Red tape separates Indian tribes from federal cash

Hundreds of years of struggle have come down to one thing for Virginia Indians: Paperwork.

Words written on paper 332 years ago have kept away federal money other tribes have used for college tuition, housing loans, health care and more. Records altered decades ago now stand in the way of changing that.

Other tribes have federal benefits built into their treaties, thrown in to end the fighting and lessen the bitterness of defeat. But with the first successful English settlement as their next-door neighbor, Virginia tribes were crushed before the nation even existed. They cut their treaty in 1677 with the king of England.

It’s still in force, at least informally, adopted “as is” by Virginia when the colony broke free from Britain. Under its terms, the Indians do the paying instead of the other way around – an installment of “twentie beaver skinns,” due annually.

In the time since the 12 Indian chiefs signed their marks on that treaty, hundreds of tribes in other states have negotiated far better deals, collecting untold millions of dollars worth of help while Virginia Indians had to go it alone.

In the past few decades, they’ve tried to square things. Eight tribes, with about 5,000 members between them, persuaded Virginia legislators to stamp them as “state recognized” in the 1980s.

Next, they set their eyes on the real prize: federal recognition, the passport to native funding. Tribes left out of government benefits can enter the fold through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, an agency with the unenviable job of sorting “real” Indians from not-real-enough.

“Real” requires a stack of paperwork, including a long list of official records used to document a tribe’s history. The thread must stretch unbroken for hundreds of years.

That’s not a problem for the Pamunkey and Mattaponi. They have 350-year-old reservations – slivers of their original homelands that should make a timeline easy to establish.

The six other tribes, however, lost their reservations long ago. To make things worse, there’s an actual hole in their vital records, a span of 20 years or so when Indians ceased to exist on paper in Virginia.

The blame lies with the state’s 1924 Racial Integrity Law. Intended to prevent mixed marriages, the law pigeonholed everyone in Virginia into one of two categories, black or white, leaving no place for the natives. Under the zealous reign of Walter Plecker, the state’s first records registrar, the word “colored” took the place of “red” or “Indian” on countless birth, death and marriage certificates.

It was a felony to refuse the change. Indians who did went to jail.

Enforcement eroded with Plecker’s retirement in 1946, but by then a gap had been created in Indian racial lineage – major trouble when the BIA begins scrutinizing a tribe and its members. Cases with lesser obstacles have taken decades to get through the agency. The Pamunkey say they’ve been waiting in line for 25 years.

Because of Plecker, says Steve Adkins, chief of the Chickahominy, the BIA informed the six tribes that “we’d never see federal recognition in our lifetimes.”

So the Indians turned to Washington. Ten years ago, they began asking Congress to let them bypass the BIA. They hired lobbyists to plead their case behind closed doors. Public powwows, bake sales, dinners, garage sales and donations have paid the tab, which is close to $500,000 and still running.

Jim Moran, a representative from Northern Virginia, submitted the first piece of legislation on the tribes’ behalf in 2000.

“I just think this is an absolute travesty,” Moran said, “and I feel a personal responsibility to rectify it.”

Visions of Indian casinos – a possibility for federally recognized tribes – killed Moran’s first attempt. His second bill included a ban on tribal gaming. So did his third bill, and his fourth. All a no-go.

Number four , submitted in 2007, left the Indians feeling particularly bad – “duped again,” said Kenneth Branham, Monacan chief.

That was the year of the Jamestown 400th jubilee and a much-anticipated visit from the queen of England. The Old Country has a soft spot for the descendants of Pocahontas, and its monarch was expecting to be entertained with their traditional dances.

At last, thought the Indians: some leverage. They threatened to protest instead of perform.

Just before the Jamestown events, the House of Representatives gave Moran’s fourth Indian bill the thumbs up and sent it on its way to the Senate. In the interim, the tribes put on their “leathers and feathers” and danced for the queen. Afterward, the Senate let the bill quietly expire.

“Bitter? Yeah, a lot of Indians were bitter, and I was one of them,” Branham said. “It felt like a ploy by politicians to get us to participate.”

A new slogan began making tribal rounds: “First to welcome. Last to be recognized.”

Opposition comes from all over, including other Indians – huge tribes with vast reservations and treaties forged in the dusty battles of the Old West.

“They think we gave up too early,” said Nansemond chief Barry Bass, “that we didn’t stop what happened. They think, 'Why should they get some of the pie now?’”

Not all Virginia Indians are sold on the idea, either.

“Without that money,” said Nellie Adkins, a Chickahominy, “we’ve become a very tough, very resilient people. No handouts.”

Like-minded legislators would prefer to see a drawdown of Indian assistance, and they worry that a “yes” to Virginia tribes would open the floodgates for similar requests from the hundreds of tribes now shuffling through red tape at the BIA.

The agency itself remains officially neutral on the Virginia case but is urging lawmakers to step aside. The BIA is not a fan of interference from Congress, where politics, emotion and historical guilt sway decisions.

Up until now, the Indians say, politics have worked against them, with Moran’s bills sinking largely along party lines. The tribes hope the new infusion of Democrats in Washington will help their cause. The Bush White House wanted the tribes to stick to the BIA route; the Obama administration might be more sympathetic.

Toward that end, Moran wrote up a fifth bill and the chiefs drove to the Capitol this spring, where “we’ve been so many times, I’ve lost count,” said Steve Adkins.

They went to repeat stage one, a hearing with the House Natural Resources Committee, where Indian matters are tucked between sessions on wild mustangs, coral reefs and the dangers of primates as pets.

In a marbled room, thick with flags and gilded eagles, the chiefs were easy to spot, silver ponytails trailing down the backs of their business suits.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine was in their corner, telling the committee that Virginia bore a huge burden for years of injustice. vernor also slipped in a reminder: “There is no doubt that the Jamestown settlement would have perished” if the ancestors of today’s Indians hadn’t been of a mind to share their food.

Chief Adkins’ speech amended that centuries-old debt: “I and those chiefs here with me stand on the shoulders of many others besides Pocahontas and Powhatan.”

After hours of testimony and weeks of pondering, the committee voted to send Moran’s latest bill on to the full House. On Wednesday, it was approved. Once again, all eyes are on the Senate, where Virginia Sen. Jim Webb has submitted similar legislation.

In the meantime, the Indians try to walk softly and hold their tongues. Ruffling the wrong person now could spoil this chance.

Silence can be hard, though, even for a people long schooled at lying low.

“We were here first,” said Branham, the Monacan chief. “We should be holding meetings to decide whether to recognize the European races here – not the other way around. It just really galls you.”

Facing off with outsiders is only part of today’s Indian war.

Another battle is being waged within.

Joanne Kimberlin, (757) 446-2338, joanne.kimberlin@pilotonline.com