They participate at the state level in many ways, including in the Vermont Commission of Native American Affairs.
[citation needed] The government manages the tribe's land, activities, and gatherings and interacts with the state of Vermont in official matters.
[2] Lucy Neel, based in Barton and Derby Line, Vermont, is the organization's registered agent.
[18] The current officers are: Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Nation Inc. was incorporated as a domestic nonprofit corporation on December 9, 2022, based out of Derby Line, Vermont.
The 65 acres located in Barton, VT, where the tribal headquarters are, "will be an economic, educational and cultural resource for the tribe, which worked with the Vermont Land Trust and the Sierra Club to acquire the forestland.
"[21] The unreliability of family stories, or misinterpreted records from this era, also resulted in non-Abenaki believing they have Abenaki heritage when they do not.
[22] The Abenaki, along with French Canadians and other victims deemed "undesirable" were subject to eugenics practices occurring in Vermont during the 1920s and 1930s.
Chief Don Stevens of the Nulhegan said, "My grandmother was listed in the eugenics survey, which caused her to deny her heritage, and she wasn't able to be proud of that.
What familial groups remained were often eradicated, in the early 20th century, through forced sterilization and pregnancy termination policies in Vermont.
[30] During this time, many groups consisting of small families said they were now returning to their Abenaki heritage after having denied it for the first half of the 20th century.
[33] In the final determination of the 2005 petition for federal recognition by a related state-recognized tribe, the St. Francis/Sokoki Band Abenakis of Vermont, the BIA states: "The details of this claimed process of living 'underground,' however, are not explained by the petitioner.
Finally, on April 22, 2011, the Nulhegan was officially recognized by the State of Vermont as an Abenaki Indian Tribe.
Current professor at the University of Ottawa and former St. Mary's University associate professor Darryl Leroux's genealogical and historical research found that the members of this and the other three state-recognized tribes in Vermont were primarily French descendants who have used long-ago ancestry in New France to shift into an 'Abenaki' identity.
[42] In 2002, the State of Vermont reported that the Abenaki people had migrated north to Quebec by the end of the 18th century.
[43] The Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe host multiple gatherings every year, including drumming events and an annual pow wow.
The state did not want to celebrate Christopher Columbus, due to his role in the genocide of Indigenous peoples of the Americas.