During the Civil War many Tuscarora and other Indians of Robeson County banded together under the leadership of Allen Lowry and hid in swamps along the Lumber River to avoid forced labor in the building of Confederate fortifications along the Cape Fear River. After the war, former Confederates under the name of Conservatives dominated the county government and began to retaliate against the Native Americans. With Lowry as leader, the new band of refugees started raiding the plantations of the Conservatives. In 1865 Allen Lowry and his oldest son, William, were executed as bandits, and leadership of the band passed to Henry Berry Lowry, Allen's youngest son.