BERRYVILLE VA - Members of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina are showing up in solidarity for this new movement in humanity, called "The Gathering" held in Northern Virginia. The executive director, arena director, drum singers, several dancers, and a few special guests originate from North Carolina's Lumbee Tribe, largest Native American Tribe east of the Mississippi River.
     On Oct. 21-22 Lumbee Indians and other Native American Indigenous people from the four directions will converge here in the Shenandoah Valley, along with thousands of visitors to celebrate the fall harvest with dance and music through community.

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ABOUT THE LUMBEE.
     "​We come from Siouan tribes, most prominent were the Cheraw and Keyauwee," said Rene' Locklear White, executive director for The Gathering. 
     "State officials recognized us as Indian in 1885," Rene said.  "During the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, Indian agents attempted to resettle us. Our people had grown in solidarity, even though remnants of our ancestral languages faded by 1939. Then, in 1956 (only 61 years ago), Congress passed the Lumbee Act and we all received the name “Lumbee.’”  We became a new tribe a conglomerate of Indigenous branches grafted into one tree, connected by Spirit."

     The Spirit of The Gathering 2017 calls all people into "one hoop," "a new tribe" to celebrate humanity. The Gathering is Oct. 21-22 at the Clarke County Fairgrounds in Berryville, Va. 
​     Events like The Gathering provide the means of preserving a heritage valuable to all. 
     Group and individual discounted advance tickets are available online. General Admission is $7, Kidz age 4 and Under FREE. Funds generated from this event go towards scholarships for dancers and musicians.

     H.R. 2352 BILL, when passed, will amend the Lumbee Recognition Act of June 7, 1956, to extend federal recognition to the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina and make its members eligible for the services and benefits provided to members of federally recognized tribes.
     ​Several members of the Lumbee Tribe participate in The Gathering, an education celebration of agr-culture held in Northern Virginia.

HB 814 Secretary of the Commonwealth; powers and duties; creation of a Virginia Indian advisory board. Authorizes the Secretary of the Commonwealth to establish a Virginia Indian advisory board to assist the Secretary in reviewing applications seeking recognition as a Virginia Indian tribe and to make recommendations to the Secretary, the Governor, and the General Assembly on such applications and other matters relating to recognition. The bill sets out the membership and powers and duties of any Virginia Indian advisory board established by the Secretary of the Commonwealth.

By Joe Heim, Washington Post

A group challenging federal recognition of Virginia’s renowned Pamunkey Indian tribe has lost its case before the Interior Board of Indian Appeals.

The decision, which was made Thursday but not widely shared until Monday, removes the final legal hurdle standing in the way of the Pamunkeys’ decades-long quest to attain the coveted federal status.
The tiny tribe east of Richmond, which claims Pocahontas as an ancestor, will now receive all of the benefits and rights of federally recognized tribes. It can, if it chooses, pursue casino gambling in a state that has long opposed it — something that the tribe has considered in the past.

[Pamunkey Indians wanted to open Virginia’s first casino]

The Pamunkey tribe applauded the quick ruling in a statement released through its lawyer, Mark Tilden.

“The tribe never doubted that its final determination would become final and effective, though it is pleased that the IBIA was able to reach final resolution so quickly,” the statement read. “The tribe can now move forward in its new chapter as a federally-recognized Indian tribe.”

Tribal leaders had worried that the challenge by Stand Up for California, a small nonprofit opposed to unlimited expansion of tribal gaming, would mean a delay that could last years. Instead, it lasted a few months.

In July, the Pamunkey became the first Virginia tribe to win federal recognition from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. The 200-member tribe celebrated the hard-won victory, but the jubilation was short-lived. In October, recognition was put on hold when Stand Up for California, which seeks to impose stricter guidelines for tribal recognition, issued a last-minute challenge to the Pamunkey decision.

Stand Up for California’s founder, Cheryl Schmit, had teamed up with casino giant MGM in 2014 to oppose the Pamunkey’s attempts to gain recognition. MGM, which is opening the $1.3 billion National Harbor casino and resort in Maryland’s Prince George’s County later this year, has voiced opposition to any casinos being built in neighboring Virginia.
[A famed Virginia tribe seeks federal recognition amid casino fears]
In its October challenge, Stand Up argued that the Pamunkey did not meet requirements for recognition, saying that current tribe members are not descended from Indians and that there were questions about whether the tribe operated as a functioning political entity.


But in its ruling, the Indian appeals board said that Stand Up had no standing to challenge the tribe’s new status. “Stand Up,” it said, “fails to articulate any type of factual interest that we believe was intended to be covered by the acknowledgment regulations, nor does Stand Up allege that it is adversely affected by the Assistant Secretary’s determination to acknowledge the tribe.”

The board also disagreed with Stand Up’s assertions that federal recognition for the Pamunkey tribe would have “significant impacts to the state and local government jurisdictions, surrounding communities, property owners, businesses, Indian and non-Indian individuals, and federally-recognized Indian tribes as well.”
Stand Up’s Schmit said Monday that she knew that her group’s standing to mount the challenge was always going to be a tough argument to make, but she doesn’t believe the objections were in vain. The arguments that she raised about the tribe’s eligibility will be available, she said, to other groups or individuals with standing who may want to challenge future actions taken by the tribe.
With the resolution of the recognition question, the Pamunkey becomes the 567th federally recognized tribe. An additional 356 tribes, including six from Virginia, are seeking federal recognition, and the money for housing, education and health care that comes with it.

Hon. James. P. Moran Congressional Record
Introduction of the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes Of Virginia Federal Recognition Act :
quoted article

    "Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act. This is the sixth time I have introduced legislation that would grant federal recognition to six Indian tribes in Virginia: the Chickahominy, the Eastern Chickahominy, the Upper Mattaponi, the Rappahannock, the Monacan, and the Nansemond.
    Similar measures passed the House and the Senate Indian Affairs Committee during the 110th and 111th Sessions of Congress. Unfortunately, both measures were ultimately defeated when the objections of a few Senators were not overridden.   

The impasse in Congress and the demeaning and dysfunctional acknowledgement process at the Bureau of Indian Affairs only com-pound the grave injustices this legislation seeks to redress. It also compels me to continue this cause and reintroduce this legislation today. The injustices extend back in time for hundreds of years, back to the establishment of the first permanent English settlement in America at Jamestown. For the Members of these tribes are the descendents of the great Powhatan Confederacy who greeted the English and provided food and assistance that ensured the settlers’ early survival.
    Four years ago, America celebrated the 400th anniversary of the settlement of James-town. But it was not a celebration for Native American descendents of Pocahontas, for they have yet to be recognized by our federal government. Unlike most Native American tribes that were officially recognized when they signed peace treaties with the federal government, Virginia’s six Native American tribes made their peace with the Kings of England. Most notable among these was the Treaty of 1677 between these tribes and King Charles II. This treaty has been recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia every year for the past 334 years when the Governor accepts tribute from the tribes in a ceremony now celebrated at the Commonwealth Capitol. I had the honor of attending the one of what I understand is the longest celebrated treaty recognition ceremony in the United States.
    The forefathers of the tribal leaders who gather on Thanksgiving in Richmond were the first to welcome the English, and during the first few years of settlement, ensured their survival. Had the tribes not assisted those early settlers, they would not have survived. Time has not been kind to the tribes, however. As was the case for most Native American tribes, as the settlement prospered and grew, the tribes suffered. Those who resisted quickly be-came subdued, were pushed off their historic lands, and, up through much of the 20th Century, were denied full rights as U.S. citizens. Despite their devastating loss of land and population, the Virginia tribes survived, preserving their heritage and their identity. Their story of survival spans four centuries of racial hostility and coercive state and state-sanctioned actions.
    The Virginia tribes’ history, however, diverges from that of most Native Americans in two unique ways. The first explains why the Virginia tribes were never recognized by the federal government; the second explains why congressional action is needed today. First, by the time the federal government was established in 1789, the Virginia tribes were in no position to seek recognition. They had already lost control of their land, withdrawn into isolated communities and stripped of most of their rights. Lacking even the rights granted by the English Kings, and our own Bill of Rights, federal recognition was nowhere within their reach.
    The second unique circumstance for the Virginia tribes is what they experienced at the hands of the Commonwealth government during the first half of the 20th Century. It has been called ‘‘paper genocide.’’ At a time when the federal government granted Native Americans the right to vote, Virginia’s elected officials adopted racially hostile laws targeted at those classes of people who did not fit into the dominant white society, and with fanatical efficiency, altered and destroyed the records of Virginia’s Native Americans. Virginia’s political elite sought to expunge the records of anyone other than themselves who could hold the claim that they were the descendent of Pocahontas. Pocahontas’ marriage to John Rolfe created an uncomfortable circumstance for John Rolfe’s descendents who populated Virginia’s aristocratic elite and who maintained that all non-whites were part of ‘‘the inferior Negroid race.’’

    With great hypocrisy, Virginia’s ruling elite pushed policies that culminated with the enactment of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. This act directed Commonwealth officials, and zealots like Walter Plecker, to destroy Commonwealth and local courthouse records and reclassify in Orwellian fashion all non-whites as ‘‘colored.’’ It targeted Native Americans with a vengeance, denying Native Americans in Virginia their identity.
    To call oneself a ‘‘Native American’’ in Virginia was to risk a jail sentence of up to one year. In defiance of the law, members of Virginia’s tribes traveled out of state to obtain marriage licenses or to serve their country in wartime. The law remained in effect until it was struck down in federal court in 1967. In that intervening period between 1924 and 1967, Commonwealth officials waged a war to destroy all public and many private records that affirmed the existence of Native Americans in Virginia. Historians have affirmed that no other state compares to Virginia’s efforts to eradicate its citizens’ Indian identity.
    All of Virginia’s state-recognized tribes have filed petitions with the Bureau of Acknowledgment seeking federal recognition. But it is a very heavy burden the Virginia tribes will have to overcome, and one fraught with complications that officials from the bureau have acknowledged may never be resolved in their lifetime. The acknowledgment process is already expensive, subject to unreasonable delays, and lacking in dignity. Virginia’s paper genocide only further complicates these tribes’ quest for federal recognition, making it difficult to furnish corroborating state and official documents and aggravating the injustice already visited upon them.
    It was not until 1997, when Governor George Allen signed legislation directing Commonwealth agencies to correct their records, that the tribes were given the opportunity to correct official Commonwealth documents that had deliberately been altered to list them as ‘‘colored.’’ The law allows living members of the tribes to correct their records, but the law cannot correct the damage done to past generations or to recover documents that were purposely destroyed during the ‘‘Plecker Era.’’ In 1999, the Virginia General Assembly adopted a resolution calling upon Congress to enact legislation recognizing the Virginia tribes. I am pleased to have honored that re-quest, and beginning in 2000 and in subsequent sessions, Virginia’s Senators and I have introduced legislation to recognize the Virginia tribes.
    There is no doubt that the Chickahominy, the Eastern Chickahominy, the Monacan, the Nansemond, the Rappahannock and the Upper Mattaponi tribes exist. These tribes have existed on a continuous basis since be-fore the first European settlers stepped foot in America. They are here with us today. But the federal government continues to act as if they do not.
    I know there is resistance in Congress to grant any Native American tribe federal recognition. And I can appreciate how the issue of gambling and its economic and moral dimensions has influenced many Members’ perspectives on tribal recognition issues. The six Virginia tribes are not seeking federal legislation so that they can build casinos. Under this legislation they cannot engage in gaming. The bill prohibits gambling on their lands. They find gambling offensive to their moral beliefs. They are seeking federal recognition because it is an urgent matter of justice and because elder members of their tribes, who were denied a public education and the economic opportunities available to most Americans, are suffering and should be entitled to the federal health and housing assistance available to federally recognized tribes.
    To underscore this point, the legislation includes language that would prevent the tribes from engaging in gaming on their federal land even if everyone else in Virginia were allowed to engage in Class III casino-type gaming.
    In the name of decency, fairness and humanity, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and bring closure to centuries of in-justice Virginia’s Native American tribes have experienced."

Chief Earl Bass of Nansemond plans to attend The Gathering scheduled for Oct. 30 - Nov. 1.

The Nansemond are a Virginia State recognized Tribe. They are not Federally recognized but are one of six Virginia tribes without reservations that are included in a bill for Federal recognition under consideration by the United States Congress.

The 2016 Nansemond Powwow is August 20th & 21st.

Most members of the tribe live in the Suffolk/Chesapeake, Virginia area.

At the time of European encounter, the historic Nansemond tribe spoke one of the Algonquian languages

The Chickahominy and Chickahominy Eastern Division are among several Virginia Indian Tribes that received state recognized in the 1980s. Learn more about them at The Gathering.

Chickahominy Tribe
Coarse Pounded Corn People. The Chickahominy Tribe is located in Charles City County, Virginia, midway between Richmond and Williamsburg, near where the tribe lived in 1600

Chickahominy Tribe Eastern Division
Last of the eight state-recognized tribes in Virginia to own land. The Chickahominy Tribe Eastern Division is located 25 miles east of Richmond in New Kent County, Virginia.

Take the Virginia Indian Heritage Trail. Read more online in this landmark publication created by members of the Virginia tribes and edited by Kareene Wood. Learn more at Virginia Humanities.