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The Pamunkey nation are one of eleven Virginia Indian tribes recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia. The historical tribe was part of the Powhatan paramountcy, made up of Algonquian-speaking tribes. The Powhatan paramount chiefdom was made up over 30 tribes, estimated to total about 10,000-15,000 people at the time the English arrived in 1607.The Pamunkey tribe made up approximately one-tenth to one-fifteenth of the total, as they numbered about 1,000 persons in 1607
Currently the Pamunkey nation has about 200 members
Black House members urge halt to recognition of Va. Indian tribe that banned intermarriage
. FILE - This Nov. 25, 2009, file photo shows Pamunkey Councilmen Jeff Brown, left, and Gary Miles, hold a deer as their Chief Kevin Brown presents it to Gov. Tim Kaine, second from left, during the annual tax tribute from the Virginia Indians to the Virginia governor in Richmond, Va. Several members of the Congressional Black Caucus are urging the Obama administration to withhold federal recognition of the Pamunkey tribe in southeast Virginia because of its history of banning intermarriage with blacks. (AP Photo/Richmond Times-Dispatch, Alexa Welch Edlund, File)
By FREDERIC J. FROMMER, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Several members of the Congressional Black Caucus are urging the Obama administration to withhold federal recognition of a Virginia Indian tribe because of its history of banning intermarriage with blacks.
In January, the Interior Department proposed recognizing the Pamunkey tribe in southeast Virginia, which would make members eligible for special benefits in education, housing and medical care — and allow the tribe to pursue a casino. A decision on recognition, which would be the first for a Virginia tribe, is due by March 30.
The Congressional Black Caucus members urged Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Attorney General Eric Holder to hold off until the Justice Department investigates any discriminatory practices by the tribe. Neither department has responded to the request, made in a Sept. 23 letter, according to a spokeswoman for Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, who signed the letter.
The letter cited a report by the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs that quoted tribal law: "No member of the Pamunkey Indian Tribe shall intermarry with anny (sic) Nation except White or Indian under penalty of forfeiting their rights in Town."
The bureau said there was no indication the tribe had changed its ban, but Pamunkey Chief Kevin Brown responded in a letter to the CBC that the ban has been repealed. He said in an interview that the change was made in 2012.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs said that the significant number of Pamunkey-Pamunkey marriages and efforts to encourage them helped satisfy a criterion for federal recognition: that a predominant portion of the group comprises a distinct community and has existed as one from historical times to the present.
The black lawmakers called the government findings disturbing. "The BIA seems to justify the discrimination and surprisingly cites this as a reason" to recognize the tribe, their letter said.
In addition to Thompson, the letter was signed by 10 other Democrats.
Interior Department spokeswoman Nedra Darling said the agency had received the letter and was developing a response. The Justice Department didn't respond to requests for comment.
Brown told the CBC that the intermarriage ban was rooted in Virginia's culture of racism. "Racial intermixture was raised repeatedly as a rationale to divest us of our reservation and our Indian status," he said.
Brown cited Dr. Walter Plecker, registrar of the Virginia Bureau of Vital Statistics in the first half of the 20th century, who ordered that Indians be classified as "colored" on birth and marriage certificates.
"His rationale was, of course, racial intermixture among the Indians," Brown wrote, adding that the "antiquated and now repealed" tribal law was an attempt to protect Indian identity. "It was never an attack on, or reflective of, ill will toward African-Americans."
Asked if Brown's letter changed anything, Thompson's spokeswoman, LeMia Jenkins, responded in an email: "We are looking forward to a response to the concerns raised in the letter to DOI and DOJ. The issues have not been satisfactorily addressed by BIA and require attention."
The tribal intermarriage law was repealed two years after the tribe had submitted materials to the Interior Department for its bid for recognition.
"We have members on our rolls who are married to African-Americans," Brown said.
Earlier this year, MGM National Harbor and Stand Up for California also raised concerns about the tribe's intermarriage ban and challenged the Interior Department's findings that the tribe deserved recognition. MGM Resorts is building a casino at National Harbor in Maryland's Prince George's County, near Washington and about 120 miles north of the Pamunkey reservation. Stand Up for California is a nonprofit group that's pushed for limits on gambling in that state.
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_____________________^^Chief Kevin Brown
Chief Kevin Brown
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Although other Americna Indina tribes permitted intermixing with Europeans or Africans according to the Black Caucus Pamunkey tribe had a history of banning intermarriage with blacks but apparently not with whites. Here's some old photos of Pamunkey people
Chief William Miles standing in a cornfield on the Pamunkey reservation, ca. 1980s
That the Blood Stay Pure: African Americans, Native Americans, and the Predicament of Race and Identity in Virginia (Indiana University Press, 2014) demonstrates how people continue to insist on racial discrimination and racial purity even though the legal barriers have been lifted and the biological imperatives of “blood purity” have been discredited. Dr. Coleman traces the origins the one-drop rule—that one African American ancestor made a person “colored”—from the days of slavery to the present. She shows how Indians came to disavow their African American descent in the wake of the Virginia racial purity statutes, and how the Bureau of Indian Affairs process continues to perpetuate a fear of admitting racial mixing. She also reveals how one of the most famous Civil Rights cases of our time, Loving v. Virginia, is not about what everyone thinks; it is not, she argues, about the right of blacks and whites to marry.
Dr. Arica L. Coleman is Assistant Professor of Black American Studies at the University of Delaware and a lecturer for the Center for Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins University. She has a four-year appointment to the Organization of American Historians Alana committee, which focuses on the status of African American, Latino/Latina American, Native American and Asian American histories and historians. Dr. Coleman has lent her expertise on the history and politics of race and identity formation to the Washington Post, Indian Country Today and most recently NPR’s “Another View,” a weekly program with a focus on contemporary African American issues.
That the Blood Stay Pure: African Americans, Native Americans, and the ... By Arica L. Coleman INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2014
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