Henry Berry Lowrie
| Henry Berry Lowrey | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
c. 1847 Robeson County, North Carolina, US |
| Disappeared | Robeson County, North Carolina |
Henry Berry Lowrey (c. 1845 – Unknown) led a gang in North Carolina during and after the American Civil War. He is sometimes viewed as a Robin Hood type figure and a pioneer in the fight for civil rights. Lowrey was described by George Alfred Townsend, a correspondent for the New York Herald in the late 19th century, as “[o]ne of those remarkable executive spirits that arises now and then in a raw community without advantages other than those given by nature."
Lowrie was born c.1845 to Allen and Mary (Cumbo) Lowrey in the Hopewell Community, in Robeson County, North Carolina. His father owned a successful 350-acre (1.4 km2) mixed-use farm in the county. Henry Lowrey was one of 12 children, described as multi-racial or free people of color. Many Native Americans at this time period, that was an Eastern woodland native, was forced to put "mulatto" on the census records. There was usually only three options to record race on the census records, white, black, or mullatto. Henry Lowrey was a descendent of Croatoan lineage coming from the lost colony. The family name Berry came over during the first Voyages to the Americas.
Early in the Civil War, the North Carolina military turned to forced labor to construct defenses. Several Lowrey cousins, excluded from military service because they were free men of color, had been conscripted to help build Fort Fisher. Other non-whites resorted to "lying out" or hiding in the region's swamps to avoid being rounded up by the Confederate Home Guard and forced to work for low wages.
On December 21, 1864, James P. Barnes, a neighbor of Allen Lowrey, accused him of stealing hogs. Lowrey's son Henry killed Barnes. In January 1865, Henry Lowrey also killed James Brantley Harris, a conscription officer, for allegedly mistreating the women of the Lowrey family. In March 1865, the Home Guard searched his father Allen Lowrey's home and found firearms, which free people of color had been forbidden to own since after 1831 and Nat Turner's rebellion. The Home Guard convened a kangaroo court, convicted Allen Lowrey and his son William, and executed them. Henry Lowrey reportedly was watching from the bushes.
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Wikipedia