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Commentary: A History of Sovereignty Ill-Considered [1]
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Date: 2025-02-10
There’s an old saying that goes, “justice delayed is justice denied” and perhaps no group understands that better than the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, of which I am a proud citizen.
And if I could use one word to sum up the Lumbee story, it would be resistance.
Resistance to colonization, resistance to the conscription by the Confederacy, resistance to North Carolina’s attempts to deny our sovereignty, resistance to Jim Crow, and our on-going resistance of the federal government’s attempts to deny our sovereignty.
The Lumbee Tribe is based in Pembroke, North Carolina, and is the largest Tribe east of the Mississippi River with approximately 55,000 citizens. We are also stuck with a unique status. In 1956, Congress recognized us as Indigenous people, but both denied us access to the benefits that other Tribes receive and our sovereign right to govern our homelands.
This has left us in the unenviable position of seeking a legislative remedy to fix Congress’s mistake. We have come close before, but we have been unable to cross the finish line. We have had support from Presidents Obama, Biden, and Trump and secured bipartisan support in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate.
Despite this, however, we remain in limbo, recognized by the United States government, yet unfairly denied access to the protections and programs that other federally recognized Tribes enjoy.
On January 23, however, President Donald Trump went a step farther than his predecessors and issued a Presidential memorandum directing the Department of the Interior to work with Lumbee leadership on a path towards full federal recognition.
Much of the media coverage of President Trump’s memorandum has been sorely lacking, with some media outlets even attempting to “both sides” our Tribal identity by giving our detractors a voice and an opportunity to present inaccurate accounts of our identity. Let me be clear, there is no question as to who we are. By giving quarter to absurd conspiracy theories, these outlets are doing both their audience and the Lumbee people a grave disservice.
We have been a distinct sovereign entity since before the first European wandered into the swamps of modern-day Robeson County. In 1754, a report to the Governor of North Carolina identified us as a “mixt crew living lawlessly.”
We did not “own” the land in the manner that an 18th century European would have understood it, yet we exercised sovereignty over the land and governed ourselves without interference from any colonial power. Unsure of how to classify us, the colonial government simply called us “free persons of color.” When this classification was challenged in 1857, the North Carolina Supreme Court affirmed that it also included, “persons colored by Indian blood.”
During the Civil War, we resisted being conscripted to work on a Confederate fort by fighting back against the Confederacy. Tribal ancestor Henry Berry Lowrie formed a multiracial army to fight the Confederate Home Guard in the swamps of Robeson County. Full recognition of our sovereignty is a long-settled question in North Carolina, which recognized us in 1885. This development was extremely important because it represented a recognition of our inherent sovereignty and right to self-determination.
Within the scheme of the segregated South, we were able to run our own schools and educate our children in a culturally appropriate manner. In 1887, we successfully petitioned the state for funds to build a school to teach our teachers. That school is known today as the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
State recognition was only possible because we actively resisted the racial binary that had come to dominate the post-Civil War South. We refused to simply be classified as “colored.” My ancestors organized and advocated for the recognition of our sovereignty. Because of their work, we were spared the worst of Jim Crow. In 1924, our neighbors up in Virginia passed the Racial Integrity Act, which (among other things) reclassified all Indian people in the Commonwealth as “colored,” a direct refusal to recognize the inherent sovereignty of the Tribes within their borders.
Being spared the worst however does not mean we were treated especially well. Our schools were still underfunded and we still had to use substandard segregated facilities. We also still had to deal with a power structure that was, many times, hostile to our interests. In 1958, we even had to run the Ku Klux Klan out of our Tribal territory. You can read an article that I wrote back in 2019 that discusses racial discrimination from local officials that Lumbees faced into the 80s and 90s.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution provides that Congress has the power to regulate commerce “…among the several States, and with Indian Tribes.” Tribal nations are to be partners with states, not subjugated to the whims of the political structures created by them.
Full federal recognition is fundamentally an issue of fairness. Despite recognizing us as Indigenous people almost seventy years ago, the United States continues to deny our sovereignty and right to be treated as equals to other federally recognized Tribes. We are essentially treated as second-class Indigenous people. There is only one way to remedy this injustice, Congress must correct its mistake and afford full federal recognition to the Lumbee Tribe.
Full federal recognition represents the United States acknowledging that to be a Lumbee citizen is to be a citizen of a distinct political body. It means recognizing our right to govern our lands, engage in economic development as a sovereign nation, and chart our own future. It means acknowledging that we are also a party to the federal government’s trust responsibility to Tribal nations, which has been affirmed by court decisions, as well as Congressional actions.
The trust responsibility imparts a duty on the federal government to support Tribal nations in mitigating the effects of colonization, the scars of which are all over our homeland. Like other Tribal homelands, Robeson County ranks among the poorest counties in the state, we have a lower than average life expectancy, high rates of chronic disease, and regularly boast one of the highest violent crime rates in the state. Access to programs and opportunities meant to mitigate the effects of colonization would be transformative for the Lumbee people.
Robeson County is a special place for my ancestors, who come from a variety of Tribal nations, brought together by the necessity to escape the encroachment of Europeans on the shores of Virginia and the Carolinas in the 1600s and 1700s. The very act of taking refuge in the swamps was an act of resistance.
Our ability to sustain our community in such hostile conditions is the purest expression of sovereignty.
Our status as a sovereign should be unquestioned and it is time for the United States of America to recognize it.
Christopher Chavis grew up in rural Robeson County, North Carolina, and is a frequent writer and speaker on baseball history and rural access-to-justice issues. He is a citizen of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. He is also a former Policy Director at the National Indian Health Board.
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