The Lowry Wars

On December 21st, 1864, a wealthy slaveholder and minor official of the Confederacy named James P. Barnes was ambushed on his way to the Post Office in Robeson County, North Carolina. After being initially cut down by a shotgun blast, Barnes was shot at point blank range in the head…Thus began a period of roughly eight years of almost uninterrupted, multiracial attacks on plantation society in southeastern North Carolina. Dozens of sheriffs and White supremacist militia were murdered, plantations and White-owned stores expropriated, and five different successful prison breaks carried out, in what to this day represents a period of marked pride and dignity for North Carolina’s Lumbees.