Digital Scholarship and Initiatives

Historical references suggest that small numbers of Native Americans from the Siouan, Iroquoian, and Algonkian language families moved into the Robeson County area between the 1580’s and 1860’s.  Archaeological research done in 1988 shows that Native Americans were here much earlier: 1200-1750 A.D.  Further archaeological research is needed to determine who these earliest Native Americans were.  Local Indians’ use of the word “Lumbee” as the river name by Indians as far back as the early 1800’s fits the Eastern Siouan linguistic pattern, providing historical evidence that “Lumbee” is “an accurate, and worthy, ancestral name.”