Lumbees don’t deserve tribal recognition status
It seems every couple of years with the election of a new Congress, the News & Record brings up Lumbee recognition. Why politicians such as Rep. McIntyre or Sen. Dole would support a spurious claim is understandable — they’re looking for votes.
Go to the Crow Agency and hear Crow or Cheyenne. Drive on I-40 in Arizona and listen to Navajo on the radio and, yes, Cherokee is spoken in Cherokee.
Yet with 5,000 to 50,000 Lumbee, depending on which government agency is being petitioned, nowhere on earth is there a word of Lumbee language, nor any history, culture, artifact, etc.
There is a procedure through the Bureau of Indian Affairs for real Indian tribes to be federally recognized. Just meet any four of seven criteria and you are in.
For decades, to use your word, this has been available. Ironically, another of your words, the Lumbee barely meet one or two of these criteria.
Fair is fair, to use your phrase, or does the News & Record speak with forked tongue?
Donald Bradley
Danville, Va.
Comments (4)
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To keep from being gutted, if you see a Lumbee in a low-rider, just sorta look their way and nod.
Posted on May 9, 2009 6:43 AM
Every federally recognized Indian tribe in the US doesn't want another tribe added as it would diminish their slice of pork pie.
There's definitely Indian in Lumbee's. They're a diluted aggregate of Indian/runaway slaves and indentured servants plus a sprinkling of anyone else who left European society in Virginia and NC to live in that area during the late 1600's through the 1700's and spread their seed among the population.
The Gov't has rules for declaring how much Indian one must have in their blood to be considered a member of a tribe. Could not DNA be used to settle who is who in Lumberton?
Posted on May 9, 2009 8:56 AM
hugh: the tribes decide who is or is not a member of the tribe. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has no say on that matter at all, and can't intervene if a tribe kicks a member out. This is a big issue in California, where tribal infighting over casinos has seen many pureblooded Indians kicked out of their tribes after losing power struggles.
Other than that, I agree with your entire post.
Posted on May 10, 2009 9:54 AM
This is the most ignorant thing I've ever heard. You're comparing an east coast tribe to west coast tribes. Its common knowledge that many east coast tribes lost their language and culture due to european expansion.
The Lumbee tribe have been state recognized since 1885 by the state of north carolina. They have been studied 11 times in the past 100 years and it has been verified that they have been a distinct native community that has existed before white settlement. Sure they were called Croatan and Cherokee for a while, but that wasn't a name they chose for their selves, it was names that ignorant politicians placed on them before they finally chose their own name in 1953. They are decendants of Cheraw and other Siouan speaking natives.
http://www.indian.senate.gov/public/_files/Campisi071206.pdf
Read that and cure your ignorance. They pass every Criterion with flying colors.
Posted on May 13, 2009 8:43 AM