New school promised to Halifax Croatan colony.

Record Number: 
HALI001
Citation: 

"New school promised to Halifax Croatan colony." The Bee [Danville, VA] Monday, June 23, 1924.

Annotation: 

This article reports that the "colony" of Croatan Indians near Christie, partly in Halifax County, Virginia and partly in Person County, North Carolina, will have a separate school constructed for their children. The Halifax County superintendent of schools, H. J. Watkins, was instrumental in gaining approval for the school, but both counties have appropriated funds to support the school. The school will be supervised by Person County, North Carolina's superintendent of schools.

The "colony" has about 300 residents. The article states that they are known as Cubans in Virginia and Croatan Indians in North Carolina. There is much discussion of the residents' belief that they are descended from Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony.

The article characterizes the residents as "intelligent, industrious and expert farmers, most of them raising tobacco. They are law-abiding and are serious in religious matters, having built recently a church, the pastor of which is a Croatan Indian. For fifteen years Rev. P. M Fontaine labored among them as missionary . . . . Formerly white teachers were assigned to their schools but now their religious training and their educational instruction comes from men and women of their own race."

First Appeared in 1994 Book?: 
no
Publication Type: 
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