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The Lumbee are a Native American people primarily centered in Robeson, Hoke, Cumberland, and Scotland counties in North Carolina. The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina is a state-recognized tribe in North Carolina numbering approximately 55,000 enrolled members. The Lumbee take their name from the Lumber River, which winds through Robeson County. Pembroke, North Carolina, is their economic, cultural, and political center. According to the 2000 United States census report, 89% of the population of the town of Pembroke identified as Lumbee; 40% of Robeson County's population identified as Lumbee. The Lumbee Tribe was recognized by North Carolina in 1885. In 1956, the U.S. Congress passed the Lumbee Act which recognized the Lumbees as being American Indians but denied them benefits of a federally recognized tribe. History Early historical references Archaeological evidence reveals that the area now known as Robeson County (central to modern Lumbee territory) has been continuously occupied by Native people for at least 14,000 years. Every named era found elsewhere in pre-European-contact North Carolina is also present in the archaeological record of Robeson County (artifacts from Paleo-Indian, Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian cultures). All modern vicinities of Lumbee occupation contain numerous archaeological sites as recent as the Late Woodland period (mid-1700s), and oral traditions about the history of some Lumbee families extend back as far in Robeson County as the mid-1700s. The earliest European document referring to Indian communities in the area of the Lumber River is a map prepared in 1725 by John Herbert, the English commissioner of Indian trade for the Wineau Factory on the Black River. Herbert identified the four Siouan-speaking communities as the Saraw, Pee Dee, Scavano, and Wacoma. Modern-day Lumbees claim connection to those settlements, but none of the four tribes is located within the boundaries of present-day Robeson County. When this area was first surveyed by the English in the 1750s, they reported that "No Indians" lived in Bladen County, which then included parts of present-day Robeson County. Colonial Welsh timber survey parties of the same areas also reported, "No Hostile Indians, in fact No Indians to be found at all." The adjacent Anson County was identified as "a frontier to the Indians". In 1754, colonial authorities organized the territory: everything north of the Lumber River was made part of Bladen County, and everything south of the Lumber River was made part of Anson County. Anson County's border stretched west to known Cherokee territory. Historical records are unclear as to which parts of Anson County were occupied by Indians in the early colonial period. A 1772 proclamation by the governor of North Carolina, Arthur Dobbs — derived from a report by his agent, Colonel Rutherford, head of a Bladen County militia — listed the names of inhabitants who took part in a "Mob Raitously Assembled together," apparently defying the efforts of colonial officials to collect taxes. The proclamation declared the "Above list of Rogus [sic] is all living upon the Kings Land without title." A later colonial military survey described "50 families a mixt crew, a lawless People possess the Lands without Patent or paying quit Rents." The surnames of some of the families are the same as modern-day Lumbees, but each family must be traced separately to identify individual ancestors, particularly since extensive intermarriage took place. The families were classified then as "mulattos," a term that then had several different meanings. Today, it is most commonly used to describe mixed-race persons of African-European ancestry. However, at the time, the term was also used across the South to describe any non-white individual. Following the Reconstruction Era, white-dominated legislatures in the South imposed legal racial segregation. They required all non-white people or people of color to attend black schools in which most students were the children of freedmen. In 1885, Democratic state representative Hamilton McMillan supported an effort to gain separate schools for the Indian children in the state since they and their ancestors had always been free and refused to send their children to black schools. In making his case, McMillan wrote that Lumbee ancestor James Lowrie had received sizable land grants early in the century and, by 1738, possessed combined estates of more than 2,000 acres (810 ha). Adolph Dial and David Eliades claimed that another Lumbee ancestor, John Brooks, held the title to over 1,000 acres (400 ha) in 1735 and that Robert Lowrie gained possession of almost 700 acres (280 ha). However, a state archivist noted in the late 20th century that no land grants were issued during these years in North Carolina. The first documented land grants made to individuals claimed to be Lumbee ancestors did not take place until the 1750s, more than a decade later. None of the various petitions for federal recognition by the Lumbee people has relied on the McMillan, Dial, or Eliades claims. Land patents and deeds filed with the colonial administrations of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina during that period show that individuals who claimed to be Lumbee ancestors migrated from southern parts of Virginia and northern parts of North Carolina. In the first federal census of 1790, the ancestors of the Lumbee were enumerated as Free Persons of Color, another term used for a wide variety of non-White people, including non-reservation American Indians, mixed race American Indian/European, and mixed race African/European. In 1800 and 1810, the families were classified as "all other free persons" in the census (after "white" and "black"). Land records show that in the second half of the 18th century, persons since identified as ancestral Lumbees began to take titles to land near Drowning Creek (Lumber River) and prominent swamps such as Ashpole, Long, and Back. According to James Campisi, the anthropologist hired by the Lumbee tribe to support their petition for federal recognition, the area "is located in the heart of the so-called old field of the Cheraw documented in land records between 1737 and 1739." The location of the Cheraw Old Fields is documented in the Lumbee petition for recognition based on Siouan descent, prepared by Lumbee River Legal Services in the 1980s. Other researchers have noted that the Cheraw Old Fields were only a few miles south of Robeson County North Carolina, into present-day Marlboro County South Carolina. In 1771, a convicted felon, by the name of Winsler Driggers, captured "near Drowning Creek, in the Charraw settlement," was reported as hanged under the Negro Act. That mention, along with no evidence that a new settlement was established or the old settlement was abandoned, is not sufficient to confirm that the settlement on Drowning Creek in 1754 was a Cheraw settlement. American Revolution and federal era Pension record.... Discover the Malinda Maynor Lowery popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Malinda Maynor Lowery books.