Background

Background

But to understand the story of Henry Berry Lowry, it is important to understand his family history and what led him to being the famous outlaw. The entire Lowry family is descended from James Lowry who moved to Robeson County, then Bladen County, in 1769. One account described him as “a tall well-proportioned, fine looking, respectable Indian…of cavalier stock and characterized by elegance and refinement of manners, tall and commanding in personal appearance, urbane, courtly and genteel in his whole deportment.”[1] Upon moving to the county, he purchased large tracts of land, raised stock, and even owned his own tavern.[2]

Marrying Sarah Kearsy, a half-breed Tuscarora Indian, in Franklin County before moving to Robeson, and they couple produced three sons, the oldest, who entered into military service during the Revolution, under the command of Colonel Thomas Robeson. In the accounts of the man’s service, emphasized exemplary service that the young Lowry had exhibited during the year of the Revolution in the Carolinas. It is an interesting side note within the text of the Lowry family history that there are several mentions of soldier son William, and his family, to be associated with the Whig ideology during the war effort.[3]

Despite the amount of involvement made by the oldest son during the war, prejudices began to hinder the family as shortly after the conflict had come to an end. James Lowry was to forced to sell his land due to the growing rife between his family and the local Tories nearby.[4] Later rumors of the family earning their wealth from stealing and robberies during the Revolution would be created as well.[5] Settling near Lumberton, the Lowry family began to establish close blood relations with their neighbors which would serve to aid Henry Berry throughout his criminal career.[6]

Another factor that played heavily into Henry Berry’s life was what happened to the Lumbees as the war progressed. During the life of the war, and the gradual lack of manpower in the Confederacy led to organizations rising up maintain the peace for their respective states. In North Carolina, a group comprised mostly of the upper class of the state formed the “Home Guard”. This paramilitary group roamed the countryside, looking for deserters, or other criminals throughout the state, including Henry Lowry, who had “stolen” himself away from forced labor when Lumbee men were being impressed to help build Ft. Fisher near the city of Wilmington.

The Home Guard reverted to a form of impressed service similar to the methods used by the fugitive slave hunters that roamed the countryside during the decades prior to the war. “…Many young Indians…had been surprised by patrolling bands of Confederate Home Guards, who seized them, bound their hands, loaded them on trains at Moss Neck, and shipped them away to fever-devastated Wilmington,….There they were condemned to wither and die in pest holes of the lower Cape Fear, where browned-skinned Indians worked beside black-skinned Negro slaves, building an elaborate systems of fort.”[7] With the prospects of surviving at such a minute chance, it is not surprising that men such as Lowry decided to hide themselves in the surrounding swamps of Robeson. [8]

Henry’s escape, added to the number of others in the area, came to the attention of the Home Guard, who entered Robeson County specifically to deal with these problems on top of other nefarious activities in the area.[9] It was also coming to the attention of these men that members of the Lowry clan were gathering weapons and enough powder to supply these firearms, such as the small arsenal that Calvin Lowry, an older brother of the outlaw had prior to the Home Guard’s arriving to his farm.[10] This was in direct violation to the 1835 North Carolina State Constitution that prohibited “free persons of color” to bear arms in any manner. [11]

However, what caused the Home Guard to pay a visit to the Lowry family was that when many of the families in Robeson were being raided by these fugitives, these vagrant would take food and other supplies needed to sustain themselves in their new homes. Their primary targets were the major plantations that of the affluent white slaveholders of the area, who comprised the rank and file of those involved with the Home Guard, brought on the attention of the paramilitary unit.[12]

When they detained Allen and his son William Lowry, the father and brother of Henry Berry, the Home Guard promptly executed them shortly after their capture. The reason for their capture, as stated by the side of the provisional government and their supporters, was that the two men were responsible for using the surrounding landscape for “horrible scenes of plunder” and leading the area into a state of constant bloodshed. It was the hope of the Home Guard that killing the two leaders of the Lowry family would help bring an end to the chaotic developments in the region. They were proven wrong shortly thereafter.[13]

What followed afterwards is simply a tale of a man’s life, filled with daring dos and a list of deeds that would fit into a historical drama. However, it is not the purpose of this paper to examine the events that dealt with the life of Henry Berry Lowry from 1864 to his mysterious disappearance in 1872. While this is not to belittle the significance of what Lowry did during his years of activity, what is more important to examine how Lowry came to represent the country during this period. When the war came to an end, it is almost outlandish to believe that either side of the conflict would have let go of the emotional tension and investiture that had been placed into the course of the war. As such, Lowry presented a unique persona in which both sides could present their views of each other into the display of the actions of this one man.

To best describe what Lowry brought forth, Williams McKee Evans put it clearly in the man and the world that he operated in. “It is hard to believe…that Henry Berry and his followers would have been accorded such special treatment had they not had some special significance in the eyes of the dominant group. The Lowrys practiced violence, but it was not of the common variety that was currently shattering the fragile Reconstruction democracy imposed by the victorious northern Radicals on the former southern elite. On the contrary it seemed aimed at the very foundation of the social order that the Conservatives were erecting to replace the Reconstruction experiment.”[14]

Writers of the Lowry era demonstrates how the two ideologies of the period had used this man as their “poster-boy” for their ideologies, and antagonized the other side indirectly. There are four definitive sources that demonstrates this, along with various contemporary news articles and other writings covering the career of the outlaw and his gang. One of the most important pieces that show the emphasis of Henry Lowry was from Harper’s Weekly, a moderate Republican paper that was a major source of information in the United States during the 19^th century.