The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-08-16

| sensation l experienced when, montn later. this cane in hand. I stood in croatan wagon. with a band of croatan musicians making merry beside 1t, and looked into the faces of more than twelve hundred people of that race, to whom was to deliver the annual address at the closing of their normal school at the little hamlet of Pates, in the very heart of what may be termed their country.
 Taere are $500 of the Croatans. and this number Is about the same as that of the Cherokees of the Eastern band In western North Carolina. While the Cherokees hold lands largely in com mon and are the wards to no little extent of the United States. the Croa- tans have no such status. The latter are largely landholders, but the hold ings are in severalty. This state, which recognizes them as a distinct people, | gives them this normal school and twenty ordinary public schools.
 The first people who pushed up into that part of North Carolina from South Carolina early in HOO found the Croatans there with extremely good roads, houses excellently we'll built of logs, premises very clean, and found many peculiarities of old English speech and some words which had even | then gone out of common use and I the great Queen Elizabeth.
 They found these poole using cross Ibows of odd shapes, the only Indians Ito do so. Tn other words, they found them a strange blend of Indian and white, speaking English. As they spoke 1t then so it Is today. and their peculIarities stand out clearly now.
 took an artist with me with camera to fix forever the impression of this peoie. who never before had been photographed in this way. It was very strange indeed to look into their 1 faces and notice the beauty of the eyes, l so deep, so limpid and so large, and to observe the hair, always intensely dark. In some cases very straight and coarse and in others very fine and oc- casionally curled in graceful sweeps The beauty of many of the girls and of the women was marked, and one could we'll understand why It was that white men of wealth and position had become enamored of these women for many a long year, had gone Into their | settlements and made their homes there or in a fringe around the edge. They were told that had come to see them l in their home and school life. and they were very prompt and kind in their response to this frankness.
 Preston Loclflear drove up in his bug l gy and, taking another team and as a guide, little Rosetta Brooks. we went to various houses Preston and Reset ta are as perfect types of the Indian as can be found anywhere. as their pictures plainly show,
 While we were photographing the house of Harriet Graham, a widow, an- other Croatan woman came up. and when asked to pose pulled her sunbon- net over her face and scurried away. She was the only one who showed any fright. The next place visited was the home of the venerable Washington Lowery. or Lowrie. He was i'll and partially paralyzed. but got out of bed and was photographed in the doorway of his admirably built log house, which | is about one hundred years old. He is S5. and he sat in a homemade chair with cowskin seat, around him being draped a coverlet made In the house and dyed with indigo grown on the farm. for these people iu most cases make everything at home.
 Types of Descendants.
 Iowery said he had heard his 'feyr lther" and his "grandfeyther" speak over and over again about their hay l ing come from Roanoke Island. He has been in the Indian Territory and was welcomed by the people there.
 Another picture was made of the front of this house, showing the porch seated in a chair outside being LoWery's 1 father-in-law who was born in 1911, and who smoked necessarily. using a corncob pipe with reed stem and home- grown tobacco. This was Solomon Loeklear Like all the rest, he was dis tinctly Indian and all of them wore home made clothing
 Views were taken of the house of Croatan named Jacobs, one showing the we'll, which is curbed with a hol- low cypress log. bound with band or iron, an old-fashioned sweep being used, and the water coming to within some eight feet of the surface. In connection with the Croatans and I tn cir white neighbors it was found that they feel extremely proud of how well they have preserved their identity as race, in spite of the fact that the con stitution of 1885 which took away from everybody except whites the right to vote put them beyond the pale of citi- zenship until the new constitution or l 1868.
 These people are not negroes, nor have they ever amalgamated with them to any extent worth mentioning. They have the Indian traits of suspicion and revenue They had always voted up to 1886, and now they vote under the new constitutional amendment Of 1900 De- cause their grandfathers voted. 1 Tn calling the roll of the tribal fami- lilies 1t is found that more than forty bear the names of Raleighs colonists, and 1t was almost startling to hear the fine old English names called out in the Normal Sch ool when Superintendent Edens called the roll there. The use of old words and quaint phrases Is exact | ly that in some of the English coun- ties even yet.
 The chief difficulty in procuring their confidence has been their past treatment by the whites, but now that their status Is fixed their appreciation is shown in a great many ways. The Indian love for bright clothing Is most pronounced The girls were gay with red. yellow and blue dresses, this be- ing also the case among the North Carolina Cherokees and the Florida SeminoIes. The negroes do not like the Creatans, nor do the croatans like the negroes, but the latter are very scarce in the settlement, which used to be known as "Seuffletown." This was a corruption Of Scoy file town, taking It's name from one of the early Croatans.
 Superintendent Edens declared that no children he had ever taught excelled these Croatan children in perception and good conduct, and that they were studious. obediept and responsive. The main difficulty is in language construc- ton.
 Fight For Their Rights.
 The artist and went to the home of Rhoda Lowery. whose husband, Henry Berry Lowery. defied the United States and the state during the year of 1870, Lowery's father wanted to join the i=a a..kA