- [Narrator] American Revolutionaries fought for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but for Native Americans, that fight was nothing new.

Since colonists first arrived, they faced an existential question, how to survive on their own terms.

Two years ago, we heard about a story that's given the Lumbee tribe new insights into their ancestors' actions during the Revolutionary War.

It's a story about a chief named Captain Sweat, who had nearly 600 well-armed horsemen ready to fight to the death, and a Patriot spy sent to infiltrate the community of warriors.

It's also a story about sovereignty because Captain Sweat and his community existed outside of Loyalist and Patriot control and seemed to be more concerned about remaining free on the land they called home than picking a side in the Revolution.

We wanted to know more, so we visited Lumbee homelands.

- We are the largest tribe east of the Mississippi River.

- [Narrator] Paddled down the dark waters mentioned in the records.

- [gasps] Look at that hawk.

- [Narrator] And talked with an Indigenous community who never gave up on their fight for sovereignty.

- Call us what you want to.

I mean, now call us recognized.

[attendee whoops] [drums beating] - [Narrator] This is "Homegrown History."

We did not think we were gonna start this story by making a blooming onion.

- So we're gonna be making the Lumbee onion, which is the fried onion made popular by the Outback Steakhouse, and I have created my own recipe.

- [Narrator] Adrian Kyle Locklear is a hardworking restaurant owner and musician known in the Lumbee community for his take on the blooming onion and for making music about the Lumbee way of life.

♪ On the river, under the pines, them Lums is outside ♪ ♪ Cherry grove, Harley Davidson ridin' ♪ ♪ Them Lums is outside ♪ ♪ Scuffle town at the homecomin' ♪ ♪ On a golf cart or a side-by-side ♪ ♪ Them Lums is outside ♪ ♪ Them Lums is outside ♪ ♪ This is about pride ♪ ♪ Them youngins is outside ♪ - [Narrator] Going into this assignment, our co-producer, a Lumbee historian, told us we could share the story of Captain Sweat with any Lumbee person, and they'd be able to explain it, even if they'd never heard it before.

So we shared it with Adrian.

I'm gonna have you look at this document.

- Sweat is a Lumbee surname.

I like to read this part right here too: "It was found to be about 600 strong, well-trained, well-armed, well-mounted people.

In my opinion, it would have taken a very strong force to subdue him."

- [Narrator] Why do you like that one?

- Just 'cause like that encompasses who we are as a people now today still.

We have so many churches.

We are a wonderful, good-hearted people that give you the clothes off our back, but at the same time, like, even a preacher, even my mother and father as the most wonderful Christian people you know, you know, you don't cross these people.

I mean, that's just like to me, that's just like the definition of sovereignty.

We can't be told what to do.

We're gonna govern ourselves just like this right here.

- [Narrator] That fierce determination to remain free and protect each other is a cornerstone of Lumbee culture, and it's a tradition that starts appearing in the colonial record long before the Patriots sent a spy into Captain Sweat's camp.

Two decades before the war for independence began, a colonial official traveling the region to raise a militia encountered a group of 50 non-white families living deep in the swamps of this area.

The official seemed shocked to find them there.

He reported that the families were living on the land without legally owning it and without paying any taxes on it.

But the record suggests that this community rejected colonial authority's right to charge them for land they already occupied or the authority to enforce rules they didn't recognize because when a surveyor arrived to assess their land, [gunshot cracks] they shot at him.

It wouldn't be the last time they defended their land, and to understand why, we needed to go to the place they were protecting, a place the colonists called Drowning Creek.

- [Jeff] So the river that flows through here actually starts up in Montgomery County where the headwaters called Drowning Creek are located.

- [Narrator] Jeff Currie is a Lumbee folklorist and co-founder of an archeological program that's helping the tribe document and preserve ancestral sites.

We're with them today on the banks of a waterway known as the Lumbee River, and he's helping us understand why this river is sacred to the Lumbee, who are known as the People of the Dark Water.

- This is a place of... It's the origin, past an origin.

It's a rebirth in the sense of communities that are trying to survive.

- [Narrator] The Lumbee River is a part of a larger system spanning the Coastal Plain of North and South Carolina.

Tannins leaching from cypress roots, fallen leaves, and decaying plant matter give it its signature tea-like color, and the swamps running alongside it are a defining feature of its landscape and its folklore.

- I think swamps are amazing and peaceful, and I feel comfortable being in the swamp.

You know, it's a little darker.

It's cooler oftentimes 'cause the water's around.

But you know, it can also be very, very humid and kind of forbidding.

- [Narrator] Archeological evidence shows that Indigenous people have lived here for thousands of years.

But in the colonial era, the swamps along this river became a home for the Lumbee and other people of color looking for safety in a changing world, a refuge from war, disease, and colonial conquest.

- Tribes in this area have been dealing with colonial folks for a long time.

And so, you know, to survive, to maintain, tribes were moving.

This is a place where people knew to come.

And one reason to move in is swamp's kind of a formidable place.

And if they're dense and other people can't come in easy, it's a place of protection.

You know, this is a place that was built out of survival, and part of that survival was the swamp.

We knew that this was a good place to settle, survive, bring in more folks, and continue, which we did.

- [Narrator] More Indigenous people did move into this area, and colonists took note.

Three years before the Declaration of Independence, they reported that a riotous mob had assembled in the area and were annoying inhabitants of the county.

This document lists 18 men colonial officials describe as rogues and three individuals who harbored and protected them.

And it captures some of the racial terms used to describe people who are Native Americans, people of African descent, or people whose race was unclear to colonists.

And it's on this list that we find Lumbee surnames prevalent in the community to this day, Dees, Groom, Locklear, Chavis, and Sweat, which begs the question, is one of the Sweats listed here Captain Sweat or one of his relatives?

And if so, did these events inform what happened when that Patriot spy arrived in Sweat's camp?

Research is ongoing, but what Lumbee scholars do know is that when revolutionary fervor erupted throughout North Carolina, Patriots and Loyalists alike looked to these swamps for allies and enemies.

And the Lumbee fought on both sides.

Some fought alongside the Patriots, men like John Brooks, Samuel Bell, and William Lowry.

Others sided with their Scottish Highlander neighbors, who were mostly loyal to the crown, men like Jacob Locklear, Jeremiah Revels, and Edmund Revels.

But Lumbee scholars believed that much of the evidence suggests their ancestors chose the side that could help them remain on their land and continue to determine their own future.

In 1781, half a decade into the Revolutionary War, Patriots in this area were engaged in a violent tit-for-tat with local Loyalists.

So they sent a spy, John Brumfield, into the swamps around Drowning Creek to investigate a group of suspected Loyalists.

He entered Captain Sweat's camp under a false name, John Brown.

What he found was around 600 men living outside of the rules of Patriots or Loyalists.

They were well-armed and well-trained.

They had horses, and they drilled in exercise every day, which seems to indicate they had some sort of military training.

Brumfield's assessment was that it would take a strong force to subdue them and that they were prepared to fight to the death.

He was determined to see if they were a threat, but after eight days living with Captain Sweat's militia, his spying revealed a nuance.

Captain Sweat and his men didn't want to be enemies with the Patriots.

If they were left alone, they'd remain neutral.

If this was the same group causing problems for the Patriots, were they really Loyalists fighting to defend the king's land?

Or were they fighting to protect the freedom to determine their own future?

In his pension application, Brumfield reported that the Patriots ultimately entered into a treaty with Captain Sweat and his mounted men.

Researchers are still looking for evidence of this claim.

- We always like to start our sage in the east, and before we get on the river, we like to give honor to our river and remember our children from the east, our beginning days.

- [Narrator] We're back on the Lumbee River, this time with a family that's fished, swum, and enjoyed these waters for generations.

[water splashing] - Our river has been containing people for thousands of years.

[Alexis gasping] [gentle music] - Daddy, Daddy, look at that hawk.

- [Richard] Oh my God.

To have a hawk to visit us and sit quiet and just watch us is really amazing.

If we're not on the river, we're at the river almost every day.

- It kind of comes along with the territory, just being Indigenous and having that connection with the land.

- We have a cultural center that has a swimming pool.

As a tribe, we opened that culture center because we weren't allowed to go in pools here in Lumberton.

But if you couldn't make it there, and everybody wanted to go there, you could always come to the river.

That's where I actually learned how to swim.

- [Narrator] Surviving in this new nation wasn't easy.

In the years after the Revolutionary War, the Lumbee faced discrimination and disenfranchisement.

But today, over 55,000 Lumbee live in this area and have served in every major American war since 1776.

And decade after decade, century after century, they've continued fighting for recognition and sovereignty.

In 1885, the state officially recognized the ancestors of the Lumbee.

Three years later, they petitioned Congress directly, seeking federal recognition and the right to govern themselves as a sovereign nation.

The petition was denied.

In 1955, they tried again.

A year later, President Eisenhower signed the Lumbee Recognition Act, which acknowledged the Lumbee people as an Indian community but denied federal Indian services and benefits to the tribe.

Numerous attempts were made to get them in subsequent decades because federal recognition meant healthcare, housing, and resources for the Lumbee.

And then in 2025, after 137 years of fighting, the Lumbee tribe became the 575th federally recognized tribe in the nation.

[attendees chanting] [attendee whoops] [drums beating] [fireworks popping] [attendee ululating] - We got it.

[vocalizes] [relaxed upbeat music] You know, when we talked about it, it was just like, like this fairytale, you know, like, one day, what if... And it's not something that always... I always knew we would be fine without it because we had sustained ourselves so long in the conditions that we were given that we were still gonna be okay.

But to see it happen and see it come in full fruition is absolutely mind-blowing.

We're here tonight celebrating our historic federal recognition.

- We've always been Indian people.

Call us what you want to.

I mean, now call us recognized [laughs] because we fought long and hard for that, and now it happened.

[tribal member chanting] - It makes people whole to know where they came from, and we always known who we were just by the way that we live and it being passed down to us.

A lot of our people will tell you we didn't need no federal recognition.

We didn't need no government to tell us who we were because we knew who we were already.

That's not what makes us the Lumbee people.

Our ancestors, what our ancestors went through and how we have latched onto that, and it is still us today, that's what makes us who we are.

- [Attendee 1] Oh, you already know it.

- [Attendee 2] Okay, okay.

[ululates] [fireworks popping] [relaxed upbeat music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪