Along the Robeson Trail
by Dr. Stan Knick, Director- UNC-P Native American Resource Center
A part of the mystique which
surrounds Henry Berry as a Lumbee
. hero relates to his "disappearance." 1
use that word within quotation marks
because it does not seem to be within
the capability of normal human beings
actually to disappear ? literally to
vanish, to become invisible. Thus
Henry didn't really disappear, we just
don't know where he went or what
happened to him.
But his reported "disappearance"
makes him seem even more
extraordinary than he was in reality.
This is noi to say that be was anything
other than extraordinary in his reallife
actions here in the land of the
Lumbee. But his "disappearance"
added yet another dimension to his
already considerable status as a hero,
in part by making it possible fo^
various stories to emerge seeking to
explain how he was able to avoid
being captured by the establishment.
There are a lot of stories about
what happened to Henry. The
Wilmington Daily Journal reported
on 16 March 1872 that he had escaped
from the area "in disguise." The New
York Herald reported ten days later
that he had accidentally shot himself
while cleaning his rifle. The
Wilmington Review reported on 21
May 1881 that he had made his escape
in a "tool chest (Evans 1971:247)."
The late Rev. D. F. Lowry said in
1970 that Henry had been helped to
escape by John Gorman, Adjutant
General of North Carolina. Dr. Earl
Lowry has said that he has in his
possession evidence that Henry went
into the U. S. Army and finally wound
up in Tennessee,
One of the more remarkable
accounts of what happened to Henry
Berry was found in the Robesonian,
and quoted in other papers. Thewriter
i ?
for the Robesonian (1873) believed
that Henry Berry had escaped to the
Northwest and joined up with Oregon* s
Modoc Indians, becoming their leackr,
the so-called Captain Jack. The
Weldon (N.C.) Roanoke News picked
up the story and reported (28 May
1873): "In Captain Jack, chief of the
Modocs, behold Henry Berry, leader
of the Lowry Band (Evans 1971:249!"
This account of Henry's
whereabouts is so fantastic that it
deserves attention, if only in order to
put it to rest. "Captain Jack," whose
real name was Kintpuash, is best known
for his part in the Modoc War of 187283.
The newspapers of the day said he
was ruthless, and pointed to the
allegation that he had lured some white
leaders to a "peace talk" only to
murder them.
It is true that Kintpuash attained
national notoriety at about the same
time that Henry Berry slipped out of
the national spotlight. It is also true
that inspection of the photographs
assumed to be Henry Berry and
Kintpuash does reveal a slight
physical similarity ? both pictures
show men with rather broad faces and
high cheekbones (which could, of
course, be said of a very great number
of human beings).
So, could the disappearing Henry
Berry have reappeared as "Captain
Jack?" The biggest problem with this
account is that Henry Berry would
have needed to be able to fly. In the
early and middle 1860s, when Henry
lived in Robeson County, when he
was taken to Fort Fisher to build
Confederate fortifications, and then
wi messed the murder of his father and
brother in 186S, Kintpuash had
already made himself known back
home in Oregon.
Kintpuash was regularly seen
?? 1 " " 1
during 1862-63 in the Oregon town of
Yreka. He co-signed the Treaty of
1864 between the Modocs and the U.
S. government When the Modocs
were forced to relocate onto the
Klamath Indian reservation,
Kintpuash resisted, and eventually led
a small group of young warriors back
to their original homeland on the Lost
River. During 1866-67, Kintpuash
was often seen in Yreka, where he
visited his white friends, Elias Steele
and Judge A. M. Rosborough.
During this time, most Modocs
stopped wearing their traditional
animal-skin clothing, and instead took
upstore-boughtEuropeanclothes. But
after repeated unhappy dealings with
the Indian Bureau, white settlers and
U. S. soldiers, the Modoc began to
fight back. Although Kintpuash wanted
only to be left alone, the tide of history
would not allow it Eventually he
would be brought to trial for "war
crimes," and hanged in October, 1873.
And even though Henry Berry and
"Captain Jack" could not have been
the same person, evidently they had
quite a bit in common ? they did not
live in the same body, but they were
apparently endowed with a similar
heroic spirit.
The wide variety of stories which
sprang up around both the exploits and
the "disappearance" of Henry Berry
may be seen as a testament to his
heroic nature within Lumbee culture.
If he had been ordinary, no one would
have wanted to tell stories about him.
In the next segment we will
continue our discussion of the hero
status of Henry Berry Lowrie. For
more information, visit the Native
American Resource Center in historic
Old Main Building, on the campus of
The University of North Carolina at
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