10:41pm August 5, 2013

➸ Senate Committee Approves Webb Bill to Recognize Virginia Indian Tribes

clatterbane:

Now, I don’t want to get started on serious ranting, but this is a pretty good example of Virginia’s special brand of crapitude.

The six tribes have received state recognition as early as 1983, and have received strong bipartisan support from the Virginia General Assembly for federal recognition.  Those affected by the Federal Recognition Act are (1) the Chickahominy Tribe; (2) the Chickahominy Indian Tribe – Eastern Division; (3) the Upper Mattaponi Tribe; (4) the Rappahannock Tribe, Inc.; (5) the Monacan Indian Nation; and (6) the Nansemond Indian Tribe.

As early as?!

I knew that it was fairly late that the Commonwealth of Virginia started even doing state recognition, but I didn’t actually know that they started that late. When I was born, Virginia officially had no Indians, on that level.

The Monacans are the only recognized tribe not on the coast near early colonization, and the only Siouan people so far. They finally got state recognition in 1989. I remember that. Against claims of no historical continuity, they basically ended up presenting the continuous pattern of abuse of their ancestors by Virginia on the basis that they were Monacan. They had the segregated schools, forced sterilizations, documentary genocide, etc. as evidence. 

Then there’s most of the rest of the list here: Powhatan Federation tribes—Pocahontas’ people—some of whom have managed to hold onto chunks of their old British Crown Reservations. And who still have to pay insulting symbolic rent to the Governor of Virginia:

The major duty of the chief is to pay the annual tribute to the Virginia Governor. This tribute consists of game, usually a deer, and pottery or a “peace pipe". It is a payment the tribe has been making since the treaty of 1646. Making this annual payment has not always been easy. Chief Miles remembers one year that was particularly hard, “We couldn’t find anything, no deer, no turkeys—nothing. My dad was chief then, and we knew we had to have something to present to the governor; so we went to a turkey farm, bought a live turkey, brought it back to the reservation and killed it. That way we were able to fulfill the terms of the treaty—after all it was killed on the reservation.“^[5] The Pamunkey pay tribute annually to uphold their part of the treaty. As far as anyone knows, they have not missed a payment in 331 years.

I have read the book that quote is from. They left out the bit where he expressly said that people were very concerned that they might actually lose the reservation if they couldn’t find any symbolic animals to hand over that one year. Based on their experience, I can totally understand that.

They have gotten the continuous abuse, as mentioned above, but they also did not have state recognition until the early 1980s. There are a bunch of folks who will probably never get it, because records were altered too thoroughly, etc. There’s also a lot of nasty lingering politics going on that I won’t even start into, but yeah.

Things have improved a lot, at least on the surface, but the Commonwealth of Virginia really has not done a lot to earn much trust from a hell of a lot of people.

And it’s a good reminder that diplomatic recognition doesn’t necessarily mean everything. Frankly, I prefer not to recognize the Commonwealth of Virginia’s legitimacy. Not that anybody else cares. ;) 

I am very glad that it looks like some tribes may finally get the federal recognition they’ve been seeking for a long time, though. 

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