In Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South, Malinda Maynor Lowery (herself a Lumbee) examines how Indians who define and organize themselves by kin relations—not blood—must negotiate their relative autonomy in the Jim Crow South. Hers is a story localized largely to Robeson County, North Carolina, in which Indians adopt a variety of terms to please many white state and federal government officials. Only complicating matters, Lumbee identity was far from homogeneous. Examples include class issues wrapped up in living locations (“town,” “progressive,” and “swamp” Indians) and differing views of whites as adversaries or accomodationists. Indeed, Lowery’s narrative shifts frequently between notions of collective Lumbee identity and intra-group divisions. Such changes may initially seem problematic. But, more accurately, they serve to articulate the shifting parameters of identity that Indians had to negotiate. As she writes, Lowery questions how Lumbees “can divide and yet remain intact” (253).
Though Lowery’s focus remains Robeson County’s Indians (and the variety of titles they appropriate, mostly “Lumbee”), she does not ignore the ideas and ideals of powerful whites. Indeed, the role of whites is to set the parameters around which Lumbees respond. Lumbees employ tactics to retain their institutions and rights, according to the “markers that Whites . . . thought were important,” (117). Certainly, Lumbee notions of “self” become increasingly reliant on whites and their values in the twentieth century. This is perhaps most evident in the changing titles Indians lobby for beginning in the 1910s. Indians’ rationale becomes less a semantic or historical than a practical response to conditions they faced.
Lowery divides the book into seven chapters, along with an introduction and conclusion. The chapters are roughly laid out chronologically from the post-Reconstruction to the Indian New Deal. Lowery does give herself some license to jump around temporally when necessary. Such leaps inform her writing, and do not distract from the larger direction of her narrative. The book is thoroughly researched and draws on a variety of sources from archival to oral to visual. Lowery is careful to distinguish between them in the text and gives verbal cues to indicate when she relies on oral sources. She begins each chapter with a picture, then proceeds to contemplate the conditions that surround it. That is, she uses these figures as a means to begin each chapter’s topical discussion. The appendix also contains five genealogical charts of some of the book’s major characters. The thoroughly documented footnotes indicate she drew on primary sources such as the newspaper The Robesonian, personal correspondence, and historical censuses. Indeed, given Lowery’s topic and sources, hers is an ethnohistory in the classic sense of the word. [1]
One theme that surfaces frequently, though often briefly, throughout the book is the different conditions of Indians and blacks. Certainly, we do encounter instances where Indians faced discrimination similar to that of blacks. Two examples are the modern/premodern dichotomy whites used to define themselves to each group, and labor occupations like sharecropping. But the available and realized responses to such conditions often distinguish blacks from Indians. Schools are a prominent example of difference here. Whereas blacks at this time were just beginning to think about integration, Indians wanted to maintain separate schools. For Lumbees, maintaining an educative space separate from Whites was an important means of maintaining identity. Even the grossly inequitable distribution of financial resources did not dampen this need for separate schools. Ultimately, we see how the goals and the options available to both Indians and blacks worked differently in same region of the country.
Despite its focus on Robeson County, Lowery’s book opens up various topics for wider discussion. Certainly, this is a valuable contribution to Native American history. The depth of Lowery’s research allows divisions within the Indian community to show through. She skillfully deconstructs what it meant to be “Indian,” the rigidity and flexibility often simultaneously associated with that term. But her book also contributes significantly to historical literature on Southern and even African-American studies. The book is an all-too-rare foray into contemplated and acted-on responses to segregation. Ultimately, Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South succeeds by refining—if not complicating—our views of segregation in the South. White supremacy (a term she frequently employs) comes across here in a more nuanced manner than when focusing just on white/black relations. We begin to see the rights whites were willing to allow to Indians, and those they fought to restrict. In this regard, the book deserves a spot on the bookshelves of not only Native American scholars but also African-American scholars and those interested in the dynamics of race in the Jim Crow South. Highly recommended.
WORK CITED
Trigger, Bruce. “Ethnohistory: Problems and Perspectives.” Ethnohistory 29 (1982): 1–19.
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[Review length: 782 words • Review posted on August 13, 2010]