Talk:Henry Berry Lowry

POV notice

This is more or less a hagiography. Chicheley 19:56, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

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Tuscarora Ancestry

Henry Berry Lowry's tribal Indian ancestry is unproven. The available evidence indicates that Lowry was non-Indian. For instance, see the published story of the Lowry Gang written Mrs. Mary C. Norment in 1875. Norment was a life-long resident of Robeson County. Her Lowrie History, was based on the hearsay evidence of older members of mainly--but not exclusively--white Robeson Countians. Norment described James Lowry, the great grandfather of young Henry Berry Lowry, as a “well proportioned, fine looking, respectable mulatto” who told Robeson County residents that he was the son of a white man, a Judge Lowry of Virginia, and his slave. James Lowry’s father manumitted him, according to James Lowry himself, in Bute County, North Carolina. He moved to what later became Robeson County only in 1769. There, he took up farming and running a tavern. Lowry’s “half breed Tuscarora Indian” wife, as described by Norment, was Sarah Kersey. However, Kersey was not 1/2 Tuscarora. Genealogist Paul Heinegg has identified the origins of the Kersey family. They are non-Indian. The Kersey family were not Tuscarora Indians, but the mulatto descendants of “Negroe” Peter Kersey of Surry County, Virginia (See Weynette Parks Haun, Surry County Court Records, III:240), and Susannah Carsey, “a free Negro woman” of Charles City County, Virginia, both of whom had sons named John Kersey. The succeeding generations of Kerseys brought a third John, a Thomas, and another Peter Kersey into the Drowning Creek watershed during the mid 1750s and into the mid 1760s, where they were listed and taxed as mulattoes.

• • Much of the previous paragraph is not true at all. As can be seen in the Lumbee talk page; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Lumbee , I have provided numerous amounts of information that contradict this paragraph completely. Where in the Lowrie History does it say that James Lowry married "his slave"?http://www.skarorehkatenuakanation.org/lowriehistory.html What about the "Swamp Outlaws"? This was printed three years prior to Norments book, and the only Indian blood mentioned was Tuscarora.

http://www.skarorehkatenuakanation.org/files/The_Swamp_Outlaws.htm --Roskerah 18:50, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

• How is it not true? Norment relayed this "tradition," and in the Swamp Outlaws there is little discussion at all of the Tuscarora, other than to indicate the "tradition" that the Lowries allegedly possesed a modicum of Tuscarora ancestry, but that white "blood" predominated in them, and there was Negro "blood" in the other Scuffletonians. See Swamp Outlaws, p. 12: Scuffletown a few miles distant from Lumberton was one of the largest free negro settlements in the United States before the war against slavery, and it was besides, an almost immemorial free negro settlement; p.18: "Berry put his gun to my face today and said he meant to kill me, and I told him to fire it off--not to stop for me." The negroes charge that these stories are without foundation; p. 41: Nobody in the whole region could account for this free negro settlement; p. 43: The free negroes settled upon the Scuffletown tract because the poverty of the soil...etc. The community is repeatedly described as "mulatto," "colored," and "Negro," and this reflects contemporaneous accounts as well as county and state records from circa 1800 to 1850. SEE immediately below:

Between 1768 and 1774 James Lowry and his wife were consistently taxed as mulattoes. By 1779, James Lowry owned two slaves, 400 acres of improved land, four horses, and 100 head of cattle (William Byrd, Bladen County Tax Lists, I:5, 17, 45, 60, 123, 136; II:63, 84, 101, 115).

• • Verklempt should conduct a closer reading of Norment's text-- who, by the way, was no fan of the Lowry family or of Lumbees in general. Norment was not unbiased. Of course, he fails to take this into account. Nor can Norment be absolved of the rampant racism that characterized white elites in Robeson County. Her own descendants have conceded as much. Nor does Verklempt help his case by citing two dubious researchers, Heinegg (an engineer, not an historian) and DeMarce (an unpublished historian so mediocre that she resorted to making her career and money peddling her genealogical services to petitioning tribes). The fact is that genealogists are not historians, nor are they able or qualified-- given their limited training (if they have any at all)-- to contextualize the history of the genealogical data that they gather. Verklempt has to boost the credentials of nonentities like Heinegg and DeMarce if only to make himself more credible. Now, if all historians resorted like Verklempt (and Heinegg and DeMarce) to merely transcribing tax lists and probate records without qualifying why certain language is being used, well, I guess we'd all be reading genealogy, not history. And, more sadly still, we wouldn't understand anything about the past-- much like Verklempt.

Verklempt is not the author of the comments you are responding to above. Factiness is the author. However, Verklempt notes that Factiness offers verifiable evidence, while the anonymous commenter offers naught but ad hominem about credentials. And can't even get his/her facts straight on that.Verklempt 00:06, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

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Responding to anonymous criticism:

Paul Heinegg's genealogical research is fairly sound; not totally infallible, mind you, but he has utilized many primary sources, including tax lists and court records, grants, deeds, wills, and so forth. The research has in fact recieved the praises of various experts in several fields, and the foreword to the latest edition of his voluminous work--two volumes, more than 1,500 pages--was penned by none other than Ira Berlin, a renowned scholar of black history, a highly regarded historian, whose accomplishments over the course of the last four decades need no explication here. Heinegg's book won the Donald Lines Jacobus Award for the best published genealogical work for 1992-1994. More than 20 years archival and research experience serves as his "degree" if you will. No, he is not trained as a historian; but the work speaks for itself in that it has garnered the respect of degreed academics.

Virginia De Marce, far from being "mediocre" and "unpublished" is a proessional historian, with degrees, as well as decades of experience in using and interpreting primary sources. She has edited the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, a refereed scholarly journal--considered the pinnacle in the field--served as the Society's president, and worked--get this--as a historian for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I have three or four of her published articles in my files here.

If these individuals who, arguably, have done as much if not more than anyone else to advance the field, are not "qualified" to speak to matters of documentation and ancestry, then who is? You, anonymous poster, seem to place much stock in the authority of the written word, and require significant accredidation before accepting somebody's research as valid. I submit that Heinegg and De Marce are indeed qualified to address these issues. Simply asserting that these prolific researchers and their detailed genealogical expositions--and the historical context they both include in their published work--are "nonentities" is near ludicous in light of the sources both cite. I cannot speak for Heinegg, so much, but clearly his work (see the "Introduction" to his latest edition) is not entirely bereft of analysis. De Marce, too, is cognizant of social and legal context, for she alludes to as much in some of her writings.

Yet, while requiring scholarly authority on the one hand, you belittle genealogy on the other; genealogy has come into its own as a discipline--complete with certification guidlines and processes, and a sanctioning body--and yet you offer nothing else in its stead to show how or why the genealogical work of these researchers is insufficient. For what it is worth, doesn't the Buraue of Indian Affairs require genealogical resarch for tribes applying for recognition? And, besides, the transcripts that Heinegg and De Marce include (among much other information) are instructive. For instacne, how come on one county tax list people are listed as "Indian" yet on another, neighboring, county's list people are not listed that way? Contemporaneously? This raises important questions. Why are the Cherokee considered Indians--by local, state, and federal officials--in the 1840s, while the Lumbee are not so considered at the same time? You see, I do understand something about the past. We will never have all the answers, it is true. But, from the available context--and there is quite a bit, actually--it is strange, indeed, that while Pamunkey and Mattaponi in Virginia, Cherokee in North Carolina, Catawbas in South Carolina, Seminoles in Florida, and Choctaws in Mississippi are all considered Indians--by local, county, and state records--from circa 1810 to 1870, yet during the same time, the Lumbee ancestors are never accorded an Indian status, and appear in the records as "colored" and "Negro"? I do not deny that some modicum of Indian ancestry flows thgrough Lumbee veins; rather, I take issue with assertions to specific tribal identities--and thus indigenous histories--with essentially no evidence to support such claims. The fact that on the main Lumbee Indian discussion page there is so much wrangling--even by and between Lumbees--as to what the tribal ancestry and heritage is, speaks for itself. Croatan? Cherokee? Cheraw? Tuscarora? In other words, nobody knows from which aboriginal tribe Lumbees allegedly descend.

Simply having a drop of Indian blood does not make one an Indian. That is biological determinism akin to the supposedly outdated and, I thought, rejected "one drop" rule applied to blacks. Indeed, I think this is one of the ideas against which the Lumbee have for so long struggled. They did not wish to be characterized as "black" due to a modicum of African ancestry, right? The Lumbee have denied African ancestry since 1885 and the Hamilton McMillan thesis. Yet, other researchers and writers, even some anthropologists, continued to allege, well into the early 20th century, that the Lumbee did have African ancestry. So, by this reasonoing, if the Lumbee are not black, then they are not Indian, either, because if "one drop" of "Negro" blood does not in fact make one black, then by the same token, one drop of Indian "blood" does not make one an Indian. Right? If Ia m wrong, please explain why I am wrong. Adn, even if a few Lumbee ancestors had a little Indian blood, how does that constitute a native Indian tribe?

Look, the surviving records show--quite clearly, I'd suggest--that Henry Berry Lowry had very little Indian ancestry, if he had any at all. There is maybe an undocumented Indian ancestor back there in the early 1700s. I believe that is very possible. But where did that Indian come from--assuming that intermarriage actually transpired--was it from an East Indian servant? A de-tribalized mixed-blood from central Virginia? A captive Pascagoula? A New England, or Mexican, or Brazilian Indian transported to North Carolina as a slave? How can you say that simply because the Lumbee are found today near where, say, the Keyauwee allegedly lived long ago, that therefore the Lumbee must descend from that tribe? By that logic, everyone in the country today who claims an Indian great, great grandmother, or whatever, must descend then from whatever tribe once inhabited the region or locale in which that great, great grandmother resided.

Until a researcher comes forward with irrefutable evidence--which will likely have to be genealogical, sorry--that shows, i.e., proves, Lumbee descent from a particular tribe (be it Cheraw, or Tuscarora), I think we will have to rely upon the original documents that have come to light, and the interpretation of those documents by researchers and scholars who are well versed in the record, and make logical arguments. And, Heinegg and De Marce are as good--as reliable--as any other out there who purport to reveal to us the "truth" about Lumbee origins.

I will close by saying that if the Lumbees' tribal Indian identity was well-documented in the first place, that the record included references to chiefs and headmen named Locklear, Lowry, Oxendine, Chavis, et. al., and there were referecnes to "Indians" in the Lumbee area after 1739 and before circa 1870s, then Lumbee identity would be unassailable, and this entire discussion would not be happening. The fact is, there is doubt, there are questions. Something about the Lumbee, and their past, has intrigued people for many, many years. Are they Indians? Some look to be, in a general way. But others appear to be black, and others still look white. Some a combination of all three. And their documented ancestors (this far) appear in the reord as "Negro," "mulatto," "colored," and sometimes even "white." But problems like this are what drives research. We want to know the answers. Sometimes, we get lucky, and find them. The Lumbee need some luck. And I wish them well.

• • It always amazes me to read and hear people's conclusions as to the "accepted" history of our people centered around Robeson County. Most of these person's never stepping foot in the area in which they claim to know so much about.

• How do you know I have never been in the area? Actually, I have, frequently. I have seen the Lumbee Petition for Federal Recognition, too. What do you consider "accepted" history, if not all the extant documentation, traditions and accounts? Also, please explain the numerous contradictions and frequent name changes, since the Croatan--now Lumbee--were first recognized in Robeson County and North Carolina in 1885.

  Have any of you ever wondered "Why" the history of the Indian people here has 

been so clouded, and confusing, and that, even though dozens of PhDs have done studies on our history, they still can't come to a unified "conclusion"? Have you ever thought that this is by no accident?

  The story of Henry Berry, and the history his people's descent, is not hard to 

understand when you keep everything in the correct context in which it pertains. The amount of evidence showing the Tuscarora connection to our people is irrefutable, yet this information has always been "omitted" from most contemporary text.

  I wonder how much time Heinegg and De Marce spent here doing there "genealogical" 

collection on the people here? You can well bet that they didn't get their published findings from the people here, because they would have gotten a completely different understnding. Their assertions that the blood is primarily "non" native is false, and should not be used as valid source material. The evidence that the federal government themselves found several dozen half or more full blood Tuscarora here in the 1930's, shows that even then, there was still strong blood here. IF the truth were known, there "should" have been several thousand recognized as at least half back then, but they only tested 209 individuals, from one Indian settlement here. Of the "22" that were recognized, most were descendants of Henry Berry.

  I will end by saying to those that previously wrote this article; DO MORE 

RESEARCH!! As far as I am concerned, this article should have added a section specifically for Tuscarora.--Roskerah 18:50, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

• Wrong. Only 209 agreed to be "tested" (measured, actualy). Of those--a tiny fraction of the overall Croatan/Cherokee population--only a few appeared to have physical characterisitcs that were in line with what physical anthropolgy considred "Indian" blood in the mid-1930s. But how can one be so certain of strong Tuscarora ancestry across the entire community if only about a half dozen or so (six, maybe seven or eight) were considered full-blood out of a population of several thousands. Besides, this type of testing was discredited later, as the current Lumbee Tribal Chair admitted in his testimony a few months ago. See testimony before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs (July 12, 2006) regarding the Elizabeth Dole sponsored S.660, “A bill to provide for the acknowledgement of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, and for other purposes.” pp. 3-4: Goins: "...which have since been discredited as having no scientific basis. Most tribal members refused to submit to these tests. Only 209 agreed to do so...."

And twenty years of research in primary sources is not enough? What would be enough? If, as you assert, "The amount of evidence showing the Tuscarora connection to our people is irrefutable, yet this information has always been 'omitted' from most contemporary text," then I suggest you put it up here; not links to pages from late 19th century books, or to other published sources that list names, but give no other indication whatsoever concerning tribal origin; show us records from the late 1730s (or earlier, if you have them) to the early 1830s, that say "Indian," "Tuscaroroa," and so forth. Look, I am with you in that IF the Lumbee have any Indian blood (and, I believe they do have a little), it may well be Tuscarora; then again, it may come from slaves. But show us tribal ties, tribal associations, good evidence of tribal activity, governance, and the like. This would lay the debate to rest, so why is it being held back?