Lumbees Claim Link to Lost Colony

Claiming descent from the fabled English colonists who vanished from Roanoke Island in the 1500s, the proud Lumbee Indians have spent centuries trying to carve a place for themselves between the white man’s world and the Indian’s.

Dutch settlers entering this swampy inland valley in the early 1730s were astonished to discover a tribe of Indians living in wooden houses, practicing Christianity and speaking a form of Elizabethan English. The Indians, called by various names over the years, chose in a 1952 election to name themselves after the Lumber River around which they lived.

Whether Lumbees are the product of Roanoke settlers mixing with Indians has long been debated, but “I believe it as much as I believe I’m sitting here,” said Adolph L. Dial, professor of history at Pembroke State University and a Lumbee.

In part because they lack typically Indian traditions and language, Lumbees, who number 32,000 and constitute the largest tribe east of the Mississippi River, have never been able to obtain full federal recognition, which could mean millions of dollars a year in aid from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.