Henry Berry Lowrie
Henry Berry Lowrie is one of the most notable figures in
Lumbee Indian history. Lowrie is considered by many
Lumbee as a pioneer in the fight for their
civil rights, personal freedom, and tribal
self-determination. At the height of his fame, Lowrie was described by George Alfred Townsend, a late nineteenth-century
New York Herald correspondent, as "[o]ne of those remarkable executive spirits that arises now and then in a raw community without advantages other than those given by nature."
[George Alfred Townsend, The Swamp Outlaws: or, The North Carolina Bandits; Being a Complete History of the Modern Rob Roys and Robin Hoods. The Red Wolf Series. New York: Robert M. DeWitt, 1872.]Lowrie was born in
c.1844-1847 in the Hopewell Community,
Robeson County,
North Carolina. Born to Allen and Mary (Polly) Cumbo Lowrie, Henry was one of twelve children. As head one of the most powerful
Indian families in Robeson County, Allen Lowrie owned and operated a very successful 200 acre mixed-use farm in Robeson County.
According to most versions of the story, when Henry was 17 years old, he witnessed a horrifying event: the execution of his father and one of his brothers, William. Hiding in some gallberry bushes, young Henry Berry also saw how the
Home Guard, a loosely organized arm of the
Confederate Army, forced his father and brother to dig their own graves. In previous years, several Lowrie cousins had been forcibly conscripted to work on behalf of the
Confederacy in building
Fort Fisher, near
Wilmington, NC. Those that could, resorted to "lying out"in
Robeson County's
swamps to avoid being harassed and rounded up by the
Home Guard. Before the death of Allen and William Lowrie, two of Henry Berry Lowrie's cousins were murdered after after returning from their brothers funeral which was also murdered by the Home Guard
Fort Fisher. But it was the death of Henry Berry Lowrie's father and brother that brought a decade of conflict to
Robeson County and made Henry Berry Lowrie an outlaw to the elite of Robeson County and a hero to its Indian, Black, and poor White inhabitants.
An outlaw is someone who lives outside the laws of a given society. So too is the "bandit."
[According to the Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed., a "bandit" is "one who is proscribed or outlawed."] Bandits invariably operate in the shadows, assaulting mainstream society from its fringes while lurking in geographically isolated areas. Their lives and actions usually remain shrouded in mystery while some go on to become anti-authoritarian archetypes in folklore and legend. In
Bandits, Eric Hobsbawm defined "social bandits" such as Henry Berry Lowrie as "outlaws whom the lord and state regard as criminals, but who remain within . . . society, and are considered by their people as heroes, as champions, avengers, fighters for justice, perhaps even leaders of liberation, and in any case as men to be admired, helped and supported."
[ See Eric Hobsbawm. Bandits (New York: Delacorte Press, 1969).] Lowrie's brand of social banditry, much like
Crazy Horse,
Geronimo,
Emiliano Zapata,
Joaquin Murrieta,
Nat Turner,
Robert Roy MacGregor, better known as "Rob Roy,"
Jesse James, and
Che Guevara illuminates any culture's enduring celebration of open defiance in the face of fierce societal oppression.
Most versions of Henry Berry Lowrie's story state that after a dispute with a neighbor, usually identified as James Barnes, and accusations of stealing food and harboring
Yankee prisoners, the
Confederate Home Guard were called in to adjudicate the dispute. After convening a short and illegal Kangaroo court, the Home Guard peremptorily executed Henry Berry's father and brother. Vowing revenge, Henry Berry formed a gang of other dissidents and began to hunt down those responsible for the deaths in his family. Critical to note: every single one of the men that Henry Berry Lowrie and his band killed were directly or indirectly responsible for the murders of members of his family. First Barnes, and then the local
Home Guard conscription officer, James Harris, fell before the guns of Lowrie and his guerilla band. The Governor of
North Carolina outlawed Henry Berry Lowrie and his band in 1869, and offered a large reward for their capture, dead or alive. The band responded with more revenge killings. In one ten-month stretch, ten
Home Guard and Lowrie band members died.
Henry Berry Lowrie's band of guerillas had became a powerful force opposing the
Home Guard. The Lowrie gang stole from, sabotaged, and killed supporters of the
Home Guard in order to garner resources that they needed for survival. Moreover, they recognized the plight of the Indians of
Robeson County, as well as that of
African Americans and poor whites, and began a redistribution of wealth program. Henry Berry Lowrie and his gang robbed the affluent residents of
Robeson County and delivered stores of food and money to the county's poor and hungry residents. Despite their best efforts, the
Home Guard were unable to stop, or even hinder the Lowrie gang, largely due to their massive popular support. However, shortly after one of his most daring raids, in which he robbed the local sherriff's safe for more than $28,000, Henry Berry Lowrie disappeared. Shortly thereafter, every single member of his gang, save two, were captured and killed, but the fate of Henry Berry Lowrie himself remains a mystery.
Henry Berry Lowrie's fame is unhindered by the relatively short amount of time he spent directly impacting the history of
Robeson County, and has become one of the most notable figures in
Lumbee History. Paul Sant Cassia observed of Mediterranean bandits that they "are often romanticized afterward through nationalistic rhetoric and texts which circulate and have a life of their own, giving them a permanence and potency which transcends their localized domain and transitory nature." The same can be said of the Southeastern North American Indian, Henry Berry Lowrie.
Since 1976, the power and allure of Lowrie's legend as Lumbee culture hero is presented every summer in the outdoor drama,
Strike at the Wind. Set during the critical Civil War-Reconstruction years of Lowrie's career as outlaw/hero,
Strike at the Wind is a highly nationalistic, self-deterministic evocation of the Lumbee community's flouting of racialized authority. By giving visitors to the
Lumbee community a peak into the life and memory of Henry Berry Lowrie, the drama also brings to light a historical moment that defies conventional narratives of both Southern and American history. By staging a story wherein a young Indian champions the interests of the majority of a southern county's population against elite oppression,
Strike at the Wind also depicts the tri-racial alliance of downtrodden southerners who choose to defy an entire region's racialized hierarchy by protecting and aiding the Indian who advocates on their behalf. While the image of many outlaw/bandits suffers once the memory of their deeds are separated from the reality of their lives, the evidence of Lowrie's actions withstands both the vagaries of memory and the historian's eye.
Newspapers
*"A Notorious Desperado Killed in North Carolinaâ€"-A Company of Soldiers After his Confederatesâ€"A Defaulting Book-keeper in Chicago."
New York Times December 18, 1870, p. 1.
*"Are the Robeson County, N.C., Outlaws KuKlux?"
New York Times May 16, 1871, p. 1.
*"Robin Hood Come Again."
New York Times 22 July 1871: p. 4, col. 5.
*"The North Carolina Outlawsâ€"-Lowrey and his Gangâ€"-The Authorities Defiedâ€"-Pursuit by the Soldiers."
New York Times October 11, 1871, p. 11.
*"A new expedition: Proposition to Capture the Lowery Gang of Outlawsâ€"-Singular Enterprise of a Fourth Ward Character."
New York Times 18 March 1872: p. 5, col. 3.
*"The North Carolina Bandits."
Harper's Weekly 16 (30 March 1872): pp. 249, 251-2.
*"The Lowrey Outlaws: Particulars of the Murder of Col. F. M. Wishart in Robeson County, North Carolinaâ€"a Base and Treacherous Assassination."
New York Times May 8, 1872, p. 3.
*"The Lowery Gang."
New York Times 4 May 1874: p. 2, col. 3.
Selected Primary Sources
*"Criminal Action Papers Concerning Henry Berry Lowry." MS. North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, NC. 1 box.
*Gorman, John C. "Henry Berry Lowry paper." Unpublished manuscript. [1894?] Housed in the North Carolina Division of Archives and History, Raleigh, N.C. 26p.
*"A History of the Capture of the Notorious Outlaw George Applewhite, alias, Ranse Lowery, of the Lowery Gang of Outlaws, or Robeson County, N.C. .. ." Columbus, GA: Thos. Gilbert, 1872.
*Norment, Mary C.
The Lowrie History, As Acted in Part by Henry Berry Lowrie, the Great North Carolina Bandit. With Biographical Sketches of His Associates. Being a Complete History of the Modern Robber Band in the County of Robeson and State of North Carolina. Wilmington: Daily Journal Printer, 1875.
*Townsend, George Alfred.
The Swamp Outlaws: or, The North Carolina Bandits; Being a Complete History of the Modern Rob Roys and Robin Hoods. The Red Wolf Series. New York: Robert M. DeWitt, 1872.
*"U.S. Cong. Joint Select Comm. to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States. Report ... on the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States. Made to the Two Houses of Congress", 19 Feb. 1872. 42nd Cong., 2nd Sess. Report No. 41, Part 1. 1872. Rpt. New York: AMS, 1968. See Vol. 2, pp. 283-304.
Secondary Sources
*Barton, Garry Lewis.
The Life and Times of Henry Berry Lowry. Pembroke, NC: Lumbee Publishing Co., [1979] 1992.
*Cassia, Paul Sant. "Banditry, Myth, and Terror in Cyprus and Other Mediterranean Societies."
Comparative Studies in Society and History 35, no. 4 (October 1993).
*Evans, W. McKee.
To Die Game: the Story of the Lowry Band, Indian Guerillas of Reconstruction. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971.
*______. "Henry Berry Lowry." In
Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, ed. William S. Powell. Vol. 4. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991, 104-05.
*Hauptman, Lawrence M. "River Pilots and Swamp Guerillas: Pamunkee and Lumbee Unionists." In
Between Two Fires: American Indians in the Civil War. New York: Free Press, 1995, 65-85.
*Hobsbawm, Eric.
Bandits. New York: Delacorte Press, 1969.
*Manning, Charles. "Last of Lowerys Recalls Saga of Death and Terror."
Greensboro Daily News 19 Jan. 1958: A13.
*Rockwell, Paul A. "Lumbees Rebelled Against Proposed Draft by South."
Asheville Citizen-Times 2 Feb. 1958.
*Wilkins, David E. "Henry Berry Lowry: Champion of the Dispossessed."
Race, Gender & Class 13.2 (Winter 1996): 97-111.
