C O P Y

C O P Y

NORFOLK NEWSPAPERS, INC.

Norfolk 1, Virginia

February 12, 1948

Dear Mr. English:- I was snowed-in two days, Monday and Tuesday, in this the sunny South, accounting for the delay in answering you.

Your letter hit an enthusiastic vein in me on two counts especially (1) that you are a native of Kentucky (2) Hughes is interested. Your native background in mountain songs fits the Outlaws precisely. Mr. Hughes' background would coincide deeply with that of these Croatan Indians. He would be able to catch the tone of their sorrow, frustration, dashed hopes and so on better than any man I can think of. More about that point later. Briefly: Tell Mr. Hughes that these were free people who were caught up in a situation in which they were treated as slaves.

It is pronounced with the "K" as in skulk.

Various Lukes used different whistles as the signal, each used a bird call. I believe the most impressive one was a whip-poor-will. I'll have to remember some more about that. It was a long time ago.

If you have a feeling that a note of gaiety ought to be struck for balance, Steve could do it. Steve was a killer in the real sense. It might accentuate his killer character to have him remain one and still when in his cups burst into something gay. The departure for Texas might bring him to put the promised land into song, a Big Rock Candy Mountain of a Texas where everything was going to be wonderful. He might sweep all of them off their feet for the moment with his fancy.

If that piece were to prove very good, it could be brought back again at the climax. Steve might bring it back sarcastically after Henry commands the white man to leave. The song would be the last straw for June who would declare herself and in turn Steve would follow through as the killer.

Also please keep this in front of you. Treat these characters as you would Hatfields and McGoys. They represent actual persons. I never had any trouble from my own people or the Indians over the play. I did my best to explain the truth agreeably and we found that little, if anything, was lost in dramatic effect via that principle.

Let me hear more from you. Hurriedly.

/s/ W. N. Cox /s/

W. N. COX

THE SCUFFLETOWN OUTLAWS

*The Scuffletown Outlaws* has been a great favorite in The Playmakers' repertory. It concerns the same Lowrie family which Paul Green utilized in the earliest of his plays, *The Last of the Lowries*.¹ The idea came to the author, William Norment Cox, of Robeson County, North Carolina, on one of our annual Playmakers' tours of eastern North Carolina. "Bill" Cox was a member of the company, and he had not yet tried his hand at writing a play.

"Proff," he said to me, "I want to take you out over this Croatan section. There is a great play to be written here."

"Well, Bill," I said, "I guess *you'll* have to write it then."

He took me out into the country to the home of his old Scotch uncle, Frank MacKay, who recounted to us his experiences in the feud between the Scotch settlers and the famous Croatan band. It was a tale of thrilling adventure he had to tell. He still carried five buckshot in his back from the gun of the outlaw chieftain, Henry Berry Lowrie.

"There used to be *six*—but I had one of 'em taken out," he explained dryly.

"Why didn't you have the others taken out too, Uncle Frank?"

"That one was enough—that's why!"

Since his earliest childhood young Cox lived within a stone's throw of Scuffletown Swamp—the mysterious confines of this notorious gang of Indian outlaws. His forefathers were leaders in the campaign to exterminate them. A kinsman of his, Mr. Owen Norment, was shot down from ambush a few feet from his own doorstep, with his wife and children looking on; several other relatives were wounded in defending their homes against the ravages of the Lowrie clan.

¹ See p. 69.

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THE SCUFFLETOWN OUTLAWS

The Croatans have a romantic history. Their forefathers are thought to have absorbed Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony—the earliest English settlers in America, who had disappeared from Fort Raleigh, on Roanoke Island, North Carolina, by 1590. They migrated to the southwestern part of what is now Robeson County, and lived in peace with the Scotch settlers there, assuming many of their characteristics and adopting their language. This accounts for the Scotch influences in their speech.

The relations between the Colonists and the Croatans prior to the War between the States were peaceful and happy. They rebelled against being conscripted in the Confederate cause, and, under the leadership of the fearless young Henry Berry Lowrie, for ten years they waged a bitter warfare with their Scotch neighbors. Large rewards were offered for the capture of the bandits, fifty thousand dollars being set on Henry Berry alone—dead or alive.

Such inducements led to many plots for capturing him, the most famous being that hatched by John Sanders, a native of Nova Scotia, who won the confidence and affection of the tribe by two years' residence with them as a missionary. The play centers in the scheme of John Sanders to assist the Croatans in making their escape by night, in wagons, to the frontiers of Texas; his attempted betrayal of them; and his tragic death at the hands of Steve Lowrie, the meanest of the gang. John Sanders presents the most tragic figure in all the Lowrie history.

A year later we played Red Springs again, and "Bill" Cox's tragedy, *The Scuffletown Outlaws*, was included in the bill. The author himself played the part of the Lowrie chief, with uncanny sympathy and with grim reality. In the play he carried a gun which formerly belonged to Henry Berry Lowrie—given to the young Croatan chief by a deserting Union soldier, and taken from his dead body in Ashpole Swamp by the man who shot him, Dan Holcomb, who later traded it for a fiddle. On the stock of the gun are carved the initials "S. L." (Steve Lowrie) and "A. S." (Andrew or

THE SCUFFLETOWN OUTLAWS

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"Boss" Strong in the play), and there are three notches recording white men killed.

In the audience at Red Springs were Frank MacKay and others who recalled vividly the terror of the incident portrayed in the drama.

When I saw "Uncle Frank" after the performance I asked him how he liked Bill's play.

"It was fine, all right! But I guess it was too real for me. I could hardly sit through it."

The play really made a sensation, for the tradition of Henry Berry Lowrie is still fresh in the memory of the oldest inhabitants, and is well known throughout North Carolina.

The author has interpreted his materials with remarkable sincerity and with a breadth of sympathy unusual in a young writer. He himself says: "*The Scuffletown Outlaws* was written to throw a true light upon the deplorable condition which existed in Robeson County, North Carolina, immediately after the Civil War. The question is a delicate one and it is well-nigh impossible to present a just picture of the affair. I ask you not to condemn the *Croatan Indians* too harshly nor to sympathize with the good white people too freely. They were both right. The trouble was kept alive by a pyramiding of circumstances which the settlers as well as the outlaws would gladly have removed if there had been any way to accomplish a mutual settlement. I know the history of these people as well as any one living to-day can be expected to know it. This is my excuse for writing the play."

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THE SCUFFLETOWN OUTLAWS

The relations between the Colonists and the Croatans prior to the War between the States were peaceful and happy. They rebelled against being conscripted in the Con- federate cause, and, under the leadership of the fearless young Henry Berry Lowrie, for ten years they waged a bitter warfare with their Scotch neighbors. Large rewards were offered for the capture of the bandits, fifty thousand dollars being set on Henry Berry alone—dead or alive.

Such inducements led to many plots for capturing him, the most famous being that hatched by John Sanders, a native of Nova Scotia, who won the confidence and affection of the tribe by two years' residence with them as a mission- ary. The play centers in the scheme of John Sanders to assist the Croatans in making their escape by night, in wagons, to the frontiers of Texas; his attempted betrayal of them; and his tragic death at the hands of Steve Lowrie, the meanest of the gang. John Sanders presents the most tragic figure in all the Lowrie history.

THE SCUFFLETOWN OUTLAWS

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In the audience at Red Springs were Frank MacKay and others who recalled vividly the terror of the incident por- trayed in the drama.

## THE CHARACTERS

As originally produced by The Carolina Playmakers in Memorial Hall, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, December 4 and 5, 1924.

HENRY BERRY LOWRIE, chief of the Croatan Outlaws, (Bass-Boritone)

William Norment Cox

STEVE LOWRIE, Henry Berry's brother, (Boritone) Ted Wilson

RHODY, Henry Berry's wife, (Contralto) Louise Sawyer

JUNE, Henry Berry's niece, (Lyric Spano) Frances Gray

LUKE LOCKLEAR, a young Croatan, Lawrence Wallace

JOHN SANDERS, a white man from Nova Scotia, (Tenor)

Bob Proctor

JAMES McQUEEN, alias DONAHOE, a white man of Robeson

County, (Base) George Denny

SCENE: John Sanders' shanty, in Scuffletown, the settlement of the Croatan Outlaws. A swampy region of Robeson County, North Carolina.

### TIME:

* Scene 1. The evening of November 19th, 1870—about eight o'clock.

* Scene 2. The early morning of November 21st.

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## SCENE I

The scene is JOHN SANDERS' cabin in Scuffletown Swamp—the Croatan habitat. There is a barred door in the center of the rear wall, and to the left of it a small window with a solid board shutter. To the right, in the corner, is a cot piled with clothing, a knapsack, and other camp equipment. Down-stage on the right is a door, also securely barred. On the table in the center of the room are a Bible, several other books, and two guns. There are two splint-bottom chairs by the table. On the left down-stage is a rough fireplace made of sticks and red clay, with a hand-made bench in front of it. The room has a bare appearance as of hurried preparations for departure.

The rising curtain reveals HENRY BERRY LOWRIE, STEVE LOWRIE, and JOHN SANDERS. HENRY BERRY is about twenty-six years of age and five feet ten inches in height. He is a rugged man for his years—straight in the back, deep chested, his arms and shoulders well-set—a well-proportioned figure. His hazel-gray eyes dilate and flash when he is excited. A smile lights his face sometimes when he is quiet, but when he is aroused it becomes the smile of a demon. He is the clear-headed young leader of his tribe. He never betrays to his enemies his real feelings. His hair is straight and black, characteristic of the Croatan Indian. He wears calf skin boots, a woolen frock coat or blouse, breeches of the same material (or Salem or Kentucky jeans) and a wide-brimmed hat. He is seated by the table leisurely cleaning and wiping his Spencer rifle.

STEVE LOWRIE is sitting by the fireplace, carelessly struming his banjo. He has been drinking heavily and gazes sulLENLY into the fire. STEVE LOWRIE is six feet tall, thirty-four years of age, and weighs one hundred and seventy pounds. He has great muscular power and looks the Indian brigand more than any of the other members of the gang. He has heavy black hair and a dark thin moustache. The resentment of his race

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