Location: 751 North U.S. Hwy. 421, Clinton, NC
County: Sampson
Original Date Cast: 2023
In 1868, the North Carolina legislature passed “Ch.184 Sec.32: AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR A SYSTEM OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION” which provided for schools for Whites, Blacks, and Indians, but the section on Indians seems to have applied only to the Cherokee in the western mountains and not to the Indian people of the rest of the state. When the state’s eastern counties with Native communities set up their school systems, they invariably created schools only for Whites and Blacks and expected all non-whites to attend the Black schools. To the Indian people, this was unacceptable.
By 1887, the Indian people of Robeson County had been designated as Croatan Indians, and provided with a normal school in Pembroke for the purpose of training the young people as teachers for the Indian schools that had been established in Robeson County. As word of the new official Indian school spread to other Indian communities, requests were made to establish similar institutions in multiple counties. Appropriate laws were passed by the General Assembly creating these schools specifically for Indian students. Sampson County had two established Indian schools by 1910 with a third, Holly Grove following by 1920. All three of these initially served as space for both school and church in the local community. Most of the resources for the Indian schools were still provided by the parents, although with assistance from the Sampson County Board of Education. These were all “grade schools” usually going through the eighth grade, with no provision for any high school level classes.
Due to a disagreement between the school committee and the County School Board over the eligibility of a local family to send its children to the New Bethel Indian School, the Sampson County School Board closed the Indian school in 1913. It appears that it continued to run as a “colored” school until 1916. The 1917 law providing for the school reads in part as follows: “The General Assembly of North Carolina do enact: That all of the Croatan Indian children of school age residing in that territory or section in Sampson County designated and allotted to the Shiloh Indian School District shall be assigned to Shiloh Indian School of Dismal Township, and all Croatan children of school age residing in that territory or section in Sampson County designated and allotted to New Bethel Indian School District shall be apportioned to New Bethel Indian School of Herrings Township….”
It became clear to many Indian parents in Sampson County that a grade school education which ended at grade 7 or 8 was not sufficient for their children. Indian parents in Sampson County began to advocate for a system that would provide a high school education for their children. At the March 1929 session of the State Legislature, Representative James L. Hines of Sampson County introduced House Bill 1193 “To Provide High School Education for Indians of Sampson County.”
After the passage of the law, a limited number of high school classes were taught at the New Bethel Indian School, which was still sharing facilities with the New Bethel Church. Space was limited, and the county assisted the Indians to add a small log building to increase space.
In March 1941, the legislature stepped in to assist the Indians of eastern North Carolina who were lacking high school facilities. It passed “An Act to Provide Better Educational Advantages for members of the Indian Race in Eastern North Carolina Not Otherwise Provided For.” The act provided for the establishment of a school to address the educational needs of the Indian children of Sampson, Hoke, Scotland, Cumberland, Bladen, Person, and Harnett Counties beyond the grade levels offered in the Indian schools in those counties, which did not provide education beyond the 11th grade and in some cases not beyond elementary school. The act contained seven sections establishing the organization of a Board of Trustees and allocated $15,000 towards the establishment of the East Carolina Indian School (also known officially as the East Carolina Indian Training School) (ECIS). The Indian communities in these seven counties would today make up the Sappony, Waccamaw-Siouan, and several other communities of Indians who were at the time unaffiliated with any of the larger tribes and would have simply been identified as “Croatans.” In this the school was unique and unlike any other in the state. Eventually even the Indians residing in Columbus County were allowed to attend once they obtained official Indian grade schools.
Construction on the new building, an eight-room cinder block structure, did not begin until early 1943. The school had no running water or indoor toilets, no electric lights, and no heat in the winter. The school would not get electricity until after May 6, 1944, when the School Board voted to have it wired “if funds were available in the budget, and if the line is extended by the site.”
Plumbing was not added until after the School Board voted to approve it at their August 6, 1945, meeting. The actual site consisted of approximately 2.5 acres purchased on March 4, 1942, from Henry and Madge Vann for $375. It was located in Herring’s Township on N.C. Highway 421, roughly one mile east of the old New Bethel School. The land was deeded to the North Carolina State Board of Education, not Sampson County, another point that set ECIS apart.
By the Spring of 1943, the building was nearing completion, and Saturday May 1, 1943, was chosen as the day to dedicate it and Gov. J. Melville Broughton was to speak. For a short time, it was called the “New Bethel High School”, but that name eventually was replaced by East Carolina Indian School.
With the advent of integration in the early 1960s and specifically the integration struggle involving the Harnett County Indians in 1960-64 (brought on in part because of the 35-mile ride one way to ECIS and the perception that the school facilities and teachers were not of good quality) an increasing number of parents at ECIS began to believe that the best route to take to improve their children’s educational experience was to advocate for integration.
By January 1963, a suit had been filed in U.S. District Court on behalf of students at ECIS, naming the Sampson County School Board as defendants, and requesting that the students be transferred to one of seven all-White schools. Later that year the county settled, allowing 7 Indian students to enroll in Sampson County high schools, and 7 in the Clinton high school. In addition, all Indian students who made proper registration prior to the 1964-65 school year would be granted transfers as requested. The 1964-65 school year would be the last full year of instruction for the historic institution that served so many Indian youth across Eastern North Carolina.
Although the career of ECIS ended as a school for the Indian people of the area, it continued to play an important role in the community, both as the main campus for Sampson Technical Institute in the late 1960s and now as tribal office and gathering place for the annual pow-wow of the Coharie Tribe. It has and continues to play a vital role in bringing the Indian people together and reminding the citizens of the region, both Native and non-Native, of the long and unique heritage and history of the original people of this land.
References:
2022 Coharie Tribal Pow-Wow Program, “About the People.”
C.D. Brewington. The Five Civilized Indian Tribes of Eastern North Carolina (1958).
Morris F. Britt. Implosion: The Secret History of the Lumbee Indians of Robeson County, North
Carolina (2017).
Karen Blu. The Lumbee Problem: The Making of an American Indian People (Cambridge University Press, 1980).
George Butler. The Croatan Indians of Sampson County, North Carolina: Their Origin and Racial Status: A Plea for Separate Schools (1916).
Thomas E. Ross. American Indians In North Carolina: Geographic Interpretations (1999).