WEBVTT - The Lowry War 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.279 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.560 of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:17.279 I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Way back 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:22.119 in our colleague Christopher Hassiotis sent Holly and meet a 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:26.400 note about the Lowry War as an episode suggestion. This 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:30.000 isn't our first Christopher hassi otis episode suggestion that we've 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:34.360 done on the show He's Got. He sends very good ideas, 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:36.879 but it has taken me this long to do it 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:39.280 because my short list of topics that I keep talking 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:44.159 about has about three years of episodes on it, and 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:46.879 then in addition to having a quote short list of 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.760 three years of episodes, I also just frequently get sidetracked 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:53.080 off of it into stuff that's not even on there. 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:57.440 So the Lowry War is named for a group of 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:01.360 outlaws that was headed by Henry Barry Lowry, and there 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:05.080 are lots of different spellings for his name and consequently 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:07.960 different spellings for the war, so you'll see it l 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:11.720 O w r Y, l O w r I E, 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:14.960 l o w r e Y, and l O w 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:20.440 e r Y A lot of potential options there. Henry 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:23.840 Verry Lowry though was Lumby and the Lowry Gang, as 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:27.720 it became known, included other members of the Lumbi tribe 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:30.440 as well as black and white men, and they fought 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:34.399 against Confederate authorities in southeastern North Carolina during the U 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:37.920 s Civil War and then during reconstruction. They came to 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:40.600 be known or came to be viewed as either kind 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:46.319 of Robin Hood esque folk heroes or dangerous murderers and thieves, 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:50.480 depending on who you were asking. The Lowry War took 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:54.080 place in and around Robinson County, North Carolina. That's in 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:56.960 the southeastern part of the state, in a swampy region 0:01:57.040 --> 0:02:01.040 around the Lumber River. Although Lumber is the river's official 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:05.120 name today, too many locals, including the Lumbi tribe, it's 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:08.160 the Lumbi. The origins of that name are a little 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:10.880 bit hazy, but it's sometimes described as coming from the 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:14.800 Algonquian term meaning dark water, and locals were using it 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:18.680 for the river by the early nineteenth century. This part 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:21.520 of North Carolina has been home to indigenous peoples for 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:24.639 nearly fifteen thousand years, and the Lumbi have lived there 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:29.120 for centuries. The Lumbi traced their ancestry to indigenous tribes 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:32.120 and nations from at least three different language groups who 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:36.200 have lived in what's now eastern North Carolina, southeastern Virginia, 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:41.000 and northeastern South Carolina. And her books on Lumby history, 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:45.520 historian Melinda Maynor Lowry, who is Lumby, describes three hundred 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:49.920 years of migration and cultural exchange taking place within this region. 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:54.920 Indigenous people and people who had liberated themselves from slavery 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:59.200 and white indentured servants and others all eventually settled and 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:03.480 what's now Robinson County for various reasons, including fleeing from 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:07.560 wars and diseases and persecution, and then together they formed 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:11.440 one tribe that is deeply connected to the ideas of 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:15.320 kinship and place. This tribe has been known by a 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:18.480 series of names over the years. During the period of 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:21.960 the Lowry Wars, they were often just called Indians or 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:26.360 described as a combination of multiple races. The state of 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:30.120 North Carolina first recognized the tribe under the name croaton 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:34.840 in five Okay, if you're thinking, wait, isn't that a 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:37.880 lot like Croatoan? The word that was found carved into 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:40.000 a tree at the former site of the lost colony 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:45.160 of Roanoke. Yes. Hamilton McMillan, who introduced the legislation for 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:48.040 the state to recognize the tribe with this name, had 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:51.760 concluded that they were descended from survivors of the Lost Colony, 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:55.280 and that was based on his own research. Two other 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:59.320 formal name changes followed this before members of the tribe 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:03.480 chose the name name Lumby in ninetift two, drawing that 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:06.960 name from the place that the tribe calls home. There 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:10.480 are also people within this group who trace their ancestry 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:13.520 back to the Tuscarora and continue to use that name. 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:17.839 The Tuscarora were living mainly in what's now North Carolina 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.520 when Europeans started arriving in North America, and many of 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:25.200 them moved northward to join the Hood and Ashawnee Confederacy 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:28.320 in the eighteenth century. That was after the Tuscarora War. 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:31.120 In this episode, we're just going to stick to the 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:34.440 name Lumby, even though we are mostly talking about a 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:38.440 period before the tribe had chosen that name. This part 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:41.360 of North Carolina is isolated, which made it a good 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:44.520 place for people who were fleeing from wars or disease outbreaks, 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:47.920 or enslavement, or any number of other things to take 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:52.080 refuge and recover. It's also swampy, so it really wasn't 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:56.560 very appealing to European colonists. So during the Revolutionary War era, 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:59.560 a lot of Lumby ended up formally owning the land 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:03.200 that they are already living on and considered there's This 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.839 included being granted land by either the crown or the 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.719 State of North Carolina, sometimes in exchange for service to 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:14.520 one or the other, or for military service. By their 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:19.240 early nineteenth century, many Lumby owned their land outright as individuals, 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:21.920 rather than living on land that belonged to the tribe 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:25.440 collectively or was outlined in a treaty with the United States. 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:29.800 From about the eighteen twenties through the eighteen fifties, the 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:34.640 US government systematically removed indigenous peoples from the eastern part 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:37.440 of the country to land west of the Mississippi River. 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:41.400 We have talked about this in some of our previous episodes, 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:45.000 including our twenty eighteen episode on the Georgia gold Rush 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:48.640 and our twenty nineteen two part on the occupation of Alcatraz. 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:53.640 This process involved federal laws such as the Indian Removal 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:57.280 Act of eighteen thirty and multiple Supreme Court cases and 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:02.000 exploitive treaties between the United States and indigenous nations, and 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:07.560 forced displacements. During this period, multiple indigenous nations that had 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:11.159 historically lived in what's now North Carolina were forced to move, 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:17.599 sometimes literally at gunpoint. This included the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:20.600 and Seminole nations, who were forced to move more than 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:24.760 two thousand miles to what's now Oklahoma. Although some resisted 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:29.359 and stayed behind. This removal was an active genocide, and 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:31.560 nearly a quarter of the people who were forced to 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:35.400 move died as a result of it. The Lumby, however, 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:39.680 were largely protected from this removal. Many of the nations 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:43.520 that the federal government forcibly removed during this period were 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:46.680 living on land that was valuable in some way, so 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:50.400 there was gold there or timber or prime farming land. 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:53.839 But the Lumby were mostly living among the swamps on 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:58.599 land that wasn't considered particularly valuable, and as we've said, 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:02.839 a lot of them owned that land outright as individuals 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:08.440 through documentation that the government recognized as legal. That didn't 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:11.280 make it impossible for anybody to take their land, but 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:14.680 it did make it more challenging to do so, and 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:18.040 also from a legal perspective, at this point, the Lumbie 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:23.960 weren't legally classified as Indians. North Carolina revised its constitution 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:28.080 in eighteen thirty five, and under that constitution and various laws, 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.960 the Lumby were considered free persons of color. So even 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:34.520 though they weren't forced off their land as many other 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:38.040 tribes were, they also were not treated as equal citizens 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:41.960 of the state. For example, free people of color were 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:45.400 not allowed to vote in North Carolina, and although this 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:49.720 law didn't specifically mentioned the indigenous people of Robinson County, 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:54.040 a lot of people interpreted this provision as applying to them. 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:57.640 In eighteen fifty four, North Carolina also passed a law 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:01.240 that voided marriages between a white person and a free 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:03.840 person of color if that marriage had taken place since 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:08.000 eighteen thirty nine. That applied to a lot of Lumby marriages. 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:12.320 These and other laws followed Nat Turner's Rebellion of eighteen 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:16.600 thirty one, which was an uprising of enslaved people in Virginia. 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:21.840 Authorities were deeply fearful of a similar uprising taking place 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:24.640 in other slave states, and so they passed a lot 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:28.480 of laws to restrict any kind of rites that free 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:31.600 black people might have, and then more broadly free people 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:34.760 of color. When the US Civil War started in eighteen 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:38.680 sixty one, North Carolina was a slave state, but the 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.680 state and the people living in it were divided over 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:45.319 whether to secede and support the Confederacy or to remain 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:48.560 part of the United States, and this included the Lumby 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:53.160 Although at least one Lumby family had historically owned slaves, 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:57.440 most Lumbi supported the Union, even though free people of 0:08:57.480 --> 0:08:59.960 color had to have a special permit to carry web 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.880 in North Carolina. Lumby people served on both sides of 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:07.480 the war. Some went to another state or passed for 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:10.600 white to enlist, and some may have just found a 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:13.920 recruiter who didn't know or didn't care about that prohibition. 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:19.160 In eighteen sixty two, the Confederate Army started fortifying Fort 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:21.679 Fisher at the mouth of the Cape Pier River as 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:25.560 protection for the nearby port of Wilmington's. This was an 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:29.720 earthen fortification, so it's construction and maintenance were both labor 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:33.560 intensive and dangerous. At first. A lot of this work 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:39.559 was done by Confederate soldiers and enslaved Africans. Diseases were rampant, 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:45.600 especially malaria, dysentery, and yellow fever, which could be deadly. Eventually, 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:49.959 landowners started refusing to send their enslaved labor to work 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:52.360 on the fort because of all this, and at that 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:56.520 point the Confederates started conscripting indigenous people to do it, 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:00.560 particularly the Lumbi. Although there were a few you lumby 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:03.360 who willingly went to work on the fort, most did 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:05.400 not want to be forced to travel to the coast 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:08.840 to do difficult, dangerous work for a military they didn't 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:13.000 even support, and possibly get sick or die in the process. 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.880 So many responded by lying out in the swamps. As 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:20.400 we said earlier, the swamps were easy to hide in, 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:22.680 especially if you had lived there your whole life and 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:26.320 had your own ancestral knowledge to help you navigate. But 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:28.960 this made life difficult for the men who were lying 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:32.240 out and for their families. Whether you usually worked your 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:34.920 on your own land or somewhere else, you couldn't if 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:38.600 you were hiding out from the Confederates. All this fed 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:41.560 directly into the Lowry War, which people gets you after 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:53.880 a sponsor break. During the Civil War, Alan and Mary 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:57.080 Lowry were two of the most affluent and prominent of 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:01.120 the Lumby people in Robinson County. Their family was large. 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:04.439 They had twelve children, almost all of them were sons. 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:08.600 Allan was a church leader and also ran a successful farm, 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:12.040 but he was also under a lot of suspicion from 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:16.079 the Home Guard. The North Carolina General Assembly had established 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:18.920 the Home Guard in eighteen sixty three, and it was 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:22.199 made up of men who for whatever reason, were exempt 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.280 from military service. The Home Guard was tasked with things 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:29.520 like finding deserters and guardings strategic points within the state, 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:33.239 helping to protect the local people, but in some areas 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:37.359 they really had a reputation for harassing or even terrorizing 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:40.520 the local community. This is a big plot point in 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:43.760 the book and movie Cold Mountain if anyone is familiar 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:47.480 with that. The Home Guard accused Alan Lowry and other 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:52.240 Lumby of harboring Union sympathizers and Confederate deserters and of 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:55.559 things like stealing, and some of this really was going on. 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:59.920 For example, Lumby Territory wasn't far from a stockade in Florence, 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:03.720 South Carolina, and Union soldiers who escaped from there often 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:07.480 wound up with the Lumby, including with the Lowry's. In 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:12.040 December of eighteen sixty four, someone stole two pigs from 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:15.200 James P. Barnes, who was a wealthy landowner and a 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:19.960 slaveholder and a Confederate official. Barnes didn't live far away 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:22.800 from Alan and Mary Lowry, and he thought one of 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:25.600 the Lowrys had done it. Basically they didn't have food 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:27.320 because they were lying out in the swamp, and said 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:31.880 they stole his pigs. Possible culprit in Barnes's mind was 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:35.640 their son, Henry Barry Lowry, who at about eighteen, was 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:39.880 one of their youngest children. Barnes supported the Home Guard 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:43.000 and trying to round up the Lowry's, many of whom 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:46.640 were lying out in the swamp. On December one, eighteen 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:50.440 sixty four, Barnes was shot in an ambush, and before 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.480 he died he said that Henry Barry Lowry and two 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:57.360 other men had done it. Not long after Barnes was killed, 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:02.160 j Brantley Harris, known as Brandt, shot and killed Jarman Lowry, 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:06.160 who was one of Henry Barry Lowry's cousins. Harris was 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:08.960 a conscription officer for the Home Guard, and while the 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:11.600 details on all of this are a little fuzzy. He 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:15.080 seems to have mistaken German for one of the other Lowry's. 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:19.320 Two of Jarman's brothers, Wesley and the Lalon, had been 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:22.480 working at Fort Fisher and they came home on furlough. 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:27.040 Harris claimed that they were both deserters, and so when 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:29.960 both of them were killed, most people thought Harris was 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:33.920 the person responsible. Although a grand jury charged Harris and 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:37.359 their deaths, he wasn't arrested for it, so the Lowry's 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:40.920 and a lot of the other lumby were outraged. Then 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:47.480 on January sixty five, Brant Harris was killed, presumably Henry 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:50.600 Barry Lowry or one of his brothers, in retaliation for 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:54.400 Harris having killed Jarman. Wesley, and little Allen Lowry had 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:57.480 done it. In some accounts, this all circled back to 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:00.400 the pigs that had been stolen from James p Arns, 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:04.240 and Harris had been investigating that theft when he was killed. 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:08.000 After this, Henry Barry Lowry and some of his brothers 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.199 stole some guns and ammunition, and they turned their attention 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:15.040 to the wealthy white farmers of the area, especially wealthy 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:19.560 white farmers who were clearly supporting the Confederacy. On February 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.000 eighteen sixty five, a group of Flowers, along with some 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:26.920 escape Union soldiers, raided one of the wealthiest farms in 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:30.600 the area, which belonged to the McNair family. Some of 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:34.080 that family were at home, along with several Confederate soldiers, 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:37.240 and although there was an exchange of gunfire during all 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:40.600 of this, it doesn't appear that anybody was killed. The 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:44.200 McNair's and their guests eventually surrendered, and then the gang 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.640 stole things like food, blankets, and other supplies from the 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:51.120 farm and then distributed them to the poorest people in 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:54.120 the area where they lived. At this point, that area 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:58.240 had been given the derisive nickname of Scuffletown, although the 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:02.080 lumby usually called it the Settlement. On March three, the 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:05.000 Home Guard rallied a mob of about one hundred people 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:08.760 and went to Alan Lowry's home. The Home Guard claimed 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:11.880 to find stolen property there, and they put Alan Lowry 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:15.920 on trial along with his sons, Calvin Sinclair and William, 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:19.720 and one of their neighbors. The Home Guard held Allan's wife, 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:21.960 Mary and some of the other women in the family 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:24.840 captive in a smoke house. During and after the trial, 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:29.840 questioning them about the whereabouts of other Lowry's. After this 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:33.800 sham trial, everyone but Allen and William was allowed to go, 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:37.880 but the Home Guard executed Allen and William by firing 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:43.440 squad Henry Barry Lowry reportedly witnessed this execution from the bushes. 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:47.400 At this point, General William T. Sherman and the Union 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:50.720 Army were moving north. This was after Sherman's march to 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.320 the Sea at the end of eighteen sixty four and 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:56.560 his capture of the South Carolina capital of Columbia in 0:15:56.640 --> 0:16:01.040 February of eighteen sixty five. Around Mark ninth, the army 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:04.560 was near Lumby Territory, bogged down by heavy rain in 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:08.720 the swampy terrain, some of the Lumbi, including some of 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:11.920 the Lowry gang, guided Sherman's troops through the swamp and 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.440 across the Lumber River. After the army had moved through, 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:19.120 a Lumbie man named Hector Oxendine was murdered by White 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:23.520 planters for having helped them. General Robert E. Lee surrendered 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:26.920 on April ninth, eighteen sixty five, which is often marked 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:29.120 as the end of the Civil War, even though the 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:33.440 fighting continued for some time. After that, Henry Berry Lowry 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:36.920 and his gang continued to rob wealthy planters and raid 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:41.520 their farms, and they evaded capture for months. On December seven, 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:45.240 eighteen sixty five, Lowry got married to Rhoda Strong, whose 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:48.240 father was Scottish and whose mother was Lumby, and the 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.600 militia tried to take him into custody at his own wedding, 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:54.560 falsely claiming that they had a warrant for his arrest. 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:57.760 There were about two hundred guests at that wedding and 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:00.720 a lot of people left after the militia five, but 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:03.520 this still turned into a standoff in front of a crowd. 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:06.560 It ended when the Justice of the Peace, who was 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.600 officiating the wedding, that was a white man named Hector McLean, 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:13.600 offered to be arrested along with Lowry, and both of 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:17.320 them were escorted away. The militia did not think the 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:20.520 local jail was secure enough, so they took Lowry to 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:24.480 nearby Whiteville. Turned out that jail was not secure enough either, 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:28.679 because he escaped from it. According to some accounts, Rota 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:31.760 brought him a cake with a file in it. At 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:34.560 this point, the United States was moving into the post 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:38.520 war reconstruction period with attempts to both recover and rebuild 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:42.440 after the war and to rectify the inequities that resulted 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:47.240 from the institution of slavery. Congress passed laws and constitutional 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:50.200 amendments to try to protect the civil rights of previously 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:55.320 enslaved people and others of African descent. Since North Carolina 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:58.480 had seceded from the United States, it was required to 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:01.680 write a new state constant tuition and to ratify the 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:05.679 Thirteenth and fourteenth Amendments to the U s Constitution before 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:08.800 it could be readmitted to the Union. A lot of 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:12.400 the indigenous people living in and around Robinson County thought 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:15.720 their lives would get better during this process. A lot 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:18.280 of them, even most of them, had supported the Union 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:22.360 even after North Carolina had succeeded. People in the tribe 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:26.879 had also sheltered escaped Union prisoners of war. They directly 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.640 aided Sherman in his move through the area, and there 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:34.879 were some changes. The Reconstruction Acts of eighteen sixty seven 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:40.080 required the new state constitutions to include universal manhood suffrage, 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:45.120 so North Carolina's eighteen sixty eight constitution restored voting rights 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:48.680 for Lumbie men. There was a pause in the Lowry 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:52.359 Gang's raids around this time. The general conclusion is that 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:55.399 Lowry and others hope that by being able to vote, 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:57.560 they would be able to make the changes they wanted 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:00.240 to see in the government and in their own line house. 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:04.000 But at the same time, the Lumbi were also largely 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:08.480 excluded from the Reconstruction era policies, programs, and assistance that 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:11.800 were meant to help bring racial, economic, and political equality 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:16.760 to the newly freed people. Overall, radical Republicans who were 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:19.679 driving these kinds of programs were focused on people of 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:24.200 African descent rather than on indigenous people, and even though 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:27.360 some of the Lumbi did have some African ancestry, and 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:29.679 there were people living at the time who thought that 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:32.320 the tribe as a whole were mixed race or even black, 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:37.040 they were largely overlooked. So by late eighteen sixty seven, 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:40.600 as North Carolina's new constitution was still being drafted, the 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:44.680 Lowry Gang, presumably frustrated by this lack of progress, went 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:48.879 back to rating. Or at least somebody started robbing stores 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:51.080 and plantations in the area, and most people thought it 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:55.000 was the Lowry's. People started demanding that the Lowry Gang 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:59.400 be declared outlaws and brought to justice Henry Berry. Lowry 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:03.120 events we agreed to turn himself in after being promised 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:06.600 a fair trial, but soon there were rumors that he 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:09.639 was going to be killed, that basically a lynch mob 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:11.400 was going to get him out of his cell and 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:15.040 drown him. Somehow he managed to get a knife and 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.119 a gun and he broke out of jail on December twelfth, 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:20.440 eighteen sixty eight, when he was brought his evening meal. 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:26.159 After Lowry's escape, the situation became increasingly violent after the 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:29.040 deaths of James P. Barnes and Brant Harris in late 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:32.400 eighteen sixty four. In early eighteen sixty five, no one 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:36.040 had been killed in the gang's raids, but between January 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:39.160 of eighteen sixty nine and June of eighteen seventy one, 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:43.560 multiple prominent people in and around Robinson County were killed, 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:47.280 and those murders were pinned on the Lowry Gang. This 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:50.919 included Robinson County Sheriff Reuben King, who was killed in 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:54.400 March of eighteen sixty nine, and Colonel Owen Normant who 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:58.119 was killed in March of eighteen seventy. At least twenty 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:01.840 deaths are attributed to the regang during this period, the 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:06.760 vast majority of them Democrats or former Confederate officials, Although 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:09.320 many were believed to have been involved in the execution 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:12.320 of Allen and William Lowry, or we're bounty hunters trying 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:15.280 to bring the Lowry's in, or were spies trying to 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:20.080 infiltrate the gang. A few were essentially bystanders. We get 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:31.359 to how the Lowry War ended after another sponsor break. 0:21:32.640 --> 0:21:37.760 By eighteen sixty nine, opinions about the Lowry Gang were divided. Too. 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:40.480 Many of the poorest people in Robinson County they were 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:43.880 Robin hood asked heroes, not only robbing from the rich 0:21:43.920 --> 0:21:47.520 and giving to the poor, but also exacting vengeance from 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:52.080 people who had been oppressing them. Wealthy white landowners, on 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:55.840 the other hand, generally thought they were murderous thieves. The 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:58.840 Republican Party, which was in charge of the North Carolina 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:03.719 legislature at this point, was divided as well. Some vehemently 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:07.800 denounced the violence and especially the killing, while others saw 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:11.360 it more as the inevitable outcome of the long history 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:13.960 of oppression in the area, and even as something that 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:17.240 might be necessary for the lumby to reach their political goals. 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:20.600 In the end, though, the Republican Party took a law 0:22:20.640 --> 0:22:23.280 and order approach, focusing on the need to end the 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:26.800 violence and to bring the Lowry Gang to justice, and 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:30.679 they made their arguments with some false equivalence, drawing parallels 0:22:30.720 --> 0:22:34.320 between the Lowry Gang and the Ku Klux Klan, equating 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:37.560 the gang's targeting of former Confederate officials with the clan's 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:42.080 campaign of intimidation and terror against the state's non white population. 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:46.960 On March five, eight sixty nine, Judge Daniel L. Russell Jr. 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:51.680 Issued a proclamation of outlawry. It declared that quote one 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:56.920 Henry Barry Lowry one, Andrew Strong one Boss Strong, one, 0:22:57.040 --> 0:23:01.720 Shoemaker John one, John Dial one William Chavis of Robinson 0:23:01.760 --> 0:23:07.080 County have committed sundry and diverse murders, burglaries, robberies and 0:23:07.119 --> 0:23:11.159 other felonies. And that said Henry Berry, Lowry, Andrew Strong, 0:23:11.280 --> 0:23:14.760 Boss Strong, Shoemaker, John John Dial and William Chavis do 0:23:14.920 --> 0:23:19.160 conceal themselves and evade arrest and service of the usual 0:23:19.200 --> 0:23:23.200 process of law. Now Therefore, I the said Daniel L. 0:23:23.280 --> 0:23:27.280 Russell Jr. Judge, as aforesaid, by virtue of the authority 0:23:27.400 --> 0:23:30.120 vested in me by an Act of the General Assembly 0:23:30.200 --> 0:23:33.439 in such case made and provided, do issue this my 0:23:33.560 --> 0:23:38.399 proclamation hereby requiring the said Henry Berry, Lowry, Andrew Strong, 0:23:38.600 --> 0:23:42.480 Boss Strong, Shoemaker, John John Dial, and William Chavis, and 0:23:42.640 --> 0:23:46.920 each and every one of them forthwith to surrender themselves 0:23:46.960 --> 0:23:49.960 to the Sheriff of Robinson County or to any other 0:23:50.080 --> 0:23:53.399 sheriff or lawful officer of the state. And I do 0:23:53.520 --> 0:23:57.119 also empower and require the Sheriff of Robinson County or 0:23:57.119 --> 0:24:00.320 of any other county where the said felons are to 0:24:00.480 --> 0:24:04.240 lurk and conceal themselves, to search for and pursue with 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:09.200 all power of the county and effectually apprehend said fugitives 0:24:09.200 --> 0:24:12.439 from justice. It went on to say, quote, and I 0:24:12.520 --> 0:24:15.760 do further declare that if the said fugitives, or any 0:24:15.800 --> 0:24:20.280 of them continue henceforth to stay out, lark, or conceal themselves, 0:24:20.520 --> 0:24:24.480 and do not immediately surrender themselves, any citizen of the 0:24:24.560 --> 0:24:28.680 State may capture, arrest and bring them or him to justice, 0:24:29.119 --> 0:24:32.359 And in case of flight or resistance, after being called 0:24:32.400 --> 0:24:36.639 on and warned to surrender, may slay them or any 0:24:36.720 --> 0:24:41.080 one of them, without accusation or impeachment of any crime. 0:24:41.880 --> 0:24:45.080 Bounties were announced for the Lowry Gang, including one of 0:24:45.200 --> 0:24:48.800 twelve thousand dollars for Henry Barry Lowry, who was to 0:24:48.840 --> 0:24:51.880 be brought in debt or alive. The Governor of North 0:24:51.880 --> 0:24:55.080 Carolina also asked for help from federal troops, and those 0:24:55.119 --> 0:24:58.960 troops arrived in November of eighteen seventy A posse was 0:24:59.040 --> 0:25:01.320 also formed hunt for the gang, and there was a 0:25:01.359 --> 0:25:06.159 series of shootings, ambushes, and other violence. In February of 0:25:06.240 --> 0:25:11.320 eighteen seventy one, Henderson Oxendine was captured within the Lumbi community. 0:25:11.640 --> 0:25:14.959