Henry Berry Lowrie

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Henry Berry Lowrie (born c. 1844 – 1847) led an outlaw gang in North Carolina during and after the American Civil War. Many locals remember him as a Robin Hood figure, particularly the Lumbee people, who consider him one of their tribe and 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 19th 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."^[1]

Contents 1 Early life 2 Rise to power 3 A modern Robin Hood 4 Legend and significance 5 Notes 6 References 6.1 Newspapers 6.2 Selected primary sources 6.3 Secondary sources

[edit] Early life

Lowrie was born in the Hopewell Community, Robeson County, North Carolina. Born to Allen and Mary (Polly) Cumbo Lowrie, Henry was one of twelve children born to Allen two wives. As head one of the most affluent non-white families in Robeson County, Allen Lowrie owned and operated a very successful 200 acre mixed-use farm in Robeson County.

[edit] Rise to power

During the Civil War years, several Lowrie cousins, like many free men of color, had been forcibly conscripted to work on behalf of the Confederacy in building Fort Fisher, near Wilmington, North Carolina. Those that could resorted to "lying out" or hiding in Robeson County's swamps to avoid being harassed and rounded up by the Home Guard. Two of Henry Berry Lowrie's cousins were murdered by James Harris after after returning from their brothers' funeral. Henry Lowrie and his gang then murdered Harris.

After Allen Lowrie's neighbor, James Barnes, accused the Lowries of stealing food and harboring Yankee prisoners, the Lowrie gang murdered him. The Confederate Home Guard convened a kangaroo court, and then executed Henry Berry's father and brother. The Lowrie gang then went on a sporadic crime spree that lasted on-and-off until 1872.

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. However, the Lowrie gang was also a political entity that only targeted conservative Democrats.

[edit] A modern Robin Hood

Lowrie's gang continued its actions after the end of the war. Reconstruction governor William Woods Holden outlawed them 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 Lumbee 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.

[edit] Legend and significance

Henry Berry Lowrie's fame is unhindered by the relatively short amount of time he spent directly impacting the history of Robeson County. While there is no evidence that any member of the Lowrie gang self-identified as Indian, Henry Lowrie has become one of the most notable figures in North Carolina Indian 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."^[2] The same can be said of Henry Berry Lowrie.

Since 1976, Lowrie's legend has been presented every summer in the outdoor drama Strike at the Wind.^[3] Set during the critical Civil War and Reconstruction years of Lowrie's career as outlaw-hero, the play portrays Lowrie as a Lumbee culture hero who flouts the South's racialized power structure by fighting for his people's self-determination and allying with the county's downtrodden citizens, the blacks and poor whites.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

[edit] Newspapers

• "A Notorious Desperado Killed in North Carolina—-A Company of Soldiers After his Confederates—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 Outlaws—-Lowrey and his Gang—-The Authorities Defied—-Pursuit by the Soldiers." New York Times October 11, 1871, p. 11.
• "A new expedition: Proposition to Capture the Lowery Gang of Outlaws–-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 Carolina—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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.