Editing Robeson County, North Carolina (section)

===Reconstruction and Lowry War===
{{Main|Lowry War}}
In 1864, during the latter stages of the Civil War, Confederate postmaster James P. Barnes accused some sons of Allen Lowry, a prominent Indian farmer, of stealing two of his hogs and butchering them to feed Union escapees. He ordered the Lowry family to stay off his land under threat of being shot.{{sfn|Dial|Eliades|1996|pp=46–47}} In December, Barnes was ambushed and shot as he made his way to work. Shortly before he succumbed to his wounds, he accused William and [[Henry Berry Lowry]], two sons of Allen, of committing the attack.{{sfn|Dial|Eliades|1996|p=47}} The following January, Confederate Home Guard officer James Brantly Harris was ambushed and shot following his involvement in the deaths of three Lowrys.{{sfn|Dial|Eliades|1996|pp=49–50}} Fearing Harris' death would lead to retaliation from the Home Guard, local Indians began preparing for violence. Short on food and weapons, they started stealing from white-owned farms and plantations.{{sfn|Dial|Eliades|1996|p=50}} Supplies intended for the guard were stolen from the courthouse in Lumberton.{{sfn|Evans|1971|pp=41–42}}

White citizens were infuriated by the decline in law and order, and the Home Guard suspected that the Lowry family was primarily responsible.{{sfn|Dial|Eliades|1996|p=50}} On March 3, 1865, a Home Guard detachment arrested Allen Lowry and several others.{{sfn|Dial|Eliades|1996|pp=50–51}} Following an impromptu tribunal, the guardsmen executed Allen and his son William for allegedly possessing stolen goods.{{sfn|Dial|Eliades|1996|pp=52–53}} The Home Guard was briefly disrupted by the incursion of Sherman's troops several days later but resumed investigating the Lowry family thereafter.{{sfn|Evans|1971|pp=46–47, 49}} These events initiated the Lowry War,{{sfn|Lowery|2010|p=16}} a conflict which dominated Robeson County throughout the Reconstruction period.{{sfn|Dial|Eliades|1996|pp=58, 89}}

[[File:Lowry Gang in the swamp.png|thumb|right|Artist's depiction of the Lowry Gang in a swamp from ''[[Harper's Weekly]]'', 1872]]
The situation in Robeson County briefly calmed with the Union victory, as locals focused on rebuilding their livelihoods.{{sfn|Dial|Eliades|1996|p=58}} The region suffered an economic downturn brought on by an agricultural depression and the destruction of the turpentine industry by Union troops.{{sfn|Dial|Eliades|1996|p=137}} Some white Robesonians moved down the Lumber River into South Carolina in search of new farmland,{{sfn|Montgomery|Mishoe|1999|p=242}} while others moved west. Many black freedmen turned to [[tenant farming]].{{sfn|Sharpe|1952|p=5}} Local government in Robeson mostly continued as it had during the war, with rich white men of prominence dominating public offices, especially the [[North Carolina justice of the peace|justices of the peace]] who constituted the county court.{{sfn|Evans|1971|pp=57–58}} The Home Guard was formally dissolved but was replaced by a similar institution, the Police Guard.{{sfn|Evans|1971|pp=59–60}}

In December, the Police Guard arrested Henry Berry Lowry at his wedding and held him on charges of murdering Barnes.{{sfn|Dial|Eliades|1996|p=59}} He shortly thereafter escaped custody and avoided the authorities by hiding in swamps with a group of associates, which became known as the Lowry Gang.{{sfn|Dial|Eliades|1996|p=59–60}} Although a somewhat fluid band at times numbering 20–30 men,{{sfn|Dial|Eliades|1996|pp=60–61}} the gang usually operated with six to eight men.{{sfn|Bradley|2009|p=252}}{{sfn|Magdol|1973|p=270}} The principle members were primarily relatives of Lowry, though the gang also included two blacks and a poor white.{{sfn|Lowery|2010|p=16}} They usually stayed in improvised shelters in Back Swamp, a ten-mile-long stretch of sparsely-traveled land near Allen Lowry's homestead.{{sfn|Lowery|2018|p=73}} Throughout 1866 and 1867, the gang conducted raids "in retaliation" for previous wrongs inflicted upon them, but no people were killed.{{sfn|Dial|Eliades|1996|p=63}}

Following the passage of federal [[Reconstruction Acts]] in 1867 and the ratification of a new state constitution in North Carolina in 1868, nonwhites in Robeson, both black freedmen and Indians, were re-enfranchised.{{sfn|Magdol|1973|pp=274–275}}{{sfn|Lowery|2010|p=16}} The [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]] won a majority of the vote in elections in Robeson, displacing [[Conservative Party (United States)#Reconstruction-Era South|Conservative]] planter families who had dominated county affairs.{{sfn|Magdol|1973|pp=274–275}} The party relied on the electoral support of black freedmen, Indians, and poor Buckskin whites.{{sfn|Evans|1971|pp=86–88}} Republican officials were reluctant to take any action concerning the lawlessness in Robeson since prosecuting former Home Guardsmen for their extrajudicial killings would harm their [[rule of law|law and order]] campaign, while targeting the Lowry Gang would split their local base of support.{{sfn|Evans|1971|pp=100–101}} Despite this, the new Republican [[Governor of North Carolina]], [[William Woods Holden]] issued a declaration of outlawry against Lowry and some of his associates, dividing the local Republican Party and threatening their hold on county politics.{{sfn|Evans|1971|p=102}}

In an attempt to broker a solution, local Republicans convinced Lowry to surrender himself to be tried in the postwar court system, but he shortly thereafter escaped.{{sfn|Dial|Eliades|1996|pp=63–64}} The Lowry Gang then killed Reuben King, the former sheriff of the county, during a robbery in January 1869,{{sfn|Dial|Eliades|1996|pp=63–64}} ending all attempts by Reconstruction authorities to negotiate a settlement.{{sfn|Evans|1971|p=109}} The gang continued its raids. As a result federal troops were dispatched to assist the local authorities.<ref name= Mitchell>{{cite web| url = https://www.ncpedia.org/lowry-band| title = Lowry Band| last = Mitchell| first = Thornton W.| date = 2006| website = NCPedia| publisher = North Carolina Government & Heritage Library| access-date = October 26, 2021}}</ref> In February 1872, the Lowry Gang committed their largest heist, stealing two safes from downtown Lumberton. Shortly thereafter, Henry Berry Lowry disappeared.{{sfn|Dial|Eliades|1996|pp=78–79}} Over the next two years, bounty hunters tracked down the remaining gang members, and the war ended when the last active one was killed in February 1874.{{sfn|Dial|Eliades|1996|pp=79–83}}