The power and influence of Roanoke as a colonial government was overthrown in 1715 by forces who wished to replace a ruling class which was, by some accounts, insurrectionary. These forces represented the Anglican interests of a growing planter class that was moving in from Virginia and South Carolina to claim the rich soils of eastern North Carolina for tobacco. Despite their influence, the Quakers were never a particularly large population in North Carolina and many retired from political activity after the Roanoke government was overthrown, turning their steady and quiet attention to the abolition of slavery (Hill, ed. 1984: 536, 628).
Robeson County was probably nearly unaffected by this change, however, as the boundary line between North and South Carolina was still under dispute (as it would be until the early 19th century) and the area was generally considered "ungoverned." In 1727 the first recorded Baptist minister in North Carolina, Paul Palmer, began a church in Chowan County (Hill, ed. 1984: 538, Leaming 1995: 115-116). The Presbyterian church, founded in America in 1706, largely restricted their ministerial attentions to the growing Scotch-Irish settlements of North Carolina (McLean 1946), an ethnic group which had a strong history of involvement in the Presbyterian church in Britain and in allegiance to Calvinist doctrine, both in Europe and America (Hill, ed. 1984: 610).
The proselytizing activities of Baptists and Methodists, however, were concerted and far-reaching, and were perceived by the Anglican establishment as representing a considerable threat to the established Southern social and political order. Anglicans were forbearing on the issue of slavery. Indeed, many Anglicans were slave owners. Baptists and Methodists, avowedly condemnatory on the issue and practice of slavery, threatened the hierarchy of class that bounded the free and un-free - freedom being defined by ownership of property and/or people, and the state of being owned (Heyrman 1997:15). There is no record of Palmer's missionary activity to Indians, but several stories of his abolitionist politics survive (Leaming 1995: 116). Palmer's religious and political leanings created the Free Will Baptist church, separate from the various other Baptist sects that were forming in North Carolina at this time, such as the General, Regular, and Particular Baptists. All had differing interpretations of the Holy Spirit's role in the individual's life, and their beliefs ranged from moderate Calvinism to rather radical Arminianism.
George Whitfield and John Wesley were the first Methodists to preach the gospel along the southeastern frontier. James Oglethorpe, Georgia's colonial governor, warned Wesley to stay away from the Choctaw for fear of retaliation from the Catholic French. Taking Oglethorpe's advice, Wesley confined his ministry to the Savannah and Charleston areas. However, after only two years, Wesley returned to England in 1739, having considered his Methodist mission among the Indians a failure. Records of missionizing activity in the southeast are scanty at best. While the Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in Baltimore in 1784, there seems to have been no concerted attempt by Methodists themselves to reap a rich harvest of souls among the unconverted. In large measure, missionary activity in North Carolina by Methodists was among the Cherokee until their removal to Oklahoma territory in 1834. Records indicate the efforts of only two itinerant leaders, Francis Asbury and Jeremiah Norman among the Indians of Robeson and Bladen counties during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In fact, the earliest recorded church deed in Robeson County bears the Indian name Hammonds (later Saddletree Church), deeded on October 3, 1792. After having preached at Hammonds Meeting House near Lumberton on November 6, 1800, Jeremiah Norman wrote:
There was but a small assembly, and most of them were colored people. I had some liberty in preaching and enlarging on the Rules. Some of the people seemed concerned about their future states (Smith 1993: 11-12).
The general lack of evidence for missionary activity in Robeson County suggests that Lumbees were already practicing some form of Christianity by the time of the most widespread Baptist and Methodist proselytizing during the 18th and 19th centuries (Dial and Eliades 1996:106). Some speculation about Lumbees' attraction to these denominations may be made, however. The doctrine and practice of Free Will Baptists is somewhat similar to Quakerism, and similar to that denomination, the influence of Free Will Baptists spread rather rapidly in eastern North Carolina, with over 20 churches founded between 1727 and 1755. Free Will Baptists articulate the teaching of general atonement, that Christ died for all persons, and that acceptance of God's grace is resistible and dependent upon the individual's free will (Hill, ed. 1984: 269-271). According to these general principles, the structure of the Free Will Baptist church was decentralized and suspicious of institutional organization, perfectly suited to the frontier of Robeson County.
Christian communities for Baptists and Methodists alike were modeled on the primitive Christian communities depicted in the New Testament. The Christian tenets propounded by these evangelical missionaries of economic and spiritual equality, godly discipline and self-abasement were sure to appeal to a class of people with limited access to surplus and wealth (Heyrman 1997:23). By 1790, about 14 percent of white southerners and 4 percent of blacks were members of Baptist or Methodist churches.
That some Indians of Robeson County were already familiar with the tenets of Christianity is evidenced by a hymn written by Priscilla Berry Lowrie before 1776. Priscilla Berry, the Indian granddaughter of Henry Berry, a survivor of the "Lost Colony of Roanoke," had married the James Lowrie who obtained a land grant for over one thousand acres. According to family tradition, the Lowrie's were a devout family before migrating from Pamlico Sound to present-day Robeson County. James and his son William had taken along a hymn book with which to sustain them while fighting alongside the colonies during the American Revolution. It was during this period that William, Priscilla and James's son, wrote a hymn in his mother's peculiar English dialect:
De joy I felt I cannot tell
To tink dat I was saved from Hell
Through Jesus streaming blood
Dat I am saved by grace divine
Who am de wurst of all mankind
O glory be to God.
So me lub God wid inside heart
He fight for me, he take um part.
He save um life before
God hear poor Indian in de wood.
So me lub him and dat be good.
Me prize him evermore. (Smith 1993: 62)
Not much is known about the establishment of churches among the Indians of Robeson County. By the 19th century however, the Lumbee had established and oversaw the running of New Hope, Thessalonica, Union Chapel, Old Dogwood, Reedy Branch, Burnt Swamp, Old Prospect, New Jerusalem, and Saint Annah's (Dial and Eliades 1996:107, Smith 1993: 11-22). Many more churches of various denominations would follow, with many new churches still being founded. Much research remains to be done on the denominational origins and histories of these churches, to discern the development of Baptist and Methodist worship among Lumbees.
One can however speculate that the creation of Indian churches had as much to do with "outside" defined classifications of Indian socio-political status in a highly racialized South, as well as an inclusionary concern for the spiritual well-being and sustenance of the Indian community (Smith 1993: 62). Before the Civil War, churches, meeting houses, and preaching places were tri-racial. Legally, there was nothing to prevent members of any of the diverse ethnic communities of the south from sitting together at worship (Smith 1993: 62). In Robeson, Priscilla Berry Lowrie's grandson, Allen Lowrie, who would be murdered by a Home Guard detachment of the Confederacy for illegal ownership of weapons, and his wife Mary Cumba Lowry were third generation members of Back Swamp Church. Their son Calvin received his license to preach from the Methodist Episcopal Church, North. Calvin's first cousin, Henderson Oxendine, the only member of the Lowry Gang to be caught and executed by the state of North Carolina, was well known in the Indian community for his piety (Dial 1993: 53; Townsend 1872). When George Lowry gave the eulogy for his murdered sons and message of protest for the indiscriminate violence suffered by Indians at the hands of the Confederacy, he spoke his words to the Indian, Black, and White congregation of New Hope Baptist Church (Dial 1993: 45).
In 1862, the Robeson Circuit of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, reported seven hundred and seventy-three non-white members. Of the fourteen meeting houses across the county, at least three had documented Indian membership. By Reconstruction, a great change took place within the Robeson Circuit. In 1870, non-white members were "separated out" from the rolls of these meeting houses and told to fend for themselves. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, decreed that its membership was to be exclusively white. Due to this exclusion, Robeson County Indians founded and directed our own churches. Calvin Lowry preached to the Indians of Robeson County that "It is time to remove our church services from River Banks and private homes" (Smith 1993: 62). Of the already established preaching places, Cary Wilkins and Henry Sampson oversaw Bee Branch's (now Prospect Church) fifty-six member congregation. Hammonds (Saddletree), the oldest documented Robeson preaching place, ended up with the largest congregation, and was led by Purdie Locklear and Jordan Chavis. Ishmael Chavis and Isaac Brayboy oversaw Union Chapel's seventy-member congregation (Smith 1993: 11-12).
During Reconstruction, Lumbees took the initiative of deeding property, building Indian churches, and transferring land and titles solely within the Lumbee community. Prospect Church was founded in 1876 and Thessalonica in 1880, signaling the founding and maintenance of churches under exclusive Lumbee trusteeship.
Lumbees founded the "Burnt Swamp Association of the Mixed Race" in 1880. In 1885, under the aegis of Cary Wilkins, the "father of Croatan Religion," the name of the organization was changed to "The Burnt Swamp Association of the Croatan Race" (McMillan 1898). This name change coincided with North Carolina's acknowledgment of Lumbees as Indians. It is now known as the Burnt Swamp Association of North Carolina. While the association was founded to advance the ideals and tenets of Christianity among the Lumbee, it also served another, subtler socio-political purpose- one that is reflected in the two last name changes. In fact, these name changes reflect a conscious attempt by the Lumbee community to define itself to the outside. According to sociologist Fredrik Barth:
stable, persisting, and often vitally important social relations are maintained across boundaries, and are frequently based precisely on dichotomized ethnic statuses...ethnic distinctions do not depend on the absence of social interaction and acceptance, but are...often the very foundations on which embracing social systems are built (Barth 1969:10).
In the 20th century, the Burnt Swamp Baptist Association joined the North Carolina State Baptist Convention and simultaneously became a member of the Southern Baptist Convention. Membership in these organizations, which have long histories of pro-slavery sentiment, has been problematic for Lumbees who wish to remain distinct, to practice our faith according to our own culturally-based interpretation of it, rather than according to the interpretation which a governing body would enforce. Lumbees have always insisted on our identity as distinct from the religious and social forces around us, and we have always relied on ourselves to choose the direction of our religious worship.