Daniel Herrera Carbajal
ICT
Leaders from the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina appeared before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on Wednesday, Nov. 5, to argue for federal recognition for the state-recognized tribe.
The Lumbee Fairness Act, introduced into the Senate, would amend the 1956 Lumbee Act and grant the full federal recognition, making its citizens eligible for services and benefits, as well as allowing the tribe to create a land base through the land-to-trust process.
Congress acknowledged the tribe in 1956 but stopped short of giving the now 55,000-member tribe federal recognition, which has been granted to 574 other Native American tribes in the U.S.
In his written testimony, Lumbee Tribe Chairman John Lowery said the tribe has broad support for federal recognition across Indian Country.
“More than 200 tribes have expressed support. This includes large tribal organizations, such as the Alaska Federation of Natives, with a membership of 186 tribes, and the Midwest Alliance of Sovereign Tribes, with a membership of 35 tribes,” Lowery said. “It also includes approximately 20 individual tribes that have adopted resolutions of support.”
The Lumbee Fairness Act would need to be passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate and then signed by the president.
In a statement celebrating Native American heritage month, President Donald Trump said full Lumbee recognition was “long overdue.” Both Trump and his opponent in the 2024 presidential election, former-Vice President Kamala Harris, promised the Lumbee federal recognition as the candidates were courting voters in the important swing state of North Carolina. Lumbee voters helped deliver that state to Trump.
Department of the Interior representatives did not attend the Senate hearing Wednesday but provided a written statement in support of recognition for the Lumbee Tribe.
“The department supports S.107 as the most direct means to resolve ambiguities in the 1956 Lumbee Act and federally recognize the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina,” Interior officials said in the statement.
Lowery said Congress’s failure to fully recognize the tribe through the 1956 Lumbee Act reflected a federal policy at the time aimed at stripping tribes of federal recognition.
“This enactment occurred at the height of the federal Indian Termination Era, when the federal government was actively terminating tribes’ special legal relationship with the United States,” he said in his testimony.
Opponents of the Lumbee Tribe receiving full federal recognition cited a lack of descendancy.
Shawnee Chief Ben Barnes said the Lumbee tribe has “shifted from one identity to another.”
“For years, this group claiming to be a sovereign tribe has shifted from one identity to another — the Lost Colony of Roanoke, Croatan, Cherokee, Cheraw, “Siouan,” Lumbee — changing claims but never producing documentation to support any of them,” Barnes said in his testimony to the committee.
In a press release following the committee hearing, Principal Chief Mitchell Hicks of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians said the Lumbee tribe’s testimony was based on “groundless assertions and storytelling.”
“There is a lawful process created for this purpose administered by the Office of Federal Acknowledgement. That is where claims must be reviewed, and where evidence must be tested,” Hicks said. “If there is evidence, submit it to the OFA. If there is a tribe, the process will show it. But Congress must not legislate identity or manufacture tribes out of thin air by replacing proof with politics. Federal recognition must remain grounded in evidence and truth.”
Arlinda Locklear, a Lumbee citizen and attorney for the tribe, told the committee that the Lumbee Tribe meets every standard for federal recognition as set forth in legal precedence.
“In a Supreme Court decision in 1901 called Montoya v. United States … an Indian tribe consists of a body of Indians of the same race, who are united in a community in a particular territory and who are united under one leadership or government,” she said. “You are recognizing a true Indian community.”