Reconstruction is characterized for Lumbees as a time of bloodshed and terror, but the socio-political improvements that the Indians of Robeson needed and wanted began to take shape during this troubled time. The 1868 ratification of a new constitution impacted the Lumbee in two ways. First, it restored a measure of political equality to those groups that had been disenfranchised. Secondly, and just as significantly, provisions were made for public schooling, regardless of race. Schools in Robeson County, however, would not be established until 1875 (Dial 1993: 57-63), and when they were built, the state made it clear that Robeson County Indians would not be recognized as such. Segregation policy would not permit Indians to attend what would become termed "white-only" schools. Robeson Indians were again faced with outside categorizations when told that we could only attend "Colored" schools. We again resisted ascribed notions of community identity, as we had since first contact with Europeans.
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| Oxendine School |
In the late 19th century, after intense lobbying by Indians of Robeson County, the state legislature finally passed a bill that allowed us to build our own educational institution, offering studies from the elementary through secondary, or "normal" level. This school became known at different times as the Croatan Normal School and Indian State Normal School. The responsibility for organizing and maintaining a governing board was assumed solely by Indians. From this modest beginning, the first four-year Indian college, known as Pembroke State University, would emerge. Later, Pembroke State University became incorporated within the University system of the state of North Carolina. It now has a multi-ethnic student body and serves the state while continuing to be a vital institution of the Indian community (Dial and Eliades 1996:102).
Ironically, though the Lumbee of the late 19th century were able to convince North Carolina to fund an Indian educational facility of our own, we were unable to achieve official recognition by the state as Indians. Following the period of Reconstruction, Lumbees attempted to gain for ourselves the benefits and privileges to which we were entitled as a Native American tribe. This persistence in establishing tribal identity with an outside group is not only an indication of tenacity born of surety in that tribal identity -- it also reflects that same practicality first documented in the early 1700s when Lumbees filed titles for lands already in our possession. Both demonstrate an awareness of our place in a changing society.
This persistence, and the government's confusion, is evidenced in the number of names which the Indians of Robeson have been labeled. In 1885, we were recognized by the state as the Croatan Indians of Robeson County. During the "Jim Crow" period between 1885 and 1911, the appellation "Croatan" had become a derisive term. Whites took to shortening "Croatan" to "Cro" (intentionally alluding to the Jim Crow practices of the South) and thus, Lumbees dropped the term from usage. In 1913, the tribal name was changed once again to the Cherokee Indians of Robeson County. While there is an oral tradition of some Cherokee ancestry, other traditions and recent scholarship point to numerous tribal origins (Blu 1980; Campisi 1987; Dial and Eliades 1996; McCulloch and Wilkins 1995). The reasoning behind the 1913 change may have had more to do with receiving acknowledgment from a white society that would have been more comfortable calling Robeson's Indians by a familiar tribal name, than the way in which Lumbees identified ourselves within our community.