Lumbee Kinship, Community, and the Success of the Red Banks Mutual Association

Abstract

through these years enduring economic hardship and associated calamities. For a number of Lumbees, the Indian values of kinship and community allowed them to operate the Red Banks Mutual Association (RBMA) from 1938 to 1968. The communal farm was the only exclusively Indian project of its kind and managed to outlast similar projects around the United States. The Lumbees, who had a tradition of individual landownership, not only employed the farm as economic relief but also used the RBMA to encourage cohesion