Tourists’ expectations of encountering ‘‘cigar store Indians’’ reinforced stereotypes among non-Indian visitors, and increased contact with the larger world presented Cherokee people with new struggles in their efforts to maintain traditional ways of life.ĭespite some achievements in the first half of the twentieth century, the majority of American Indians in North Carolina continued to suffer from a lack of economic opportunities, poor access to education and health benefits, a sharply limited political voice, and persistent racism. While the Cherokee were drawn out of their regional isolation and afforded modest economic gains, some changes did not benefit the tribe. With the development of largescale tourism in western North Carolina coinciding with the opening of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1934, some Cherokee people capitalized on the opportunity to promote their cultural heritage as a part of the region’s appeal. These programs improved the circumstances of many Cherokees while allowing the tribe to retain elements of its political and cultural autonomy. Later, in the 1930s, the federal government extended a number of economic, educational, and other programs to Cherokee people. This school, which granted its first college degree in 1940, became part of the University of North Carolina system in 1969 as Pembroke State University and later the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, offering crucial opportunities to Indian people.Īmong the Cherokee, Chief Nimrod Jarrett Smith negotiated with the North Carolina government on behalf of the Oconaluftee, and in 1889 they were recognized by the state as the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians with a status that allowed the tribe to function as a separate political body. In 1885 the state officially recognized the Indian people living around Robeson County with the name ‘‘Croatan’’ (the name ‘‘Lumbee’’ did not officially designate the tribe until 1953), and separate schools were provided for their use, beginning with the Croatan Normal Indian School in Robeson County in 1887. The federal and state governments did, however, offer some limited educational and other benefits to the state’s native peoples. While Reconstruction and the push for new civil rights for people of color initially offered some hope of improved circumstances for American Indians in North Carolina, this promise quickly disappeared. His exploits, which lasted until the early 1870s, made him a popular hero among the Lumbee as well as with some blacks and poor whites. Lowry organized attacks on Confederate leaders as well as wealthy whites. But among the Lumbee people, a band led by Henry Berry Lowry did what it could to further the Union cause. The Oconaluftee Cherokee, encouraged by secessionist and Indian agent William Holland Thomas, offered soldiers to the Confederate cause, and other North Carolinians of Indian descent undoubtedly fought for the Confederacy. Through much of the remainder of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Lumbee people were victimized by prejudice and segregation, and they were left without the meager protections secured by other tribes through treaties with the federal government.Īmerican Indians in North Carolina played a complex role in the secession crisis and Civil War. When North Carolina enacted a new state constitution in 1835, however, which restricted the rights of ‘‘persons of color,’’ nearly all Lumbee civil rights were taken away. For a time, the Lumbee people maintained their rights of citizenship. They had adopted much of white settler culture-most notably, speaking English and adopting Christian beliefs-by the time white North Carolinians began to take note of the Lumbee as culturally different in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Although the facts of their tribal history have been the subject of debate, the Lumbee likely are descendants of Saura and other Siouan speaking natives who survived the European onslaught by living in swampy lands unattractive to white settlers. The story of the Lumbee tribe, living in Robeson, Hoke, and Scotland Counties, is an example of this trend. While North Carolina’s native tribes retained a hard-won degree of cultural and even political independence during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the lives of most Indians grew ever more impoverished and practically inconsequential in the eyes of the growing white community. Part i: Introduction Part ii: American Indians before European contact Part iii: Indian tribes from European contact to the era of removal Part iv: The struggle for Indian sovereignty and cultural identity Part v: North Carolina Indians today Part vi: References Part iv: The struggle for Indian sovereignty and cultural identity Additional research provided by Joffre L.
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