Will Senate Vote to Honor State Tribes?

Federal recognition of six Virginia Indian tribes has been lingering in Congress for nearly two decades. Among the six are the Monacan Indian Nation based at the foot of Bear Mountain in Amherst County.

The tribes are one step closer to receiving federal recognition after years of battling one problem or another in pursuit of that elusive goal. It’s the same recognition that has been granted to nearly 600 other tribes around the United States.

Federal legislation introduced by Virginia Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner passed the Senate Indian Affairs Committee earlier this month and now awaits a vote in the full U.S. Senate.

“The fact that they’ve never been recognized is a real injustice,” Kaine said. The six tribes have a “long and well-known history but have been uniquely disadvantaged because they have never been federally recognized,” Kaine added.

The six tribes were recognized in 1983 by the Commonwealth of Virginia. The other five tribes are the Chickahominy, the Eastern Chickahominy, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock and Nansemond.

It’s been more than 20 years since then as the Monacans and others have fought to demonstrate they deserve the recognition. The Monacans have lived in Central Virginia for thousands of years and today base their headquarters near Bear Mountain, where an Indian mission was established in 1908. That mission provided a church and a school for the Monacan community.

In 1924, the General Assembly passed Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act, which made it even more difficult for the Monacans and other tribes to establish a historical identity. The law classified a person born in Virginia as either “white” or “colored” and the marriage and birth records of tribal peoples were altered accordingly. The result was that their Indian ancestry was made null and void.

Kaine alluded to that history in a speech on the Senate floor last week when he referred to the roadblocks thrown into the struggle for recognition. “It’s an amazing story, but it is also a deeply tragic story,” he said. “But the tragedy can be redeemed if Congress acts to correct a gross historical injustice that has deprived these tribes of their rightful place.”

He pointed to the irony of the struggle that exists just a few blocks from the Capitol in the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Inside the museum is a permanent exhibit chronicling the history of Virginia tribes. “While we recognize the tribes in a museum three blocks from the Capitol, we will not, we have not, we do not yet recognize these tribes in law,” Kaine told his Senate colleagues.

Federal recognition is important because it would make the people of the tribes eligible for federal grants through the Bureau of Indian Affairs in such areas as education, health care and other areas that could improve their lives and livelihoods. Other tribes around the nation have been recognized and are receiving those benefits. Such recognition has been called a profound action for the Virginia tribes.

In 2011, a Senate committee approved a bill recognizing the Virginia tribes, but it never received a full Senate vote. The measure has passed the full House twice and President Obama has indicated he would sign it.

The Monacans and other Virginia tribes deserve the federal recognition that has been part of their struggle for nearly two decades. A positive vote in the Senate can deliver that long-awaited recognition.

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