Native Americans

Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle spent years writing her first novel, and it garnered critical acclaim: she won an award and became a finalist for another. Yet she could not find an agent to publish it. So, she started again, this time with the support of the Great Smokies Writing Program. 

Gov. Roy Cooper declared Tuesday, May 5 a “Day of Awareness for Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women.” The advocacy group Shatter the Silence reports that 31 native women have gone missing or been murdered in eastern North Carolina since 1998. The state tracked at least 90 cases of murdered or missing indigenous women in North Carolina since 1994. But advocates say the real numbers are likely much higher. 

Construction of the planned 600-mile underground pipeline is already behind schedule. Protests and bureaucratic hurdles plague the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which is planned to carry natural gas from West Virginia, to Southeast Virginia before turning south into the North Carolina counties of Northampton, Halifax, Nash, Wilson, Johnston, Sampson, Cumberland and Robeson, where it ends.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day reimagines Columbus Day to celebrate the other side of European “discovery.” These celebrations advance concrete political causes, such as the re-establishment of land rights in the Piedmont.

A Congressional bill that would make way for a new casino is sparking controversy in western North Carolina. The bill would allow the Catawba Indian Nation to establish a gaming facility in Cleveland County. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians say this new casino would hurt their facilities in Cherokee and Murphy.

Marty Richardson wanted to know more about his culture. He grew up with his family in Maryland, a ways removed from the Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe in North Carolina to which he is a member.

One of the founding principles of the U.S. government is the separation of church and state. Yet there are many unseen ways in which the religion of America’s founders was baked into the legal system. Immigration attorney George Pappas traces the impact of religious doctrine on land rights in his new book “The Literary and Legal Genealogy of Native American Dispossession: The Marshall Trilogy Cases” (Routledge/2017). 

Lakota John did not have to wait long to fulfill his childhood dream of becoming a touring musician. At just 12 years old he was invited to travel across the country and play his ragtime blues.

With the advent of modern DNA tests, people can now find out their genetic makeup within days. For many the tests can help strengthen a sense of heritage and ancestry. But according to indigenous scholar Kim TallBear, a specialist in racial politics in science, the results of a DNA test do not give people a license to adopt or claim membership to a Native American community.

National Parks and Monuments are often considered wholesome environments: peaceful places that preserve nature and history. However, this week's Criminal podcast tells how the remains of 41 American Indians disappeared from the Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa.

The federal regulatory body responsible for assessing for the environmental effects of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline recently released their final report. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission determined the project will incur “some adverse effects” but proper safety and environmental mitigation will reduce the risk “to less-than significant levels.” 

In Native American communities, poverty, drugs and the school-to-prison pipeline mean few second chances for those who commit crimes.

Two tribal judges in California are taking a different approach: Abby Abinanti and Claudette White are using restorative justice techniques to rehabilitate offenders and keep families together.
 

Malinda Maynor Lowery is a Lumbee Indian whose family goes back more than 10 generations in Robeson County. Lowery was born in Lumberton, N.C. but raised in Durham, where from an early age, she often fielded the question, “what are you?” Although she grew up in a family with a strong sense of Native identity, this question stayed with her much of her life, and eventually became the subject of much of her academic and documentary work.

A local distributor of Anheuser-Busch products has pulled unauthorized ads using the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina's logo.  Now the tribe is suing the brewer and wholesaler.

For Lloyd Arneach and Sheila Kay Adams, storytelling runs in the family.

Arneach was raised as a Cherokee on a Native American reservation in western North Carolina, absorbing stories at the dinner table from his two great-uncles. Adams was right up the road in Madison County, learning the ballads and stories from seven generations of Scots-Irish ancestors.

Part of U.S. President Andrew Jackson's reputation is that of a man who helped the country expand in the early 19th century, but it came at a terrible cost.

Jackson sparred with American Indian tribes for decades, culminating in the infamous Trail of Tears, a forced relocation that killed thousands of them.

A lesser known part of that history is centered around Cherokee chief John Ross, who was doing all he could to peacefully assimilate his people, including a long, personal battle with Jackson.

Washington's NFL team made headlines last year but not because of their record.

The name, offensive to many, became the subject of public debate. Native communities used social media to make their voices heard on the mascot debate and other important issues.

Penelope Easton ventured to the Alaskan territory as a young woman in 1948. It would have been an intimidating move for many young women in that era. But for Easton, the move was just another in a series of adventures across the globe.

Chapel-Hill based band Dark Water Rising mixes southern rock, gospel harmonies, and traditional Lumbee influence to create their "rocky soul" sound. They got together in 2008, when none of them had any formal music training. Since then, they have gained local and national recognition throughout Native American communities. 

Starting this month a group of white tailed deer will be transported from Morrow Mountain State Park onto 56,000 acres of reservation lands of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

It's a project sponsored by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission and the Cherokee Fisheries and Wildlife Management Program.

The move will help augment the reservation's population of deer which has been declining over the years.

Since 2010, the number of American Indian students in the UNC system has been declining.

Today, there are 87 American Indian students in a student population of 19,000 undergraduate students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Many people know that during the Trail of Tears, tens of thousands of American Indians were forced to walk to Oklahoma.

The Lumbee are the largest American Indian nation east of the Mississippi River and many of them live in Robeson County, North Carolina.

Many of the Lumbee people worked in the manufacturing business in the county, but since the 1980s and 1990s, the industry has declined. Students and faculty at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke have studied the intersection between Lumbee identity and working-class life in Robeson County.

In the 1600s, European settlers invaded Eastern North Carolina where nations like the Tuscarora, Machapunga, and Core Indians resided.

Natalie Diaz grew up on the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation. While many of those around her struggled with the lack of opportunities, she saw basketball as her way out.

Songwriter Willie French Lowery is best remembered for penning Indian heritage anthems like “Proud to be a Lumbee” and writing the original music for “Strike at the Wind,” an annual outdoor drama that honors a Lumbee cultural hero.  Lowery was also a successful rock musician, educator, activist and Robeson County community leader before he passed away in May at the age of 67.