W. Brent Burgin Archives: North Carolina Tribes

In Native Carolinians, Dr. Theda Perdue, Atlanta Distinguished Professor of Southern Culture at UNC at Chapel Hill, discusses the history, life-style, and culture of the native people of the region before the arrival of Europeans. She expands this discussion to include the interaction of the Indians with white settlers during the colonial period. In separate chapters, Perdue chronicles the experiences of the Cherokees and the Lumbees in the 19th and 20th centuries. She concludes this study with a discussion of Native Carolinians today and a detailed timeline of important dates and events in North Carolina Indian history.

Keeping the Circle presents an overview of the modern history and identity of the Native peoples in twentieth-century North Carolina, including the Lumbees, the Tuscaroras, the Waccamaw Sioux, the Occaneechis, the Meherrins, the Haliwa-Saponis, and the Coharies. From the late 1800s until the 1930s, Native peoples in the eastern part of the state lived and farmed in small isolated communities. Although relatively insulated, they were acculturated, and few fit the traditional stereotype of an Indian. They spoke English, practiced Christianity, and in general lived and worked like other North Carolinians. Nonetheless, Indians in the state maintained a strong sense of “Indianness.”