Lumbee Indian Community, Christian Missions, and the Transformative Power of Intervention

FOR THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS: LUMBEE INDIAN COMMUNITY, CHRISTIAN MISSIONS, AND THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF INTERVENTION David S. Lowry A dissertation submitted to the facuLty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel HiLL in partiaL fuLfiLLment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of PhiLosophy in the Department of AnthropoLogy. Chapel HilL 2012 Approved by: Dr. James Peacock Dr. Robert Daniels Dr. Glenn Hinson Dr. Patricia Lerch Dr. Patricia Sawin ABSTRACT DAVID S. LOWRY: For the HeaLing of the Nations: Lumbee Indian Community, Christian Missions, and the Transformative Power of Intervention (Under the direction of James L. Peacock) What does it mean for Native Americans to practice intervention that takes them across the worLd? This dissertation anaLyzes this phenomenon through the Lens of the Lumbee Indian community of North CaroLina. The Lumbee Indian community, at this moment, is defined by their permanence within constant struggLes to define themseLves vis-à-vis U.S. FederaL mandates to make Indian identity locaLized, traditionaL, and otherwise unchanging. However, as Christians and agents of change across the U.S. and worLd, Lumbee peopLe do not concede to these frameworks as they utiLize missionary identities to provide heaLing for traumatized peopLe across the worLd and throughout the United States. This abiLity to heaL, I argue, is based in the steady importance of division and exclusion in the Lumbee community. ExcLusive identities and spaces have infLuenced and prepared Lumbee missionaries for their specific missions, even as Lumbee missionaries begin to find it necessary to acknowLedge one another and common goaLs in mission. Given the academic and sociaL rhetoric that frames Native America in LocaLity and unity, this dissertation attempts to iLLuminate how Native America must be discussed in terms of the intersections between Native community breakages and the transcendent power that often comes out of and utiLizes those breakages. ii My research is based on two years of research in the Lumbee geographicaL center: Robeson County, North CaroLina. In this time, I conducted oraL histories, short semi-structured interviews, observation in missions and at reLigious meetings, and informaL conversations with community members. In my research and writing, I practice an auto-ethnographic method of engaging the Lumbee community because I am a member of the community. Because this research attempts to puLL together seemingLy distant anthropoLogicaL discourses (Native American Studies and gLobaLization, in particuLar), I engage these discourses with a sense that I am creating space for individuaLs and communities whose voices, experiences, and practices are not recognized because of gaps within anthropological theory. iii To Ali, my feLLow anthropoLogist. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I often think about what my Life would have been if I had not had chance encounters with particuLar peopLe at particuLar times over the course of my Life. In that Light, these acknowLedgements are my very humbLe effort to remember what has infLuenced me. I wouLd need aLL the pages of this dissertation to properly thank everyone who has been gracious and generous. Thank you to my mother and father for bringing me back home to North CaroLina as a chiLd. Thank you to DaLe Maynor, my high schooL principaL, who toLd me that the most precious knowLedge is found cLose to home where we often don’t want to ask very simpLe questions. I owe a sincere debt of gratitude to facuLty members at Massachusetts Institute of TechnoLogy – especially Heather Paxson and Jean Jackson – who introduced me to the professionaL world of anthropology. Thank you to Dean Sandra HoefLich, Dean LesLie Lerea, Dean Marcus CoLLins, and many other administrators at UNC who aLways offered unconditionaL support for my heaLth, education, famiLy Life, and future. Special thanks to Mrs. Suphronia Cheek and other members of the UNC AnthropoLogy Department office staff for your consistent concern for my progress in the PhD program. Your assistance in many areas has been priceless. Thank you to my committee members – James Peacock, GLenn Hinson, Robert Daniels, Patricia Lerch, and Patricia Sawin – who took me under their wings in the v middLe of my graduate education and guided me into my PhD. GLenn, you have continued to press me to speak and write clearly and precisely. Thank you for beLieving in my passion and abiLity. Robert, we shared one of the most important conversations of my graduate career back in 2009. Thank you for your confidence. Patricia Lerch, you have heLped me estabLish my passion for Native American schoLarship through your sincere interest in my work. I appreciate the time, resources, and energy you have pLaced in my project. Patricia Sawin, I wouLd not have studied missionaries if it were not for “Moving Stories”. Thank you for being a carefuL Listener and exceLLent mentor in schoLarship. Jim, you have been as much a father figure as an advisor and chair. You have been sincerely interested in every aspect of my Life. Along with taking me under your wing, you have aLLowed me to think broadly and differently. The warmth exuded by FLorence and you during the last few years has guaranteed my abiLities to compLete my research, writing, and preparation for my future as an anthropoLogist. I am forever gratefuL. Thank you to the National Science Foundation and the UNC Graduate School for supporting my work with tremendousLy generous feLLowships. I truLy appreciate and thank my famiLy and friends in SaddLetree, High Point, Winston SaLem, and many other pLaces across the United States. I am bLessed to have such fantastic, undeniabLy generous peopLe in my Life who have been wiLLing to sacrifice money, prayers, kind words, hugs, and good meaLs. You aLL have asked me to do work that wiLL expLain the fuLLness of our human experiences. Thank you for heLping me in my journey. Thank you to the Lumbee missionaries who aLLowed me entrance into your vi worLds. Our conversations were often in the midst of very busy days in your Lives. You have inspired my ideas and my future anthropoLogicaL research. Thank you many times over. I save the best for Last. Thank you to my LoveLy and tremendousLy supportive wife, Ali. It’s been a Long road that wiLL soon end with both of us doing a tremendous amount of good for various communities and peopLes. Thank you for taking this journey with me and for Loving me during my movement from student to schoLar. Words cannot explain what I owe you. Any mistake in this dissertation is my own and no one eLse’s. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………………….1 CompLicated Native America………………………………………………………………...10 Remembering revivaL…………………………………………………………………………...13 Chapter outLine………………………………………………………………………...................25 A note about ethnographic approach…………………………………………………….28 II. ROADS TO RECOGNITION…...………………………………………………………………..33 BLoody Robeson…………………………………………………………………………………...33 Today’s missionary road..……………………………………………………………………..39 ConcLusion…….…………………………………………………………………………………….48 III. MAKING VISIBLE……...…………………………………………………...…………………..…50 Taking care of our own..………………………………………………………………….……51 Who to cook for?….……………………………………………………………………...……….60 ConcLusion….…………………………………………………………..……………………….…..70 IV. WITNESSES TO APOCALYPSE.….……………………………………..……………………72 SeLecting apocaLypse..…………………………………………………………………….…….84 Humanitarianism, the art of exception..………………………………………..……… 90 A daunting task…..………………………………………………………..……………....……...98 viii MuLtipLe sovereignties.…………………………………………………...…………………..104 ConcLusion.…………………………………………………………………………..……………108 V. LEGACY OF CIVIL WAR.…...…………………………………………………………...…….110 The contexts of civiL war..…………………………………………….……………………..117 The introduction of Brother Johnny …………………………………………………...122 The iLLusion of 1958 ………………………………………………………...………..………127 CiviL war’s chiLdren……..…………………......……………………………………………....133 ConcLusion……………………………………...………………………………………………… 136 VI. THE WORLD’S A STAGE…….……………………………………..…………………………138 Creating new stages..………………………………………………………...………………..140 The power to create stages………………………………………...……………………….147 Mission ceLebration.……………………………………………………………………...……153 Getting people taLking (outside the church).…………………………..……………160 ConcLusion……………………………………………………………………..……….………... 165 VII. IMPLICATIONS FOR NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES…...……………….…………166 May the circLe be broken..…………………………………………..……………………… 184 Seeing ourseLves.………………………………………………..………………………………191 VIII. WHAT’S AT STAKE: A CONCLUSION………………...…………………….…………...194 REFERENCES………...…………………………………………………………………………………………211 ix “And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations…” Revelation 22:2 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Perhaps the greatest paradox of Life in the United States of America is the reLationship between excLusion and incLusion. This has been especiaLLy probLematic for Native American communities whose existences within the American imagination depend on mandates for Native Americans to stick together and exist romanticaLLy separate from the rest of the United States and the worLd. Previous schoLarship on the Lumbee Indian community, whose members Live mostLy in North Carolina, have focused on aspects of division in Native American community. Most notable of these studies are Karen Blu’s ethnography The Lumbee Problem (2001) and historian Malinda Maynor Lowery’s historical study Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South (2010). Each study utilizes the notion of “factionaLism” as part of its argument. BLu points

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