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ON THE MUGGY EVENING OF JULY 1, 1976, MORE THAN 850 PEOPLE FILED into Lakeside Amphitheater in Robeson County, North Carolina, to see the world premier of Strike at the Wind, a historical drama based on the life of the nineteenth-century Indian outlaw Henry Berry Lowry.1 Although the audience was racially diverse, many in attendance that night were Lumbee Indians. At that time, more than 25,000 Lumbees lived in the Robeson County area, making them the largest non-federally recognized Indian tribe in the United States. To the Lumbees, Henry Berry Lowry, also known as Henry Bear, was a very important historical figure, a folk hero of tremendous cultural significance.
Opening night of Strike at the Wind was a major success. The play even attracted attention from several local and state newspapers. In fact, Strike became, according to the Institute of Outdoor Drama in Chapel Hill, the most successful new outdoor play in the nation in 1976 ("Strike at the Wind Continues" 6). During the premier season, more than 17,000 people attended the production, which ran Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights from July 1 until August 15. Although authored by white playwright Randolph Umberger, Strike at the Wind was a mostly Native American production. Moreover, the play became both a source of local pride and a way for the Lumbees to assert their Indian cultural and racial identity to outsiders.
The Indians of Robeson County
In 1500, just prior to European contact, approximately 50,000 Native Americans lived within the boundaries of what would eventually become North Carolina. These original inhabitants can broadly be divided into three language groups. The Algonkian peoples, such as the Hatteras and the Pamlicos, lived along the coast. The Iroquoian-speaking tribes included the Tuscaroras and Meherrins, both of whom occupied the land just west of the Algonkians, near the fall lines of the region's numerous small rivers, and the Cherokees, who resided in the mountains. The Siouan-speakers, such as the Waccamaws, Saponis, and Occaneechis, lived in the central Piedmont section, above the fall Unes, and along the Cape Fear River down to what is today Wilmington, North Carolina.
In the late sixteenth century, the English, latecomers to American exploration and colonization, first tried to settle in the region. Although their initial attempt,...