Thread by @AzieDee

I’ve talked a bit about my family, the Pamunkey tribe’s historic anti-blackness, and the enrollment case for which we have enlisted the help of Congresswoman @RepGwenMoore and a tribal lawyer, but now I want to take time to explain the whole story.

First off, here is an article with an interview with my cousin Jasmine Anderson that will provide a lot of background. It’s two pages,
FYI

m.richmondfreepress.com/news/2020/feb/…

The Pamunkey are a tribe in Virginia. We are the tribe of Pocahontas and Chief Powhatan, first contact with the English at Jamestown. At that time we were a Confederacy of over 30 independently governed tribes in villages and cities in what is currently MD/VA/NC.

Our reservation was esta in 1658. Our treaties were w England (Virginia Colony) and we have always been recognized by the English crown. However, we do not have treaties with the US govt, so we had to apply for federal recognition. It took 30 years, and recognition came in 2015.

During the recognition process, the Congressional Black Caucus found out that the Pamunkey had a tribal law (still on the books) that forbid intermarriage with Black people. They said it should make them ineligible for recognition.

indiancountrytoday.com/archive/pamunk…

Tribal leadership at the time told Congress that this law was obsolete but they just never got around to formally voting on amending it until 2012 (in reality it was August 2014).

It’s important to note, several years prior they *had* formally voted out a law from the same time (it appears right after to the anti-black one) that said white husbands of Pamunkey women could not claim land on the reservation.

So why leave the anti-black law standing? 🤔

We also have proof (from the Virginia Governor’s office) that the tribe had been using the law to exclude the black-mixed children of tribal members up into the 1990s and well into the 2000s.

Let me explain the reason behind the law. As all East Coast tribes, Pamunkey have been in contact with white and black people since 1619. Of course there has been some mixing. They were even known to harbor runaway enslaved people.

The white people in Virginia wanted to land-grab from Native tribes so they would accuse them of being mulattos or black people so that they could justify taking their land and sovereignty.

First case was the Gingaskin (Accomack). They had a 650 acre reservation. The white neighbors thght they didn’t farm the land enough, so they legally accused the tribe of not being “real Indians” bc some were mixed w free blacks. Virginia officially terminated the tribe in 1813.

The Gingaskin was the first instance of termination or legal allotment of reservation lands and detribalization in US history. And it was all based on the idea that mixing with Black people made a tribe less legitimate. Though Native mixing with whites was encouraged.

Natives mixing with Black people was a threat to the settler state. The two communities aligning was a frightening prospect for obvious reasons. White people were in constant fear of uprisings. For example:

On the other hand, Natives mixing with white people furthered the settler state. It meant assimilation to white ways and opportunities for white men to own Native land. For exp, the Cherokee’s entree into the Black slave trade was thru rich white men who married into their tribe

After the Gingaskin case, you can find instances up and down the East Coast where white townspeople were using this tactic - petitioning local governments to take Native land on the basis that the tribe was too black.

Tribes had to find friendly white people to state their cases in court with defenses like “I’ve never seen them associate with a Negro! They would never!” And “Yes they are dark but they have straight hair!” Looking at these court documents is just horrifying.

Some Native communities, like the Narragansett in RI, took a hard stance and were like “Yes we are mixed with black people, who you brought here and enslaved, but we offered friendship to, but that does NOT make us less indigenous.”

providencejournal.com/opinion/202008…

But Southern racism made it much harder. First off, I gotta say, Southern white people couldn’t tell us a part. I know that’s a joke - white people thinking we all look a like.

But literally, when Ulysses S Grant brought his secretary Ely Parker from the Seneca nation (upstate NY, no black ancestry) to a meeting with General Lee (yes that one), Lee wouldn’t shake his hand because he thought he was a black man.

In response to the fear of tribal termination and losing their land, the Pamunkey and other Virginia tribes found it necessary to draw a hard line between themselves and the black community during Jim Crow. That is the reason for the law.

If a Pamunkey married or had a kid with black person, or associated black people they were disenrolled and banished. They also a purged reservation forcing people who were too dark to leave. They documented this in their fed rec petition to the BIA as proof of their purity, btw.

My family was no more mixed or not mixed than other Pamunkeys. However, we had a prominent family member who elected to VA legislature during Reconstruction. He gave some of his own land to create a school for newly freed blacks in the area. That was considered crossing a line.

So my family understands what happened that led us to be disenrolled. However, we’ve maintained community and cultural contact as much as possible. You have to understand that what started as self-preservation, became ingrained racism. It’s been hideous how we’ve been treated.

Back to our case. While the tribe was up for federal recognition, they had to close enrollment. Part of the process is proving your members are all connected to historically identified tribal people. So they couldn’t enroll new members while conducting the fed recognition process

My cousin Jasmine was the first to attempt to enroll. This was strategic. She is very light skinned and has been accepted socially by tribal communities in Virginia. We are all very involved in Indian Country, but she thought her acceptability would make it easier.

The former chief Kevin Brown met with her and was fully aware of our tribal connection. He said he was committed to righting this historical injustice and enrolling our family after the recognition process was over.

But that chief was not re-elected.

The tribal genealogist and historian was also made aware and confirmed our genealogy. As does the Library of Virginia and these scholars in their books:
Africans and Native Americans by Jack Forbes, 1981
That the Blood Stay Pure by Arica Coleman, 2013

The tribe’s criteria for enrollment now is a 1900/1910 census. Of course, this census was made after the purge and the anti-black law. So our people were no longer living on tribal land.

When we were told we did not meet the criteria by the new council, we enlisted the help of Congresswoman Gwen Moore and a private lawyer who works in tribal law.

Congresswoman Moore put pressure on tribal leadership, as did many of our enrolled cousins and other tribal members. Our argument was “you should not use a roll that was made after the anti-black laws because that is further discrimination”.

Today my cousin received a letter from the tribe. They amended enrollment criteria. A person can establish ancestry to any of the historical Pamunkey listed in their petition to the BIA for federal recognition. This would be prior to the 1900/1910 rolls (approx 1787-1843).

Remember, as a non-treaty tribe Pamunkey don’t have 19th/18th C. enumerated rolls. So the list given to the @USIndianAffairs of Pamunkey 1787-1843 was made to prove the ancestry of the *current members*. It’s an older set of people from the same families as the 1900/1910 rolls.

The tribe used records of the founding of a Pamunkey church. My direct ancestors are on those docs as church founders but for *some reason* don’t appear on the list of historical Pamunkey given to @USIndianAffairs So tribal leadership knows we aren’t on the BIA’s official list.

I fully support tribal sovereignty. I believe Native identity is community-based, it’s not about who you claim, but who claims you. So coming out against my own tribe is hard for me. But this is not an issue of sovereignty. This is racial discrimination and frankly, it’s fraud.

When I was younger and I learned about all of this I asked my mom “WHY are we Pamunkey?! Can we be ANY OTHER TRIBE PLEASE?!” It was just a juvenile thing to say but honestly, I’ve never felt it more than today.

A few weeks ago, the current Pamunkey Chief Robert Gray posted a picture of himself and a few members at a BLM rally @blmrva. This hurt and angered me.

They recently bought land for a casino in a majority Black part of Richmond, VA. Yet this is how they treat Black relatives.

*To clarify: We were a tribe within the Powhatan Confederacy. Wahunsenacau (Powhatan) united over 30 tribes and was the paramount Chief. He was Pamunkey.