Name Henry Lowrie | ||
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Disappeared February 20, 1872Robeson County, North Carolina | ||
Henry berry lowrie
Henry Berry Lowery (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. Many locals remember him as a Robin Hood figure, particularly the Tuscarora and Lumbee people, who consider him one of their tribe and a pioneer in the fight for their civil rights, personal freedom, and tribal self-determination. Lowery 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."
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Early life
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 Lowery was one of 12 children, described as multi-racial or free people of color.
Gang leader
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.
Henry Lowrey led a gang in committing a series of robberies and murders against the upper class, continuing until 1872. The attempts to capture the gang members became known as the Lowry War. The Lowrey gang consisted of Henry Lowrey, his brothers Stephen and Thomas, two cousins (Calvin and Henderson Oxendine), two of his brothers-in-law, two escaped slaves, a white man, and two other men of unknown relation.
Lowrey's gang continued its actions into Reconstruction. Republican governor William Woods Holden outlawed Lowrey and his men in 1869, and offered a $12,000 reward for their capture: dead or alive. Lowrie responded with more revenge killings.
On December 7, 1865, he married Rhoda Strong. Arrested at his wedding, Lowrey escaped from jail by filing his way through the jail's bars.
Lowrey's band opposed the postwar conservative Democratic power structure, which worked to reassert its political dominance and white supremacy. The Lowrey gang robbed and killed numerous people of the establishment. Because of this, they gained the sympathy of the non-white population of Robeson County. The authorities were unable to stop the Lowrey gang, largely because of this support.
In February 1872, shortly after a raid in which he robbed the local sheriff's safe of more than $28,000, Henry Berry Lowrey disappeared. It is claimed he accidentally shot himself while cleaning his double-barrel shotgun. As with many folk heroes, the death of Lowrie was disputed. He was reportedly seen at a funeral several years later. Without his leadership, every member of the gang except two were subsequently captured or killed.