scottobear | Lumbee Indians.

ref: on Roanoke, for a future tale (thanks to ldy for putting me onto a new information trail!)

The Lumbee Indians are a Native American tribe located on the banks of the Lumbee River (known in contemporary times as the Lumber River) in North Carolina. The primary cultural influence for modern day Lumbees is their Cheraw ancestry, but they have assimilated members of various neighboring tribes. Many historians believe that the Lumbee also absorbed the settlers of the "lost colony" of Roanoke, one of the first white settlements in the United States. Numbering well over 40,000 individuals, the Lumbee are the largest tribe east of the Mississippi, and the ninth largest tribe nationwide.

The colony on Roanoke Island was Sir Walter Raleigh's second attempt to colonize North America. The first batch of colonists, dispatched in 1584, was composed primarily of gentlemen farmers who were so ill-suited to the hardships of colonial life that they returned to England after just a few months in America. Raleigh, determined to stake his claim in the New World, sent a second group of 117 settlers to establish a Virginia colony in 1587. These colonists, under the leadership of John White, landed on Roanoke Island and promptly went about building an outpost.

Though this second group of colonists was of a hardier mettle than the first, they landed on Roanoke Island in the midst of summer, much too late to begin planting crops to provide them with food for the rest of the year. As the Roanoke colonists prepared to face their first winter in America, they found themselves abysmally short on supplies. So their intrepid leader, John White, agreed to sail back to England and return with additional food in time to see them through the winter.

Alas, Europe was in a state of war, and John White had to wait in England for three years before he could return to the Roanoke Colony. When he finally made it back in 1590, he found the settlement completely abandoned. The only clue as to the settlers' whereabouts was an enigmatic message carved into a gatepost: "Croatoan." White concluded that the message was meant to direct him to the settler's new place of residence, the island of Croatan (known today as Hatteras Island), home of the Cheraw Indians.

However, Sir Walter Raleigh's patent of discovery for the area had expired, and he decided that there was little financial benefit to searching for the lost settlers. A few poorly funded search parties were conducted throughout the next decade, with no results. Though there were no signs of violence or foul play, the English eventually concluded that the colonists were victims of an attack by the Croatoan Indians, who had apparently murdered every last man, woman, and child (including the famous Virginia Dare, the first white baby born in America). For the next 300 years, historians would concur with this assessment.

Though there were a few tribes in the area that were hostile to the English newcomers, the Cheraw were not one of them. In fact, the Cheraw were friendly and generally nonviolent, and had a long history of welcoming members from other cultures, mostly stragglers from other tribes. Sometime during the 17th century, the Cheraw of Croatan migrated south to escape the encroaching white settlements, as the English settlers were not as open to the idea of sharing land as the Cheraw. Upon arriving in present day Robeson County, the Cheraw probably absorbed or were absorbed by a Native American population that had existed in that vicinity since prehistory. There is evidence that Native Americans had been living in the area for millennia, but the specific history of these original residents as well as the details of the Cheraw migration are still a matter of anthropological investigation.

Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, there are many English accounts of interaction with a Native American tribe in northeastern North Carolina, who referred to themselves as "The People of the Lumbee River." Though the Lumbees practiced many customs that were considered "savage" by the Whites, they also had many practices that were curiously reminiscent of European culture. Rather than living in mud huts as did many of the neighboring tribes, this tribe lived in stone houses and log cabins. They had knowledge of reading and writing, and were familiar with Christianity, despite the fact that missionaries had not yet visited them. They spoke their own language (a derivation of the Algonquin, Tuscarora, and Cheraw languages), but they also spoke a sort of pidgin English with remarkable fluency. Some of the Lumbees were vaguely European in appearance, with pale complexions, curly hair that was often brown or even blonde in color, and blue or green eyes. Finally, the vast majority of the Lumbees possessed the same family names as the original colonists of Roanoke Island.

The mixed racial characteristics of the Lumbee people have been both a blessing and a curse throughout their history. In the 1830s, the Indian Removal Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Andrew Jackson. The act mandated the removal of all American Indians east of the Mississippi onto government reservations located in Oklahoma, initiating what is now known as the "Trail of Tears." The Lumbee managed to escape the horrific fate of their Cherokee neighbors because the federal government felt that the Lumbee were too "white" in appearance to justify moving them to Oklahoma.

Before, during, and after the American Civil War, the Lumbees intermarried with escaped and freed black slaves. The Lumbee practice of assimilating blacks into their cultural melting pot led to rampant discrimination and oppression by the white majority during the middle 19th century. The Lumbee were regarded as the lowest of the low on all fronts - too black to be Indian, too red to be Caucasian, and too white to be considered Negro. The Lumbee' own assertion that, regardless of skin tone, their cultural heritage qualified them as Native American fell on deaf ears. White animosity was compounded by the fact that the Lumbee were not poverty-stricken reservation dwellers, but, quite to the contrary, had built a thriving social, economic, and political base in the city of Pembroke and owned some of the richest farmland in North Carolina. In the 1860s, the assault and murder of entire Lumbee families was not uncommon, and the perpetrators not only escaped prosecution, but were often granted the right to seize the victim's farmland.

In 1885, after academic interest arose in the origins of the Lumbee, they were officially recognized as a tribe by the state legislature of North Carolina, and in 1888, the state constitution was changed to recognize the Lumbee and other tribes as citizens. The official tribal name would undergo many changes over the next few decades, and the tribe was known alternatively as the Indians of Robeson County, the Croatan, Croatoan, and Robeson Cherokee. In 1953, the North Carolina General Assembly finally changed the name of the tribe to Lumbee, which is what they had been calling themselves all along.

Having achieved state recognition, the Lumbees set about obtaining federal recognition of their tribe, leading to the introduction of no less than 12 different Lumbee-related bills in Congress over the last century. In 1956, the federal government officially recognized the Lumbee as Native American, but stopped short of declaring them to be a "tribe," thus denying the Lumbee any federal subsidies for healthcare, housing, and cultural education. Reasons for the lack of federal recognition are varied, but are most commonly linked to their genetic ties to white settlers; the Lumbees supposedly do not have the requisite "percentage of Native blood." The Lumbee petition for federal recognition is also hindered by the fact that their ancestral language has been wholly replaced by the Lumbee English dialect, a curious mixture of modern American slang, Native American vocabulary, and the Elizabethan English used by the early settlers.

By the by, the official stance on the disappearance of the Roanoke Island colony remains unchanged, and the federal government suggests that it is just as likely that the colonists all perished from starvation or simply vanished into thin air. The National Park Service's literature on the colony makes no mention of the Lumbee and declares that "the fate of the lost colonists remains one of the great mysteries of American history."

Assorted Sources... Gotta love the internet.
http://www.bartleby.com/65/lu/Lumbee.html
http://classweb.gmu.edu/mgabel/nclc110_1997/lumbee.htm
http://www.geocities.com/bigorrin/lumb.htm
http://www.lumbee.org
http://www.lumbeetribe.com/
http://www.members.tripod.com/~redheart/thelostcolony.htm
http://www.meyna.com/lumbee.html
http://www.ncsu.edu/ncsu/stud_orgs/native_american/nctribes_orgs/lumbee.html
http://www2.ncsu.edu/ncsu/univ_relations/news_services/press_releases/98_11/374.htm
http://www.nps.gov/fora/search.htm
http://www.uncp.edu/nativemuseum/right.html
http://www.millersv.edu/~columbus/papers/nixon-02.html

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From:

ldy.livejournal.com

Wow-- thank YOU!!

Rather than living in mud huts as did many of the neighboring tribes, this tribe lived in stone houses and log cabins. They had knowledge of reading and writing, and were familiar with Christianity, despite the fact that missionaries had not yet visited them. They spoke their own language (a derivation of the Algonquin, Tuscarora, and Cheraw languages), but they also spoke a sort of pidgin English with remarkable fluency. Some of the Lumbees were vaguely European in appearance, with pale complexions, curly hair that was often brown or even blonde in color, and blue or green eyes. Finally, the vast majority of the Lumbees possessed the same family names as the original colonists of Roanoke Island.

I find this MOST intriguing!

1790 - Locklears, Chavises, Oxendines, Hammonds, Brooks, Cumbos, Revels, Carters, and Kerseys (people with predominant Lumbee surnames) are listed on the 1790 Census of Robeson County as "All other free persons".

Wow! I'd never even heard of these folk!

From:

scottobear.livejournal.com

me neither, until I got bit by the research bug again. :)

your link helped to spin off that train of thought!

I'm glad that you dig it, too!

I was amazed that I'd not heard of them... my North American tribal knowledge isn't that great outside of a little toe dipped into the information pond.

Honestly, until the other day, I was under the impression that the colonists had been massacred.

From:

rhiannonstone.livejournal.com

Extremely intersting read, thank you very much. It is unfortunate that the Lumbee and their likely possible (but still not proven) involvement in the Lost Colony mystery is never mentioned (especially not where I grew up just south of Roanoake Island, as it would probably eventually ruin the Lost Colony-related tourist industry, gods forbid), those of us of Lumbee heritage who have done our research know that they should be.

From:

scottobear.livejournal.com

happy to provide!

I would like to see more research done, and have the matter settled!

(deleted comment)

From:

scottobear.livejournal.com

Nifty plot hook! Something wicked meets the bottle city of kandor. :)

From: (Anonymous)

My name is Arvis Boughman and I am a Lumbee.
I resist yours and other's assertion that we
"intermarried and assimilated" with African
Americans and is this lack of Native blood
that has cost us federal recogntion. That's
bull mularkey. We do have Portugeuse influence
but in no way, shape, etc. can you prove we
intermarried with African Americans. In fact,
many well known anthropologists around the turn
of the century that the majority of us were
3/4 or more blood. I wish you people would
get off your Cherokee kick and quit kicking around
the Lumbee. Sir or Madame, we were federally
acknowledged in 1956 and the reason that we were
classified as free persons of color in the civil
war period was not that we were simply Mulattos
claiming to be Native American. The truth is
that all remaining NA after the removal, yes even
the Cherokees, were classified as free persons
of color in NC. So, instead of acting like a know
it all and disparaging our racial heritage, be
an honorable person and research the facts offline
on your own. Yanire' kida ya,(see you down in the
road in our Cheraw/Eastern Siouan native language), Arvis Boughman

From:

scottobear.livejournal.com

Thank you for your opinion and insight. I simply reported on what I read, and what I viewed to be the result of it. At No time did I ever say I was an anthropologist or social scientist, but I think that if you have concerns about accuracy in reporting, I certainly reccomend that you seek out and speak to the hosts of those other links as well.

I appreciate your time taken to comment, and hope that whatever the facts are straighten out and are revealed to all persons soon.

From: (Anonymous)

There is no record of the Cheraw language, and there is no record of any Lumbees ever having spoken it. This is wishfull thinking, and wannabe posturing.

Re: Cheraw/Eastern Siuoan language

From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2005-03-15 10:00 pm (UTC) - Expand

From: (Anonymous)

All I have 2 say..is ur exactly right...People need to stop getting info from the net..and do some reasearching..Thank you..and god bless..

From: (Anonymous)

so what, arvis, is the possibiltiy of being intermarried with so-called whites is better than with so-called blacks? you need to do some historical research your damn self.

scott clearly wrote he found this information, it's not like he's writing a dissertation. this is his journal and if u don't like what he wrote then bye.

oh, and i am matrilineally (HERitage ya know) a Cherokee (with Tuscarora and Crow coming from my grandfather).

From:

scottobear.livejournal.com

well, he's entitled to a different opinion.. I wonder where the actual accuracy is.

Together wing to wing and oar to oar.

Lumbee Indians.

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