This article provides details on a lawsuit
filed last year in U. S. District Court, District of Columbia, by
Roy Maynor, son of Lawrence Maynor, one of the Original 22. Roy Maynor
is a member of one of Robeson County’s Tuscarora groups. He is
suing the federal government and the state of North Carolina, asking
for $500 million in lost benefits for the descendants of the Original
22 and for the Tuscarora group, Skaroreh Katenuaka Nation and the
United Nations of Turtle Island.
The 1975 court decision Lawrence
Maynor v. Rogers C. B. Morton, 510 F.2d 1254, ruled that Lawrence
Maynor was eligible for benefits under the Indian Reorganization Act
in spite of the language in the 1956 Lumbee Act which made the Lumbees
ineligible for federal benefits normally provided to federally recognized
Indians (see The Lumbee Indians: an annotated bibliography,
item 1372 and items 749, 750, and 754).
Roy Maynor is also asking the federal
government to relinquish over 9,000 acres in south central Robeson
County that he believes belongs to descendants of the Original 22.
He also wants the return of artifacts and remains of Tuscarora Indians
uncovered by archaeological digs in Greene and Bertie Counties, North
Carolina. He requests that archaeological digs on Tuscarora sites
be halted.
Both the federal and North Carolina
governments assert that Maynor’s lawsuit should be dismissed.
North Carolina has filed a motion for the court to request a more
specific statement from Maynor of his allegations because “the
complaint is so vague and ambiguous that this defendant cannot reasonably
be required to frame an answer.”
Maynor believes the court will uphold
Maynor v. Morton. He is prepared to take his case as far as
necessary.
