The whole landscape has been transformed.”īaltimore may be famous for John Waters, Edgar Allan Poe, and steamed crabs, but very few people are aware that there was once a sizeable population of American Indians, the Lumbee tribe, who lived in the neighborhoods of Upper Fells Point and Washington Hill. “It wasn’t until my Aunt Jeanette took me to Baltimore Street, and pointed and said, ‘This is where I used to live,’ that I realized the reason I wasn’t getting it was because it’s a park now. Though she has lived all her life in the Baltimore area, nothing looked remotely familiar. Now it was Minner’s turn to be perplexed. The elders drafted a rough sketch of the neighborhood based on their recollections. Jones, Mattie “Ty” Fields, Howard Redell Hunt, Jeanette Hunt.Īt the luncheon, plates were cleared but questions remained. Near row: Heyman “Jonesy” Jones, Jeanette W. Maynor, Gerald Butler, Sarah Arnold, Adam Smith (non-Lumbee), Lizzie Locklear. Far row left to right: Earl Strickland, Minnie S. Lumbee elders discuss Peck’s 1969 map on March 22, 2018. That day, she wore no jewelry or makeup, just a T-shirt, jeans and a bright purple windbreaker. When she speaks, she embodies a down-to-earth, solid presence, with an air of humility that her University of Maryland students will tell you is how she conducts her classes. This is all wrong.’ They couldn’t even fix it,” Minner recalls from her seat at a large oak desk in Hornbake Library’s Special Collections room. Her discovery was met with bewildered expressions. Over a dessert of cannoli and Minner’s homemade banana pudding, she got down to business to show the group what she had found-a 1969 federally commissioned map of the Lumbee Indian community in Baltimore as it stood in its heyday. The group crowded around a family-style table, eager to chat with friends after a long winter. One chilly March afternoon in 2018, Ashley Minner, a community artist, folklorist, professor and enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, gathered the elders together for a luncheon at Vinny’s, an Italian eatery on the outskirts of Baltimore. Keith Colston, Lumbee / Tuscarora).Įdwin Remsberg, Maryland Traditions, VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
With the support of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, a new archive is being established to collect the history of the Lumbee community (above from left are members of the intertribal Baltimore American Indian Center: Louis Campbell, Lumbee Celest Swann, Powhatan E.