133 years of struggle: Lumbee have faced a long and winding path to federal recognition
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Who are the Lumbee?
The Lumbee’s own history has complicated their recognition fight as much as anything else. The tribe did not exist before Europeans arrived in North Carolina. Unlike other tribes, many Lumbee adopted Christianity and land-ownership they had learned from white settlers. In 1956, Congress passed the Lumbee Act, which gave them recognition as Indians but denied them any benefits afforded to other tribes. No other tribe in the country exists under these rules. Who are the Lumbee? This is the N&O’s special report.
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The tea-brown waters of the Lumber River have supported Native Americans for thousands of years, and the Lumbee tribe formed from ancestors who predate white settlers and others who sought security in the thick, swampy woods.
Even there, the native people lost land to whites and, once the Civil War began, faced the threat of conscription into the Confederate Army, which forced them to build up Fort Fisher and defend the port at Wilmington.
This led to the Lowrie War, in which Lumbee fought the Confederate Home Guard.
After the war, rising racial tension caused many natives to conceal their tribal identity, or bond together with other tribes to form a common identity and self-determination. Known then just as “Indians,” the natives around the Lumbee got their first official name in 1885 when they were recognized by the North Carolina legislature.
They were then the Croatan, and under that name, they started their long road to federal recognition. That road continues with the Lumbee Recognition Act now before the U.S. Senate.
U.S. Sen. Richard Burr counted 29 bills for recognition in the last 133 years. Here is some of that history:
1888
The tribe first asks Congress for federal recognition, having recently built its own Normal School with just $500 a year in state assistance. The tribe sought more educational money to “compensate for the state’s unequal funding.”
The federal government declined to recognize them or provide any school funds.
1935
The tribe is encouraged to seek recognition under the federal Indian Reorganization Act, but they were required to be at least half-native.
Several years later, only 22 of 209 people in Robeson County qualified under the tests that Lumbee now describe as pseudoscience.
1956
Congress recognized the Lumbee as an American Indian tribe, but it held back the services and benefits that normally came along with recognition.
This “Lumbee Bill” remains an infamous moment for the tribe.
1992
A bill for Lumbee recognition died on the U.S. Senate floor. Sen. Jesse Helms had opposed the tribe’s bid for recognition, saying it should move through the Bureau of Indian Affairs rather than Congress. The 1956 bill, however, prohibited them from doing so.
1994
Another bill failed to reach the Senate floor despite support from North Carolina Sen. Lauch Faircloth, who had earlier opposed recognition.
2003
An archaeologist and UNC-Chapel Hill professor with Cherokee ties said the Western North Carolina tribe was actively working against Lumbee recognition, fearing a rival casino would eat into its own gambling funds.
“It would cut that money in half,” said Brett Riggs, a former tribal archaeologist and deputy tribal historic preservationist officer for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. “They are lobbying against it like you would not believe.”
2020
President Joe Biden, then a candidate, pledged full support for Lumbee recognition. President Donald Trump, running against Biden, pledged the same shortly afterward.
Despite this, the Lumbee were left out of a Congressional spending package.
2021
The Lumbee Recognition Act passes the U.S. House and is sent to a Senate committee, where it received favorable words from both Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tills.
“To say the tribe has been here before would be an understatement,” Burr said in a November Senate hearing. “No other tribe in the country has been subjected to as much Congressional scrutiny.”
Sources: Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, NC Museum of History, News & Observer archives.
This story was originally published December 12, 2021 at 6:00 AM with the headline "133 years of struggle: Lumbee have faced a long and winding path to federal recognition."