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A look at Trump’s campaign promise to recognize North Carolina’s Lumbee Tribe
When Kamala Harris and Donald Trump campaigned in North Carolina, both candidates courted a state-recognized tribe there whose 55,000 members could have helped tip the battleground state.
Trump in September promised that he would sign legislation to grant federal recognition to the Lumbee Tribe, a distinction that would unlock access to federal funds. He ultimately won North Carolina by more than 3 points, in part due to continued support from Lumbee voters.
Now, as Trump prepares to return to the White House in January, the promise will be put to the test. He has Republican allies in Congress on the issue, and now the Lumbee, as well as tribal nations across the country, are watching closely to see what comes next.
Tribal nations typically receive federal recognition through an application with the Department of the Interior, but the Lumbee have been trying for many years to circumvent that process by going through Congress. Chairman John Lowery called Interior’s application process “flawed” and overly lengthy and said it should be up to Congress to right what he calls a historic wrong.
“It’s just crazy that we’re sitting here fighting this battle, and I have to tell you that I am real in 2024,” Lowery said.
Following the presidential election, the Lumbee hope there will be momentum behind their cause, but they face deep-rooted opposition from tribal nations across the country.
There are questions about Trump’s next move
Several tribes, including the only one that is federally recognized in North Carolina, argue that if the Lumbee Tribe wants federal acknowledgment, it should go through the formal process in the Department of the Interior. One person familiar with Trump’s thinking said the president-elect will require the Lumbee Tribe to do just that, and he won’t sign a Lumbee recognition bill. The person requested anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly speak about Trump’s views.
Trump’s spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, said “no policy should be deemed official unless it comes directly from President Trump.”
Federal recognition is of enormous importance, as it comes with access to resources like healthcare through Indian Health Services and the ability to create a land base such as reservations through the land-to-trust process. But before that happens, a tribal nation has to file a successful application with the Office of Federal Acknowledgement, a department within the Interior.
GERALD HERBERT / AP
The Lumbee Tribe has applied for federal recognition, but that petition was denied in 1985 because it “could not establish the group’s descendency either culturally, politically, or genealogically from any tribe which existed historically in the area.”
In 2016, the Interior reversed a decision barring the Lumbee Tribe from reapplying, but the Lumbee have opted for the congressional route.
Gaining federal recognition through legislation is a rare but not unheard of path. But the Lumbee’s approach has stoked a simmering debate in both Indian Country and Congress about Indigenous identity and tribal nationhood.
The Lumbee have received support from members of both parties
Members of Congress from both parties have supported recognizing the Lumbee through legislation, including Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a member of the Cherokee Nation who campaigned for Trump in North Carolina and backed the legislation.
But perhaps the state-recognized tribe’s most ardent ally in Congress is North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who is up for reelection in 2026.
Tillis introduced the Lumbee Fairness Act last year and has been a vocal supporter of the Lumbee. In interviews with The Associated Press, several tribal leaders, lobbyists, and advocates said they were told by Tillis directly or by his staff that the senator is currently and will continue to block certain bills backed by tribal nations unless the leaders of those tribes support the Lumbee.
One of the bills he’s promised to block, according to those interviewed by the AP, is a land transfer that would allow the Tennessee Valley Authority to return 70 acres of land to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the only federally recognized tribal nation in Tillis’s state. It would allow the tribe to put the land in Monroe County, Tennessee into trust. The plot is part of the tribal nation’s homelands and contains the birthplace of Sequoyah.
“It’s appalling to me. It’s disgraceful,” Principal Chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Michell Hicks said. He said that Tillis told him earlier this year that he would stop any legislation dealing with the Eastern Band unless Hicks pledged his support.
Hicks is among the tribal leaders who question the validity of the Lumbee’s historical claims, and he said that is out of the question. At one point about a century ago, the Lumbee were known as the Cherokee Indians of Robeson County, and for many years now all three Cherokee tribes — the Eastern Band, the Cherokee Nation, and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians — have denounced this and been vocal opponents of granting the Lumbee federal recognition.
Representatives for Tillis declined to comment.
Tillis held up legislation last week that would have allowed for the preservation of the site of the Wounded Knee massacre. While doing so, he singled out the heads of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, who have backed the preservation measure, for not supporting his efforts to federally recognize the Lumbee.
“This is not about you,” Tillis said to the two tribal nations, who he acknowledged had been trying for a century to preserve the site of the massacre. “But you need to know that your leadership is playing a game that will ultimately force me to take a position.”
Tillis suggested it was a “casino cartel” in part driven by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and an Osage attorney named Wilson Pipestem working for the tribe, that is trying to keep the Lumbee from gaining recognition, which could one day lead to the Lumbee opening their own casinos. Tillis threatened to continue publicly naming tribal leaders and their employees who he felt were standing in the way of his bill.
In a statement to the AP, Pipestem said Tillis should “apologize to the Tribal leaders for his false allegations and unscrupulous tactics.”
Lowery acknowledged that Tillis has held up both pieces of legislation, but he said that Tillis has not done so at the direction of the Lumbee.
“If he’s put a hold on the bill it’s because he reached out to tribal leaders to see where they stand on his bill, and they apparently have told him that they’re not in support,” Lowery said. “So, he said ‘well, if you can’t be supportive of my bill, I can’t be supportive of your bill.'”
A hiker was found alive this week in the remote wilderness of northwestern Canada, where he had been lost for more than six weeks, authorities said.
Sam Benastick was initially reported missing on Oct. 19 after failing to return from a backcountry trip in Redfern-Kiely Provincial Park, an isolated landscape known for its alpine tundra and stark mountainscape in the northern Rockies of British Columbia. Two men spotted Benastick Tuesday on their way to the park’s Redfern Lake trail for work, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Recognizing him as the missing hiker, they took Benastick to a hospital.
Benastick told police he had stayed in his car for a couple of days at the start of his backcountry trip, before walking to a mountainside creek and camping there for 10 or 15 days, the RCMP said. At that point, the hiker said he moved to a different location farther down into the valley and a built a camp and shelter in a dried-out creek bed. Eventually, Benastick found his way to the road where he encountered the Redfern Lake trail employees, well over six weeks after he first set out on his journey.
“Finding Sam alive is the absolute best outcome. After all the time he was missing, it was feared that this was would not be the outcome,” said Corporal Madonna Saunderson, a spokesperson for the RCMP in British Columbia, in a statement.
Benastick, 20, survived extraordinarily harsh conditions. When he was found, the hiker was using two walking sticks to support himself and had cut his sleeping back to wrap the fabric around his legs for warmth, the Canadian broadcaster CBC News reported. Temperatures in the park were frigid while he was missing, at times dropping to -20 degrees Celsius, or -4 degrees Fahrenheit, according to BBC News, a CBS News partner.
Missing hiker found alive after more than five weeks in wilderness https://t.co/X3dpSyNFcn
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) November 27, 2024
“Those are very difficult conditions for really anyone to survive in, especially [with] limited supplies and equipment and food,” Prince George Search and Rescue search manager Adam Hawkins told the BBC.
Mike Reid, the general manager of the inn near Redfern-Kiely Provincial Park where Benastick’s family stayed as search efforts got underway in October, told CBC News that Benastick was in “rough shape” Tuesday. But he is expected to recover.
Authorities initiated a massive search for Benastick when the missing person report for him was filed, but that search was called off at the end of October, BBC News reported. Police said they intend to gather more information about what happened to the hiker and why he remained missing for so long once Benastick’s health has improved.
The United States is known as a great melting of people, food and culture. In major cities across the country like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, people can find nearly any cuisine that fits their heart’s desire.
However, as Chef Sean Sherman of the Oglala Lakota Tribe has pointed out in the past, these cities have few – if any – restaurants focused on Indigenous cuisines from the more than 570 recognized American Indian tribes and Alaska Native entities. Each of these tribes has their own distinct food traditions.
KENA BETANCUR/AFP via Getty Images
Eateries like Watecha Bowl, Tocabe: An American Indian Eatery, and Owamni aim to change that by reviving or paying homage to the centuries-old techniques and flavors passed down through generations.
“We all are on the same mission of food sovereignty,” Watecha Bowl owner and entrepreneur Lawrence West told CBS News. “And introducing the world to Native American food.”
West is a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.
“The things that I cook and the way that I prepare food is very important because it only represents a certain heritage of people,” he said.
Restaurant options around the country
West’s restaurant Watecha Bowl is a fast-food eatery in Sioux Falls, South Dakota that serves food and flavors from the Lakota Nation.
“I’ve had the privilege of feeding people from all over the world,” West said. “I’ve fed people from all 50 states.”
One of the things his restaurant is doing this year giving out an Indian taco in exchange for a toy that will be donated to local Native American kids in foster care, according to the Facebook page with 30,000 followers.
Tocabe: An American Indian Eatery is a fast-casual restaurant that serves build-your-own Native American food in Denver, Colorado. Its goal is to “rebuild the original American food system.”
Co-founder and President Ben Jacobs, told CBS News that he wants to make his cuisine accessible to everyone while offering a space for Native community members to feel at home. He is a tribal member of the Osage Nation of northeast Oklahoma.
Tacobe
He said he was inspired to open the eatery because Native food did not seem to have a place in the culinary industry in 2008 when it opened. More than 16 years later, Tocabe’s food still shares stories of community, culture and identity.
In Minneapolis, Minnesota, Chef Sean Sherman’s restaurant Owammni aims to “decolonize” the dining experience by purchasing ingredients from Indigenous food producers that would have been found in North America before European colonization.
“It’s unfortunate that this restaurant is unique. Part of the goal is, how do we normalize something that’s healthy and Indigenous? We’re showing a model that’s possible,” Sherman wrote in a recent blog post on the restaurant’s website.
What are the essential dishes to try?
According to West, wojapi is a must-have. The thick berry sauce is one of the most traditional foods of the American plains. It can be used as a dip, on frybread, meat or even as is.
Next is bison, particularly chislic, invented in South Dakota. Third is wild rice with maple syrup.
Frybread is one of the most popular Native American foods. But West said this was embraced out of necessity when the U.S. government forced assimilation with stipends during the land grab and the Trail of Tears.
Jacobs emphasizes, though, that ingredients found in local grocery stores like corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and chillies originate “right here” in America. Those are Native foods, too. He said he hopes all Americans should understand where our food comes from and appreciate the story behind it.
The Tacobe Indigenous Marketplace offers common, or not-so-common, ingredients, but they are sourced from Native producers on tribal lands.
Tacobe
A history of food
Native American food is not mainstream for a variety of reasons.
Sherman pointed to the idea of “manifest destiny,” or the 19th-century belief that the U.S. was “destined” by God to expand across North America to spread democracy and capitalism.
West and Sherman also pointed to “forced assimilation,” or the U.S. government’s aim to make Native people adopt the customs, values and behaviors of the dominant culture. Laws like The Indian Removal Act of 1830, The Homestead Act of 1862, The Dawes Act of 1887 and others helped make this happen.
According to Britannica, The Trail of Tears refers to the forced relocation of Native people in the Southeastern U.S. during the 1830s. Tribal military records estimate that around 100,000 indigenous people were forcibly removed from their homes.
Policies like these disrupted Native food systems, leading to food insecurity and poor health outcomes, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).
The CBPP said the U.S. has made treaties with tribes since the 1700s, promising to provide Indigenous people with rations, giving them food like lard, wheat and flour, which were often unhealthy.
According to the 2023 U.S. Census data, around 1.3% of Americans identify as American Indian or Native American.
Jacobs said after centuries of the American government deconstructing Native food systems, “we’re trying to rebuild.”
“I think we’re at a point now that we can control our food again, which means we can control our future,” he said.
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