Updated; January 6, 2023
Hamilton McMillan investigated the Indians living on Drowning Creek after hearing George Lowrie speaking at a funeral in 1864. He reported they were remnants of the 'Lost Colony of Roanoke, NC' and so it has been written for over a hundred years.
Consider George Lowrie said "our tribe lived in Roanoke, in Virginia".
In 1733 Dr. John Swanton, at the request of the Lumbee Tribe, investigated the origins of the tribe. He ruled out any connection to the "Lost Colony" and reported they were Cheraw/Saura, perhaps the Keyaywee [the bearded Indians].
Were the Melungeons Croatans or were the Croatans Melungeons? Or were they Cheraw and not even Croatans? Why did they change their name to Cherokee from Croatan and then to Lumbee? They knew they were not Croatan.
Which came first the Chicken or the Egg? These researchers, ethnologist, anthropologist and historians found they were of the same stock.
Read On
Read On
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July 17, 1890Red Springs, North Carolina
Hamilton McMillan
The Croatan tribe lives principaly in Robeson county, North Carolina, though there is quite a number of them settle in counties adjoining in North and South Carolina. In Sumter county, South Carolina, there is a branch of the tribe, and also in east Tennessee. In Macon county, North Carolina, there is another branch, settled there long ago. those living in east tennessee are called "Melungeons", a name also retained by them here, which is corruption of 'Melange', a name given them by early settlers (French), which means mixed.''
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Oct 12, 1889Mr
McDonald Furman
Henry Berry Lowrie takes his Christian name from Henry Berry one of the lost colonists of Roanoke as you will see by -------? to list in pamphlet. Many of the Lowrie's settled in Robeson - others went to the French Broad in Western N.C., and those in Robeson claim that David Lowrie Swain Ex Gov. and James Lowrie Robinson late Lt Gov of this State were of their stock. The tribe once stretched from Cape Fear to Pee Dee and the Redbones of your section are a part of the tribe as are the "Melungeons" of East Tennessee. The French immigrants callled the half breeds Melange or Mixed and the term evidently has been changed to "Melungeons". ...........
I am yours trulyHamilton MCMillan
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Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology - Ethnology - 1907
page 365
Across the line in South Carolina are found a people, evidently of similar origin, designated "Red bones." In portions of w. N. C. and E. Tenn. are found the so-called "Melungeons" (probably from French melangi', 'mixed') or "Portuguese," apparently an offshoot from the Croatan proper,
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The Melungeons
Paul Converse
Southern Collegian December 1912
This is quite a fine theory, but most people are more prosaic and hold the Melungeons to be a mixed race, having Indian, Negro, and Caucasian blood in their veins. Thus the word “Melungeon” itself would indicate and the Bureau of Ethnology at Washington classifies them as a branch or offshoot of the Croatan Indians of North Carolina, who are a people of obscure and mixed descent in whose veins Indian blood predominates.
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AN INDIAN TO BE HANGEDGeorgia Crotan to be Executed Next Month for Murder.
New York Times
February 28, 1897, Wednesday
ATLANTA, Ga., Feb. 27. -- For the first time in fifty years an Indian is under sentence of death in Georgia. He will be hanged in Glynn County next month. Marcellus Lowry, the condemned man, is a Crotan Indian from the celebrated band in North Carolina, many of whom have drifted with the turpentine and timber men into Southern Georgia, where they are called "Melungeons." Lowery and a white man named Patrick Burns were working in the woods together and Burns went to Lowery's camp and entered his shanty to get something to eat. The Croatan Indians are a fierce, treacherous and vindictive race and once their anger is aroused they do not hesitate to commit murder.
The witnesses in the case testified on the trial that as Burns left the shanty Lowery shot him in the back, having concealed himself behind a tree. As to the origin of the difficulty between them very little was brought out, but so far as can be ascertained it was simply the ungovernable temper of the Indian.
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November 7, 1897
BILL ARP’S LETTER
It seems to me that I am haunted by Indians. The other night as I came from Macon to Atlanta my friend, Judge Hall, introduced me to Dr. Peterson, of St. Louis, a very learned and cultured gentleman who was connected with the ethnological department of the government and was engaged in examining Indian mounds and in writing up the history of the Indian tribes, especially of the five tribes known as civilized. Viz. The Cherokees, Creeks, Chickasaws, Choctaws and Seminoles. As these were our Indians, I became much interested in this discourse, for he had been careful and diligent in his research, and what he knew, he knew well. We talked about DeSoto and how, with a handful of brave soldiers, he overran this country and took captive as many Indian girls as his men wanted. Click Here
“Why did not these Indians overwhelm DeSoto and his handful of followers and extinguish them?” I asked. “Because," said the doctor, “they were paralyzed with fear of this new and aggressive race of people just as the Peruvians were paralyzed by Pizarro, who overran and conquered Peru with less than a hundred men.”
The doctor had been to eastern North Carolina investigating the tribe of 4,000 Croatans over there. They were originally called Hatteras Indians but about three hundred years ago Sir Walter Raleigh planted a colony of English and Portuguese on Roanoke Island and put them in charge of Governor John White, a very practical and accomplished gentleman. A few days after landing, Governor White’s daughter Eleanor, who had married a Mr. Dare. Gave birth to a child and she was named Virginia and so Virginia Dare was the first English child born on American soil. Let the boys and girls remember that. But no man knows anything more about her.
Governor White and Sir Walter went back to England for supplies and farming tools for the colony and on their return trip got into a fight with some Spanish cruisers and lost their cargo and many of their men and had to go back to England, and it was several years before they made another venture and when they arrived at the island the colony was nowhere to be found and little Virginia has never been heard of. The colony left some marks on a tree pointing to an Indian town called Croatan, but the town was deserted.
The doctor’s investigations have satisfied him that the colony did not perish nor were they killed but that the men wanted wives and went into the interior and co-habited with the Croatans- for it was found a hundred years after that, these Indians were of mixed colors and many of them spoke broken or mixed English and Portuguese, although they had no intercourse with white people until the colony came nor for a hundred years after. He believes that Virginia Dare probably grew up with those Indians and her descendants are now of mixed blood.
It seems that these Croatans were never Americanized until the last civil war when many of them came to the front with their guns and said they wanted to fight some. They were accepted and enrolled and did fight for the confederacy. During the war there was an election held in a county where some of them lived. And they were persuaded by an ambitious candidate to go to the polls and vote for him. Their votes were challenged by the other fellow upon the ground they had some Negro blood in their veins. They were very indignant and said, “When you want us to fight for you, we are same as white folks, when we want to vote, you say we are negurs.” And so a committee of four doctors was appointed to examine them and say what they were. The committee took them out to a sandy place in the road and had them take off their shoes and make tracks barefooted. Five of them made very fair Anglo-Saxon tracks and were accepted, but of the other two the report was that the hollow of their feet made holes in the ground and they were rejected. There are some of these Croatoans on Newman’s ridge, in Tennessee.
I remember that, some years ago, a party of us were riding in the Negro car on the state road, and when we reached Kingston a colored convention of preachers got aboard and claimed the car. Sanford Bell ordered us out, and we retired, of course, but one man did not move. He was a dark, cadaverous individual with black eyes and black hair. “What are you” said Sanford, “are you a white man or a Negro: He smile and said; ‘Mine fader a Portugee, mine mudder a negur.” Sanford looked perplexed and turning to one of the colored preachers, said “What must I do with him?” And he said “Let him alone I reckon.” I learned afterwards that he was a Croatoan.
[This ends the part of the article dealing with Croatan and Newman's Ridge.]
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The Lumbee/Melungeons were from the Roanoke in Virginia
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"Our tribe lived in Roanoke, in Virginia"
Sir Walter Raleigh's lost colony
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FREE STATE OF PATRICK
John Harris King of Cheraw/Saura
THE SAURA (CHERAW) INDIANS IN HISTORY
Joining the Keyauwee Indians, the Saura Nation migrated south along the Yadkin (Pee Dee) River into the border area between the colonies of North Carolina and South Carolina. In 1711, they participated in the Tuscarora War siding with North Carolina. The Saura joined other southern Indian nations in the Yamassee War against the colony of South Carolina in 1715. It was said that they purchased their guns and ammunition from the Virginia Indian traders during this war. That same year the Saura population was given as 510 people living on the Pee Dee River. Weakened by this conflict, the Saura and those incorporated with them petitioned the Virginia Council in 1717 for permission to return to their old homeland on the head of Roanoke River.
During this period, part of the Saura Tribe moved to the Catawba Nation in South Carolina. The rest of the tribe continued living along the Pee Dee River. In 1732, the Sapony and the Saura Indians living in the Catawba Nation petitioned the colony of Virginia for permission to move to their old home. Virginia granted them the right to return and seat themselves on any land not already granted on the Roanoke or Appomattox Rivers. The Saura ceded their Pee Dee River land in South Carolina in 1737. Those living among the Catawba continued to have their own village and leaders. 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗵 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝟭𝟳𝟯𝟴 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗞𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘄. Gradually merging with the Catawba, this band of Cheraw Indians had a population of 70 people in 1768. In 1771, the Cheraw who had remained along the Pee Dee River were living near Drowning Creek in what is today Robeson County, North Carolina. On the approach of British General Cornwallis’ army in 1781 during the American Revolutionary War, the pro-patriot Catawba fled with their women and children to Virginia. The Saura (Cheraw) tribal name is preserved today in the Sauratown Mountains of Stokes County, North Carolina and the South Carolina town of Cheraw.
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The Robesonian - Jul 13, 1933
Washington, July 11, .. (AP)
The Romantic theory that Sir Raleigh's "Lost Colony" lives on in the "Croatans" of Robeson county, N.C., today received a shattering blow from science. Dr. John R. Swanton, ethnologist of Smithsonian Institution, announced the tentative tracing of the identity of the "Croatan to the Siquan stock of Indians, best known in the northwest. By a study of early documents, tribal connections, and language, Swanton connected them closely with the Cheraw, a Siouan people first encountered in South Carolina by DeSoto in 1540. And thus the cryptic word "Croatan," found carved upon a tree on Roanoke Island in 1590 as the sole trace of the "lost colony" means nothing in their lives. It was conferred upon them by Hamilton McMillan of Fayetteville, N.C., (he was of Red Springs, Robeson county), in support of his hypothesis they were descendants of the lost colonists.
There is no reason to believe that they have any connection with the lost Virginia colony established by Sir Walter Raleigh," the Smithsonian statement said. "Croatan was the name of an island, and an Algonquin Indian town just north of Hatteras, to which the survivors of the Raleigh colony are supposed to have gone. "But, assuming that the colonists did remove to Croatan, there is not a bit of reason to suppose that either they or the Croatan Indians ever went farther inland." Dr. Swanton started on his quest of the actual origin of a racial group, which now number about 8,000 persons of mixed Indians and white blood at the request of a delegation of the Indians themselves.
A colonial census in 1754 was found which told of a lawless people living at the headwater of the Little Peedee who had possesed themselves of land without patent and without paying any quit rents.
Earliest Tribal Records
"They presumably were recognized as whites at that time, but there is little doubt that they really were the ancestors of the present day Croatans," was the statement of the findings. Actually, Dr. Swanton held, the predominant element in the blood of this lost people may have been the Keyauwee tribe of Siouans rather than the Cheraw, but he held the latter name could most appropriately be preserved as being the better known and more agressive branch of the family. The misnamed "Croatans," Dr. Swanton pointed out were only one of many "lost races" scattered in population island through the east and especially in the south -- all predominately of Indian origin, but with strong admixtures of other racial stocks.
But the "Croatans" are found now -- they're Cheraws.
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See
Indians of North Carolina - John Swanton Published 1952
This 1725 John Herbert map shows the Winyah Bay - Georgetown - Pee Dee River - and Saura Village. Ten years later Spencer Bolton was born 'on the Pee Dee River' his son Solomon and his daughter Jemima became the 'Celebrated Melungeon Case' of Hamilton County, Tennessee. The first and only known court case from 1874 that shows Portuguese on the Pee Dee River in 1725 that were called Melungeons.
Click Here
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