Rappahannock Chief Anne Richardson with Penelope Cobham during a recent visit to London to celebrate Jamestown's founding. SANG TAN/ View and ORDER more photos.

Upcoming Jamestown anniversary helping push federal recognition for Virginia tribes

Date published: 7/31/2006

By MICHAEL ZITZ

Concern that the state could be embarrassed when world attention focuses on Jamestown next year may help win federal recognition for American Indian tribes in Virginia that existed long before Pocahontas saved John Smith.

The celebration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Jamestown colony is expected to be a boon to tourism. But if American Indian tribes were to stage protests, positive impact might be diminished.

This may be motivating Congress to move on a bill to recognize the tribes while dealing with concerns that granting such status could lead to casino gambling, according to Robert Holsworth, a political scientist at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.

"Clearly, the 400th anniversary is adding a little bit of extra urgency to the congressional timetable," Holsworth said.

"I think there are many elected officials who'd prefer not to have a story about nonrecognition at the top of the news cycle" during the Jamestown celebration, he said.

Federal recognition would allow the tribes access to educational assistance grants, housing assistance and health-care services already available to most American Indians, according to Gary Garrison, a spokesman for the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington.

Garrison said the biggest hurdle to recognition usually is proving the roots of the tribes run deep, and that's not a problem in Virginia.

"These are first-contact tribes," he said--among the first to encounter the Europeans who came to America.

Members of six Virginia tribes--Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock, Monacan and Nansemond--attended a recent hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on a bill to recognize them. The measure could get further attention in Congress this week.

The bill was introduced by Virginia Sens. John Warner and George Allen. Allen noted that the Virginia tribes signed treaties with kings of England as early as the 1600s.

"Virginia's tribes have a long history--perhaps the longest relationship with any state government in the country," Warner said.

Date published: 7/31/2006