Tag: State recognition

Legislation to recognize Virginia’s Appalachian Cherokee Nation carried over to 2015 session

By Bill Sizemore, The Virginian- Pilot

RICHMOND, Virginia — Maybe they needed a celebrity — say, someone like Wayne Newton — to make their pitch.

But they didn’t have one, and a delegation from Virginia’s Appalachian Cherokee Nation was sent away empty-handed last Monday in their quest for state recognition of their tribe.

Descendants of refugees from the famous “Trail of Tears” relocation in the 19th century, the Appalachian Cherokees have been seeking state recognition for three years.

The state’s imprimatur would help the tribe get grants to build a community health clinic and a home for homeless children in southwest Virginia, Gregory (Soaring Osprey) French of Virginia Beach, the group’s spokesman, told the House Rules Committee.

But state Sen. Kenny Alexander’s legislation (SJ87) to recognize the tribe was carried over to the 2015 General Assembly session after the committee chairman, House Speaker Bill Howell, R-Stafford County, expressed doubts about it.

“I’m just not sure that we’re ready today to do this,” Howell said.

Alexander, D-Norfolk, retorted in frustration: “This is the third year they’ve been asked to wait. At some point, you should just tell them to go home. Vote it up or vote it down.”

Howell assured Alexander the committee would resolve the matter after another year of study.

Alexander said after the vote he’ll take Howell at his word, but he’s not happy about it. “Every year they move the goal posts,” he said. “It’s not fair.”

Alexander compared the delegation’s reception Monday with the 2010 appearance in Richmond by Newton, the Las Vegas crooner, on behalf of legislation seeking recognition of his tribe, the Patawomecks.

That measure — sponsored by Howell — sailed through the Assembly after the “Danke Schoen” singer dazzled the committee with his profession of pride in his Native American heritage.

“That bill passed out of here in seconds,” Alexander groused.

Virginia now recognizes 11 Native American tribes. The Cherokees’ failure to win recognition has hindered the tribe from achieving its goals, French said.

French, a member of the tribal council, said his Cherokee ancestors have lived in Virginia for 500 years. The tribe has about 500 members, including 80 in Hampton Roads, but there are believed to be as many as 10,000 Cherokee descendants in Virginia, he said.

Thousands of Cherokees were living in the southern Appalachian region when the U.S. government forced them to migrate to Oklahoma in the 1820s and 1830s. That harsh 1,000-mile trek became known as the “Trail of Tears.”

There were fewer federal troops in Virginia to carry out the forced march than there were in North Carolina, French said, so many of the tribe’s Virginia members were able to avoid the relocation.

“The Virginia Cherokees hid out in the mountains,” he said. “We never left.”

Howell’s move to delay the recognition question for a year was prompted by a letter to the committee from William Leighty, a former chief of staff to Govs. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine. Warner and Kaine are now U.S. senators and Leighty is a Richmond-based consultant.

Leighty said he was speaking for himself as a student of Virginia history. He said he believes the state needs a more deliberative process for recognizing Native American tribes — one that includes a scholarly review of historical records.

“We need a more meaningful process than we have of just passing a resolution as if it was a championship basketball team,” he said.

Two Cherokee tribes seeking state recognition

By Chelyen Davis, http://news.fredericksburg.com

RICHMOND—On Friday, the Senate Rules Committee approved resolutions to grant state recognition to two different bands of Cherokee Indians in Virginia.

But no one on the committee, including the resolutions’ sponsors, could really explain how the two bands are different and distinct. No one spoke up to avow that the tribes met all the stringent criteria that used to be required for state recognition.

No one knew those things, in part, because there is no longer a Virginia Council on Indians to vet  tribes’ applications for state recognition. That’s why the two Cherokee tribes are going through the General Assembly for recognition.
A resolution from Sen. Steve Newman, R–Lynchburg,  grants state recognition to the United Cherokee Indian Tribe of

Virginia, known more commonly—according to his resolution—as the Buffalo Ridge Band of Cherokee.
Now based around Amherst, that tribe traces their roots back to Northumberland County on the Northern Neck. A House version of Newman’s bill was also approved by a committee on Thursday.

The other resolution comes from Sens. Jill Vogel, R–Winchester, and Kenny Alexander, D–Norfolk. It would grant state recognition to the Appalachian Cherokee Nation of Virginia—a tribe long based in the mountains of western and Southwest Virginia.

While the resolutions provide an outline of each tribe’s claims to state recognition, neither resolution could contain all the background documentation the council used to require. And both resolutions are careful to state that the “Commonwealth, by this resolution, does not address the question of whether the tribe has been continuously in existence since 1776,” which once was one of the many requirements for state recognition through the council.
The council had been responsible for vetting other tribes’ recognition efforts since 1983, when the General Assembly granted state recognition to eight tribes—a status that can offer tribes access to grants or standing to protest when, for example, their burial grounds are threatened.
The state then assigned to those tribes, through the Virginia Council on Indians, the task of vetting other tribes that wanted state recognition. Since then, just two tribes have won recognition through the council—the last in 1989.
Three years ago, aided by the star power of singer Wayne Newton, the General Assembly granted state recognition to the Stafford-based Patawomeck Indian Tribe as well as two others. All three tribes had applied to the council for recognition, only to be turned down for not meeting the strict criteria.
Tribes had to prove that their tribe existed in Virginia at the time Europeans made contact; that it has existed in some form ever since; and that it is a distinct group, among other requirements.
Such proof can be difficult for a tribe to gather, in part because racist state policies regarding Indians in the early 20th century led some to hide their heritage. For years, Indians could not identify themselves as such on vital records, like birth certificates—the state required them to declare themselves white or “colored.”
The Patawomecks had applied to the council for state recognition and been denied. Frustrated at what they felt was stonewalling, they turned to their  delegate, House Speaker Bill Howell, R–Stafford, who filed a bill in 2010 to grant them state recognition.
In General Assembly hearings that year, the already-recognized tribes protested, saying a rigorous vetting process for state recognition of tribes was necessary.
But lawmakers were frustrated by the council’s reluctance to accept new tribes, and passed the resolutions anyway.
At the time, lawmakers warned the council that it needed to revamp its vetting process for new tribes.
Instead, the VCI essentially went defunct. Minutes from meetings after that year show that over and over, no business was done because there weren’t enough tribe representatives there.
Finally, the state disbanded the council entirely.
“They weren’t a functioning commission, so we eliminated them,” said Sen. Steve Newman, R–Lynchburg, who has proposed one of the Cherokee resolutions.
Newman said the council was too tied to preserving the status quo, protecting the tribes it liked and refusing to consider others.
“They would be dismissive of the people who would come before them,” he said.
But the council’s dissolution leaves Virginia with nobody in charge of determining how tribes can qualify for state recognition.
Some senators on the Senate Rules committee expressed   concern with how the two Cherokee bands are different. Newman promised to get that question resolved before the resolution—now combining both Cherokee groups—gets to the full Senate next week.
Newman said he is satisfied with the Buffalo Ridge Cherokees’ claim. “I saw a lot of documentation” going back to the 1500s, he said.
But Newman also said that granting state recognition simply through legislative action is “not the best way to do it.”
He said the state needs to develop a policy and a set of rules for recognition.
If he and Vogel and Alexander can’t sort out the differences between the two Cherokee groups seeking recognition, their resolution may turn into a requirement for a more standardized policy to be developed over the next year.
“These things are so emotional. These people are very passionate about their history,” Newman said. “But no legislator has the time to delve into this.”