Digital Scholarship and Initiatives

Sider calls this work “both an anthropology and a history of histories,” exploring “how people have lived and still live within and against the histories they have chosen and the histories that have been imposed upon them.” He brings considerable knowledge and feeling to this work, based on scholarly research, work with the Lumbee as an activist and a Petition researcher, and numerous friendships among the tribe. He treats topics such as the various tribal names and claims of historical origin; agriculture, land ownership, and the politics of work; education; voter registration drives, and attempts to get Indian candidates elected; the Tuscarora movement; Pembroke Farms; the Henry Berry Lowry period; and Lumbee and Tuscarora attempts at federal recognition. He emphasizes events and conditions in Robeson County between 1968 and 1973 but also deals with the Colonial period and discusses developments as recent as 1991.

One of many strengths of this work is that, while providing detailed descriptions of key events and periods in Lumbee history (including information not given elsewhere), Sider also places Lumbee history into a broader anthropological context (see the Preface).

This book was revised, with a new introduction, as Living Indian Histories in 2003.