Timeline of Lumbee history
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The following is a timeline of the history of the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina.
Contents |
[edit] 18th century
[edit] 1725
John Herbert, Commissioner of Indian Trade for the Wineau Factory publishes a map in 1725 and identifies enclaves of Cheraw, Pee Dee, Waccamaw, and Scavano Indians who continue to live on their traditional lands along the Pee Dee River at what is now the border of North Carolina and South Carolina, and near its tributary Drowning Creek in Robeson County, North Carolina.
[edit] 1726-1739
The Cheraw disappear from the historical record. While some historians believe that they are absorbed by the Catawba, others contend that they amalgamate with other remnant Southeastern Siouan Piedmont groups in the largely uncharted region of present-day Robeson, Scotland, Moore, Hoke, and Cumberland counties. To the south, with the acceleration of the slave trade and decline of the deerskin trade, the influence of the powerful Catawba confederacy begins to wane. By the end of the 19th century, the Catawba will have been reduced to inhabiting a one square-mile reservation in South Carolina.
[edit] 1753
North Carolina Governor Matthew Rowan proclaims Drowning Creek (now Lumbee, or Lumber River) a "frontier to the Indians", and states that there are "no Indians in the county."
[edit] 1754
A surveying party representing the interests of South Carolina land speculators lists a "mix'd crew" of some fifty families living on Drowning Creek without official patent to the land. A surveyor is shot on the Kersey farmstead in Bladen Creek, North Carolina.
[edit] 1775-1783
John Brooks, an ancestral Lumbee, serves in Revolutionary War.
[edit] 1790
United States Census lists common Lumbee surnames, including Locklear, Oxendine, Chavis, Jacobs, Lowery, Hammonds, Brooks, Brayboy, Cumbo, Revels, Carter, Dial, Deese, and Kersey, without racial designation as "All other free persons." Indians were not enumerated in North Carolina in the census.
[edit] 19th century
[edit] 1812
Thomas "Big Tom" Locklear and Silas Strickland, two Lumbee ancestors, fight during War of 1812.
[edit] 1835
Against the backdrop of Indian Removal, North Carolina disenfranchises "Free People of Color" by passing laws that prevent them from voting as well as owning and using firearms. However, the Lumbees are so mixed-race that they are not removed to Oklahoma with the Native American tribes of North Carolina.
[edit] 1835-1852
Court dockets for Robeson County are replete with suits filed by Robeson County Indians who contest the ban on owning and using firearms.
[edit] 1853
The North Carolina Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of North Carolina's ban on firearms with the conviction of Noel Locklear in the State v. Locklear for the illegal possession of firearms.
[edit] 1861-1865
Well into the Civil War, North Carolina begins to forcibly conscript young Indian men from Robeson County through the auspices of the Robeson County's Home Guard. After the murder of his father and brother, Henry Berry Lowrie organizes a gang to fight the Confederate Home Guard.
[edit] 1863-1872
The reprisals of Henry Berry Lowrie and his band of banditti against those elites Lowrie War in Robeson County, North Carolina. The Lowrie gang, led by Henry Berry Lowrie, later popularized as the "Injun Robin Hood," engages in many robberies and retaliatory murders, fighting against both the Confederate Home Guard and the Ku Klux Klan.
[edit] 1885
The North Carolina General Assembly recognizes the Indians of Robeson County as "Croatan," and establishes a separate school system for the Indians. The theory of Lost Colony origins is first advanced by the Conservative Democrat, Hamilton McMillan, who represents Robeson County in the state legislature. McMillan's effort to curry favor with the Indians of Robeson County was part of a larger scheme to acrue gains for Democrats in Robeson County and regain political control in Post-Reconstruction North Carolina.
[edit] 1887
The Indians of Robeson County build the Croatan Indian Normal School (now The University of North Carolina at Pembroke) with oversight from the state.
[edit] 1890
The North Carolina Supreme Court rules that Indian school committees have ultimate authority as to whether children are Indians and therefore eligible for tribal schools. The Croatan school board sets up "blood committees" to determine a child's right to attend the school based on his or her blood purity.
[edit] 20th century
[edit] 1911
The North Carolina General Assembly changes the name of the tribe to "Indians of Robeson County."
[edit] 1913
North Carolina legislature changes the tribe's name to the "Cherokee Indians of Robeson County."
[edit] 1914
Indian Agent O. M. McPherson speculates that the Lumbee descend from the Cheraw.
[edit] 1924
The Lumbee Tribe unsuccessfully petitions the Federal Government for recognition as "Siouan Indians."
[edit] 1933
A Smithsonian Institution anthropologist, John R. Swanton, studies the tribe, and speculates that Lumbee are of Cheraw Indian origin.
[edit] 1934
Tribal leaders, calling themselves The "Cherokee Indians of Robeson County" join the National Congress of American Indians.
[edit] 1941-1945
Lumbees serve in World War II.
[edit] 1952
Dropping "Cherokee," the tribe votes to adopt the name "Lumbee" after the Lumbee, or Lumber River.
[edit] 1953
North Carolina changes name of tribe from "Cherokee" to "Lumbee."
[edit] 1956
The U.S. Congress recognizes name change and recognizes the Lumbee as American Indians. Specific language in the Lumbee Act, however, denies the tribe the customary Indian financial benefits.
[edit] 1958
Over five hundred armed Lumbees rout a group of protesting Ku Klux Klan members led by Wizard James W. "Catfish" Cole in a confrontation near Maxton, North Carolina. The incident receives national attention. One headline read, "Indians Rout The Klan." The event is remembered as the "Battle of Hayes Pond" and ends Klan intimidation of the Lumbee.
[edit] 1971
The first Indian-owned bank in United States, the Lumbee Bank, is established in Pembroke, North Carolina.
[edit] 1973
Henry Ward Oxendine, a Lumbee Indian, is the first Indian born in North Carolina to serve in the North Carolina House of Representatives.
[edit] 1976
The outdoor drama Strike at the Wind, the story of Henry Berry Lowrie, opens in Pembroke, North Carolina.
[edit] 1987
The Lumbee Tribe petitions the United States Department of the Interior for federal acknowledgment. Their petition is denied due to language in the Lumbee Act of 1956. The University of North Carolina at Pembroke celebrates 100th anniversary.
[edit] 1994
Glen Maynor is elected sheriff of Robeson County, and Joanne Locklear is elected Clerk of Court for Robeson County, the first Lumbees to hold these positions. In Georgia, Lumbee John Oxendine is elected statewide as Commmissioner of Insurance.
[edit] 21st century
[edit] 2001
A Lumbee Tribal Government is elected and sworn into office as the Lumbee resume their campaign to achieve full federal recogntion as an Indian tribe.
[edit] 2003
Bills are introduced in the House of Representatives (H.R. 898) and the Senate (S.420) to extend full federal recognition to the Lumbee Tribe. Lumbee Tribal Council elections are held.
[edit] 2004
A new Lumbee Tribal Government is sworn in.
