Chickahominy people
The Chickahominy are a federally recognized tribe of Virginian Native Americans[1] who primarily live in Charles City County, located along the James River midway between Richmond and Williamsburg in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
[3] The Chickahominy ("The Coarse Ground Corn People"[4]) were among numerous independent Algonquian-speaking tribes who had long occupied the Tidewater area.
The peoples had earlier come into conflict over uses of land, as the Chickahominy expected to travel freely for hunting, and the English wanted to preserve some property as private.
[2] They stayed there until 1661, when they moved again to the headwaters of the Mattaponi, but their reserved holdings continued to be encroached upon by the expanding English colony.
[7] The people lost title to the last part of their reservation lands in 1718,[6] but continued to live in the area for some time.
While independent, the Chickahominy were at times allied in the 17th century with Chief Powhatan, and his paramount chiefdom, a confederacy of 30 or so Algonquian-speaking tribes.
[5] Several hundred more live in other parts of the United States,[2] including California, Florida, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Current tribal lands of about 110 acres (0.45 km2) are in the tribe's traditional territory, present-day Charles City County.
He served as Director of Human Resources for the Commonwealth of Virginia in the administration of Governor Tim Kaine.
Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner secured passage of the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2017.
The senator believed requests for tribal recognition should be processed through the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).
Moran and others supported the congressional process in part because the Virginia tribes lost their continuity of records due to discriminatory actions of the state government that destroyed their records of Indian identity, under the changes resulting from the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 and the orders of Walter Plecker, the state registrar for the Bureau of Vital Statistics at the time.
[5] Working to improve its process, in 2013, the BIA announced proposed changes to regulations, which include allowing tribes to document a shorter timeframe to establish historical continuity.
This has the potential of making it easier for tribes to establish recent historical continuity and gain recognition, as well as to speed up the Bureau's review of documentation.
