Digital Scholarship and Initiatives

Wilkins provides an overview of the discriminations suffered by the Lumbee in the late 19th century as an indigenous people who were not relocated (as were the majority of Eastern tribes).  He explains Lumbee disenfranchisement by the state constitution of 1835; Indians hiding in the swamps of Robeson County to escape forced labor at Fort Fisher, Wilmington; Henry Berry Lowry and his family's deadly encounters with the Home Guard; and law enforcement's attempts to capture Henry Berry Lowry's band, including the offering of a $12,000 bounty for Lowry.  The article gives a useful overview of the events of the Henry Berry Lowry period, the political environment which occasioned them, and Lowry's significance to Lumbee people.