Digital Scholarship and Initiatives

Blu has written an excellent brief introduction to the Lumbee. It reflects her many years of interaction with, and scholarly study of, the Lumbee (including her 1972 dissertation; her 1980 book, The Lumbee problem; and subsequent essays in 1994 and 2001). This introduction is detailed; wide-ranging, and accurate. It is enhanced by several photographs (both recent and historical), and it concludes with a briefly annotated list of recommended references.

Topics discussed in this article include the following:

• the geographical location of the tribe;

• the tribe's status in terms of federal acknowledgment;

• a brief account of theories of tribal origins (Blu surmises, "Except for the Indian affiliation of a few individuals, the connection between the Lumbee as a group and specific earlier tribes cannot be traced into the historical record" (p. 320);

• the Robeson County environment and its influence on the ways in which Lumbees earn a living, both historically and recently;

• the importance to the Lumbee of owning land in Robeson County;

• social and political organizations (family connections; communities (once called settlements) in Robeson County; Indian-only schools, churches, and church associations; LRDA and Lumbee River Legal Services; Lumbees in elected offices);

• culture (Lumbee English; the tribe's early adoption of Euro-American ways; Lumbee singing traditions; hunting and fishing; foods; basket-making; quilting; gourds, jewelry, and artwork; storytelling, especially about Henry Berry Lowry and about the Ku Klux Klan routing);

• diaspora (settlements outside Robeson County, including neighboring counties; Bulloch County, Georgia, 1890-1920; Detroit, Michigan; Baltimore, Maryland; tribal council districts as representative of the reach of the tribe's settlement; Lumbee Homecoming and other occasions for visits to, or relocation to, "home");

• synonymy (tribal name changes, with their dates)

Historical note: On September 26, 1989, William C. Sturtevant, General Editor of the Handbook of North American Indians, testified in the U.S. House of Representatives that "The Lumbee will be covered in a separate chapter in the Handbook of North American Indians, just as each other tribe is described in a separate chapter, and we have envisioned such a chapter from the beginning of our editorial planning in the 1960s." [See Hearing . . . on H.R. 2335, Lumbee Recognition Act, September 26, 1989. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992, page 71.]