The Lumbee are a distinct ethnic group of southeastern North Carolina. Numbering over 50,000, they are primarily located in Robeson County. They identify themselves as a tribe, although some consider them a melange of Native American, black and white strains, similar in that fashion to groups such as the Melungeon people of the Appalachians or the Redbone of the Southeast. Local lore and some historians believe that the tribe includes descendants of the Lost Colony who intermarried with the local Native Americans.

During the Civil War, Henry Berry Lowrie lead a outlaw band and became known as the "Indian Robin Hood". This folk hero's story is remembered in an outdoor drama called "Strike at the Wind".

The Lumbee are not recognized as a tribe by the U.S. federal government, although they do have recognition on the state level.

On January 18, 1958, armed Lumbee Native Americans chased off an estimated 5,000 Klansmen and supporters led by grand wizard Catfish Cole at the town of Maxton, North Carolina.

The 40,000+ members of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina reside primarily in Robeson, Hoke and Scotland counties. The Lumbee Tribe is the largest tribe in North Carolina, the largest tribe east of the Mississippi River and the ninth largest in the nation. The Lumbee take their name from the Lumbee River which winds its way through Robeson County. Pembroke, North Carolina is the economic, cultural and political center of the tribe.

The ancestors of the Lumbee were mainly Cheraw and related Siouan-speaking Indians who have lived in the area of what is now Robeson County since the 1700s. The Lumbee people have been recognized by the state of North Carolina since 1885, and at the same time established a separate school system that would benefit tribal members. In 1887, the state established the Croatan Normal Indian School, which is today The University of North Carolina at Pembroke. In 1956 a bill was passed by the United States Congress which recognized the Lumbee as Indian, but denied the tribe full status as a federally recognized Indian tribe. Federal recognition for the tribe is currently being sought through federal legislation.

Origins

The earliest document showing Indian communities in the area of Drowning Creek is a map prepared by John Herbert, the commissioner of Indian trade for the Wineau Factory on the Black River, in 1725. Herbert identifies the four Siouan-speaking ommunities as the Saraws, Pedee, Scavanos, Wacomas. (Note: Drowning Creek is presently known as the Lumber River, and flows through present-day Robeson County. Many Lumbee people also know it as the Lumbee River.)

In 1754, it was reported that there was an Indian settlement consisting of 50 families located on Drowning Creek. That same year, North Carolina Governor Matthew Rowan proclaimed the county of Anson a "frontier to the Indians". Drowning Creek formed the border between Anson and Bladen counties and the settlement was located on the Anson side of the border. In 1771, a convicted felon by the name of Winsler Driggers was captured "near Drowning Creek, in the Charraw settlement" (South Carolina Gazette October 3, 1771). This mention, along with no evidence that a new settlement was established or the old settlement was abandoned, confirms that the settlement on Drowning Creek in 1754 was a Cheraw settlement.

External Links

• Lumbee Language and the Lumbee Indian Culture (http://www.native-languages.org/lumbee.htm)*
• [1] (http://www.lumbeetribe.com)