This post also will talk about false pretenses..
Bill to recognize Nansemonds passes committee
Published 9:14pm Wednesday, April 2, 2014A bill that would extend federal recognition to the Nansemond Indian Tribe and five others in Virginia passed the (US) Senate Indian Affairs Committee on Wednesday.
The tribes also include the Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock and Monacan.
“I just hope we can finally get there,” Nansemond Indian Tribal Association Chief Barry Bass said on Thursday. “It’s been a long, hard road.”
The bill has passed the Senate Indian Affairs Committee before, but a vote in the full Senate has been blocked by senators who believe the tribes should have to go through the Bureau of Indian Affairs as other tribes have done.
But recognition through the bureau’s administrative process requires documentation that current tribal members have a continuous line of descent from the historical tribes. That has been difficult, if not impossible, for Virginia Indians to prove, in part because of Walter Plecker, who was the registrar of Virginia’s Bureau of Vital Statistics from 1912 to 1946. He replaced “Indian” with “black” for the race on many birth and death certificates that passed through his office, ensuring that no official documentation exists for many tribal members to prove their relationship to ancestors.
“Federal recognition of the Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Monacan, Nansemond, Rappahannock and Upper Mattaponi tribes of Virginia is long overdue,” Sen. Mark Warner said in a press release. “Members of our Virginia Indian tribes are both part of the history of the Commonwealth and valued members of our present and should be recognized as such.”
“Committee passage of this legislation is a critical step toward granting these six Virginia tribes the recognition they deserve,” Sen. Tim Kaine said in the press release. “These tribes are an integral part of Virginia’s history and identity, and it is both troubling and tragic that they have never been recognized by the United States, even when more than 500 other Indian tribes have been granted recognition.”
Time for recognition
Published 9:58pm Friday, April 4, 2014
...Virginia has officially recognized Virginia’s Indian tribes,
but the U.S. Senate has a chance now to finally make amends with them
for Pleckerism. (see above) Recognition of the tribes in Virginia — the first people
Europeans encountered upon reaching the New World and the first people
to call this place home — would help restore the identity that a truly
hateful and bigoted man began tearing from them a century ago (Walter
Plecker)
Federal recognition would send a
message that the nation is also proud of these First Peoples, their
heritage and the important place they hold in Virginia’s — and the
nation’s — history.Source: http://www.suffolknewsherald.com/2014/04/04/time-for-recognition-3/
(underlines and bold typeface by BRogers)
I'm submitting this post to Sepia Saturday this week, where the topic does include false pretenses (which is this man's charged offense).
I'd say Pleckerism definitely qualifies, and certainly was criminal, even unto the seventh (How many?) generations that follow and aren't recognized as American Indians.
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I personally find it interesting that still, if a persons parents are white and black, they automatically become black on various pieces of paper. If American Indian and white, they become American Indian, and if American Indian and black, Pleckerism continues and they are usually considered black.
You don't have to wear a white hood and burn crosses to continue white supremicism. Racism is still an ugly truth in our lives today. I live in the south still.
I wonder how things are in the UK and Australia?
