More than 68 percent of its residents are American Indian, black or hispanic. Today, it is the most ethnically diverse county in the U.S. The area has also long been home to many Lumbee, a state-recognized American Indian tribe, with about 40 percent of Robeson County’s population identifying as Lumbee, according to the 2000 United States Census report. White families looking to put roots down in the latest frontier and free families of color who had left Virginia settled there throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Lumberton - and Robeson County as a whole - was a destination for settlers of all ethnic backgrounds. By comparison, those in Oxford, the second-most dangerous city in North Carolina, chances are one in 88 that you would become a victim of a violent crime.Īnd only an hour and a half away, in Pinehurst, N.C., residents have a one in 2,658 chance of becoming a victim of a violent crime.įounded in the Inner Banks region of North Carolina in 1787 by Officer John Willis after he fought in the American Revolution, Lumberton was a shipping point used for lumber by the Navy.
