County. Anson County's border stretched west to known Cherokee territory. Historical records are unclear as to which parts of Anson County were occupied by Indians in the early colonial period. A 1772 proclamation by the governor of North Carolina, Arthur Dobbs — derived from a report by his agent, Colonel Rutherford, head of a Bladen County militia — listed the names of inhabitants who took part in a "Mob Railously Assembled together," apparently defying the efforts of colonial officials to collect taxes. The proclamation declared the "Above list of Rogus is all living upon the Kings Land without title." A later colonial military survey described "50 families a mixt crew, a lawless People possess the Lands without Patent or paying quit Rents." The surnames of some of the families are the same as modern-day Lumbees, but each family must be traced separately to identify individual ancestors, particularly since extensive intermarriage took place. The families were classified then as "mulattos," a term that then had several different meanings. Today, it is most commonly used to describe mixed-race persons of African-European ancestry. However, at the time, the term was also used across the South to describe any non-white individual. Following the Reconstruction Era, white-dominated legislatures in the South imposed legal racial segregation. They required all non-white people or people of color to attend black schools in which most students were the children of freedmen. In 1885, Democratic state representative Hamilton McMillan supported an effort to gain separate schools for the Indian children in the state since they and their ancestors had always been free and refused to send their children to black schools. In making his case, McMillan wrote that Lumbee ancestor James Lowrie had received sizable land grants early in the century and, by 1738, possessed combined estates of more than 2,000 acres (810 ha). Adolph Dial and David Eliades claimed that another Lumbee ancestor, John Brooks, held the title to over 1,000 acres (400 ha) in 1735 and that Robert Lowrie gained possession of almost 700 acres (280 ha). However, a state archivist noted in the late 20th century that no land grants were issued during these years in North Carolina. The first documented land grants made to individuals claimed to be Lumbee ancestors did not take place until the 1750s, more than a decade later. None of the various petitions for federal recognition by the Lumbee people has relied