From the perspective of non-Lumbee Americans, the Lumbees hold an ambiguous place in America and American history. The Lumbees are both designated as an indigenous people primarily residing in Robeson, North Carolina but not a fully recognized tribe by the US federal government. As a result, the Lumbee nation has been denied a government-to-government relationship with the United States and denied access to benefits and services traditionally available to fully recognized tribal groups.
Such a state of limbo can prove challenging, when one attempts to integrate the Lumbees into the categorical narratives regularly used to understand the past. The Lumbees are frequently absent from examinations of indigenous peoples, regional histories, the development of race in America, and many other overlapping subjects. In The Lumbee Indians: An American Struggle, Malinda Maynor Lowery puts it succinctly and personally as she points out that such avoidance causes Lumbee children, her daughter included,...
