth degree."
Two years later, in another case involving a Lumbee ancestor from Robeson County, the North Carolina Court of Appeals held that forcing an individual to display himself before a jury was the same as forcing him to provide evidence against himself. Most of the charges under the law were brought by members of the proto-Lumbee community against each other. They used the racist laws to settle petty disputes amongst themselves.
Overall however, the ambiguity of the legal and political status of Robeson County's free people of color only increased in the years leading up to and during the Civil War.
Bianca:
Civil War
As the war progressed and the Confederacy began to experience increasing labor shortages, the Confederate South began to rely on conscription 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 enslaved African Americans to Fort Fisher.
Robeson County, along with most eastern North Carolina counties, began to conscript young free men
of color.
A few were shot for attempting to evade conscription, and others attempted to escape from work at Fort Fisher. Others succumbed to starvation, disease and despair. Documentation of conscription among the Lumbee is difficult to locate and the practice may have been limited to a few specific areas of the county.
Several dozen Lumbee ancestors served in regular units in the Confederate army; many of these later drew Confederate pensions for their service. Others tried to avoid coerced labor by hiding in the swamps. While hiding in the swamps, some men from Robeson County operated as guerrillas for the Union Army, sabotaging the efforts of the Confederacy, and sought retribution against their Confederate neighbors.
Bianca:
Lowrie Gang War
Perhaps the most famous Lumbee ancestor is Henry Berry Lowrie, who organized an outlaw group.
Most of the gang members were related, including two of Henry 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 others who were not related through kinship. The Lowrie gang included formerly free men of color and also freed slaves and whites.
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 killed Henry Berry Lowrie's father and brother as General William T. Sherman's army entered Robeson County. Shortly thereafter, Henry Berry Lowrie and his band stole a large stockpile of rifles intended for use by the
local militia from the Lumberton courthouse.
Lowrie's gang avenged the deaths of his father and brother by killing several of the men responsible,
one of whom was the sheriff of the county. The band stole two safes (one of which belonged to the sheriff), plundered the plantation storage bins and smokehouses of local elites, and gave the spoils to the poor in Robeson County who had suffered at the hands of local elites.
In 1868, Lowrie and his band were outlawed.
The reward for his capture climbed to $12,000, second only to that offered for Jefferson Davis. Robeson's elites and the governor of North Carolina requested the aid of Federal troops and federal detectives in the attempt to apprehend North Carolina's most famous outlaw.
These efforts proved useless.
Lowrie enjoyed wide support, and he and members of his band were seen at public events. Reports of the Lowrie band's derring-do received national coverage; their exploits were featured in the New York Times and in Harper's Magazine. Lowrie's last-known feat occurred on February 16, 1872, when he and his band stole $20,000 worth of goods from a Lumberton store. They also managed to take the store's safe, which contained approximately $22,000 in cash.
Most observers believe that Henry Berry Lowrie accidentally killed himself while cleaning his gun. Some members of the community, however, claimed to have seen Lowrie in various town locales long after news of his death was broadcast. The true cause of his death remains controversial. All the members of the Lowrie band, save one, suffered violent deaths. One cousin and member of the gang, Henderson Oxendine, was publicly executed by the state of North Carolina.
The war that Lowrie gang waged against the Democrats in Robeson County had far-reaching consequences:
the mulatto community developed a sense of itself as unique, possessed with a unique identity and history, while Henry Berry Lowrie became a culture hero to the Lumbee people.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page