Jamestown, the Lost
Colony of Roanoke, and Plymouth Rock are central to America's mythic
origin stories. Then, we are told, the main characters--the
"friendly" Native Americans who met the
settlers--disappeared. But the history of the Lumbee Tribe of North
Carolina demands that we tell a different story. As the largest tribe
east of the Mississippi and one of the largest in the country, the
Lumbees have survived in their original homelands, maintaining a
distinct identity as Indians in a biracial South. In this
passionately written, sweeping work of history, Malinda Maynor Lowery
narrates the Lumbees' extraordinary story as never before. The
Lumbees' journey as a people sheds new light on America's defining
moments, from the first encounters with Europeans to the present day.
How and why did the Lumbees both fight to establish the United States
and resist the encroachments of its government? How have they not
just survived, but thrived, through Civil War, Jim Crow, the civil
rights movement, and the war on drugs, to ultimately establish their
own constitutional government in the twenty-first century? Their
fight for full federal acknowledgment continues to this day, while
the Lumbee people's struggle for justice and self-determination
continues to transform our view of the American experience. Readers
of this book will never see Native American history the same way.