A long road to recognition

We learned about the Pamunkey tribe in the last post and how they obtained treaties with the English that were designed to protect them, their homelands and their way of life while amicably providing the English land on which they could settle. This would eventually end in the settlers deciding the tribe didn't really have the rights they thought they had allowing the settlers to take land away from the tribe and give it to members of the English community, which included one of Sharon's ancestors.

Given this plain description, you might get the idea that the English dealt rather faithlessly with the Pamunkeys, and you wouldn't be entirely wrong. But we have to remember that the Europeans and Native Americans held differing views on land ownership.

To the Pamunkey and the other tribes of Virginia at the time, the land they claimed belonged to the group, not the individual. Heads of families were granted the use of a plot of land by the chief and the tribal council. They had developed farming about 700 years before the English showed up, clearing land for agricultural use and preserving other area for hunting, trapping and fishing. 

One article I read noted that their techniques and stewardship of the land have continued to this day and the sections of the river they control are regularly the cleanest and most populated by fish of any area in the state. They even moved their fields every 10 years to allow cultivated fields to recover.

A head of family "owned" or controlled a plot only as long as it was actively farmed. Failure to farm the land meant that it was available to anyone for hunting and gathering. The English thought that when they "bought" the land, they owned it and could do whatever they wanted, including not using portions of the land at all. 

When the Native Americans saw the land lying fallow, they figured they could hunt, trap, etc. The English thought they were trespassing, which inevitably led to conflicts, some violent, that escalated to wars. You desire and do not have; you murder and are filled with envy, and are not able to obtain; you fight and quarrel, as some fellas named James once said. You could also say, you refuse to try to understand someone's culture, try to impose your own, and wind up fighting as a result. 

In the 18th century, many of the Tidewater area tribes lost their lands. In the 1800s only four reservation tribes survived -- the Mataponi, Gingaskin, Nottoway and Pamunkey, and they were under pressure to dissolve their reservations. This would end their relationship to the state of Virginia, and the land would be divided up among the tribal members. The Pamunkey declined the offer and continued to struggle to maintain their identity and way of life. 

In the second decade of the 20th century, Virginia passed laws that banned interracial marriage and defined who could be considered White. To be White, you have no African ancestry at all, and everybody else was considered to be "colored," including Native Americans. According to Encyclopedia Virginia, "... elite Virginians who claimed Pocahontas and John Rolfe as ancestors" could be considered White as long as they had one-sixteenth or less of American Indian blood and no other non-Caucasion ancestry. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the main law, the Racial Integrity Act, close to 40 years later. 

In the late 1970s and early '80s, the Pamunkey began fighting for formal recognition from the state, though one state site I looked says the Pamunkey have always been recognized. Still the Virginia General Assembly passed a resolution recognizing the Pamunkey and five other tribes. Two more tribes were recognized in separate actions in the mid- to late 1980s.

In 2009, the U.S. government began the process for the Pamunkey to receive federal recognition, which was attained in 2015. Given the state laws that denied them the ability to intermarry, it's a bit ironic that the process for federal recognition involved the tribe repealing it's own tribal law that banned its members from marrying African Americans, which was enacted to try to preserve tribal identity.

I mentioned Pocahontas. Her father, Powhatan as we know him, led a coalition of tribes who encountered the English when they founded Jamestown. You've probably heard of both of them at some point, either in your school history books or popular movie betrayals. The Pamunkey claim father and daughter as their own, and Powhatan is buried on Pamunkey reservation land.

By the way, whatever you know about them, Powhatan and Pocahontas have complex stories that bear only passing resemblance to what you were taught. Unless you're a die-hard history buff, it would be worth your while to read more about them. The National Parks website has a good introductory piece. Encyclopedia Virginia has some good articles as well.

Image: Portrait of Pocahontas engraved by Simon van de Passe in 1616. The Pamunkey claim Pocahontas and her father, Powhatan, as their own. Powhatan led a confederacy of tribes that included the Pamunkey, one of the largest and most influential tribes of the coalition.