Recognize the Nottoway Indian Tribe of Virginia, Inc.

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    Governor and General Assembly of Virginia and the Virginia Council on Indians
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Welcome and thank you for supporting this important movement! The Nottoway Indian Tribe of Virginia, Inc. is presently seeking state tribal recognition from the Commonwealth of Virginia. By signing this petition, you are expressing your support of the Nottoway Indian Tribe of Virginia, Inc. to the Honorable Tim Kaine, Governor of Virginia, members of the General Assembly and the Virginia Council on Indians.
Unjust criteria combined with one panel member, who repeatedly expresses bias against the Nottoway and who exerts influence over other voting members, are blocking the recognition that which the Nottoway Indian Tribe of Virginia, Inc. are entitled.
How close are the Nottoway Indian Tribe of Virginia, Inc. to being recognized? Extremely close. The recognition committee has validated that they are an historic tribe. Ten genealogical lines of current members have been validated by the recognition committee.
The biggest obstacle among the criteria is criterion one, which determines whether or not the Nottoway have demonstrated a continued existence over time. The members and their ancestors of the Nottoway Indian Tribe of Virginia, Inc. have remained closely tied within their kinship community. They have remained a socially distinct community from other cultural groups without being antagonistic towards their neighbors or intermarried cousins. Some misinformed people would say that the Nottoway have all spun off into either the white or black culture. In the words of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Culture is not race and race is not culture. Recognition will signify the reclamation of culture.
This petition will be sent to the Governor of Virginia, the General Assembly, and the Virginia Council on Indians to prove that the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States of America recognize the Nottoway Indian Tribe of Virginia, Inc.
Please help support the Nottoway Indian Tribe of Virginia, Inc. as they pursue state recognition for their tribe. They deserve to stand among the other state recognized tribes. Without representation of all the tribes, our nations history will not be complete.

274 Signatures

  • Beth Roach
    • Comments
    • Thank you to the undersigned!
  • Amy Wells
    • Comments
    • strongly agree
  • Benton Berry Roach, Jr.
  • Scott Travis
    • Comments
    • Please recognize the Nottoway Tribe
  • Donna Hines
  • Adam J Roach
    • Comments
    • I fully support the Nottoway tribe's effort.
  • Joseph S. Timberlake
  • George Lewis
    • Comments
    • Please rocognize the Nottoway!
  • Debora Moore
    • Comments
    • It's time to do the right thing.
  • Samuel James
  • Mike Reynolds
  • Josh Malek
    • Comments
    • Please recognize this great tribe!
  • jeremy sanchez
  • josh bennett
    • Comments
    • history is history
  • J. D. Harris (Don)
    • Comments
    • Strongly support Nottoway recognition
  • John E. Sperry
  • chris gwin
  • Gloria Jarrell
    • Comments
    • It is time to finally after the damage done by Walter Plecker to recognize our Indian People of the Cheroenhaka -Nottoway Indian tribe
  • Jeannie Cranford
    • Comments
    • В
  • Melanie Lewis
    • Comments
    • Please do the right thing by our Native Americans; is there any valid reason you shouldn't?
  • Mark Lewis
    • Comments
    • fully support this petition
  • Brenda Stansbury
  • Peggy Villanueva
  • sandy lovejoy
  • Leigha Givens
  • Guy Wells
    • Comments
    • I am a Commissioner for the Maryland Commission of Indian Affairs I have attended many of their events and have enjoyed greatly their sense of community and unity.
  • Sandra Engle
    • Comments
    • This tribe deserves recognition
  • Monica Barringer
  • Dawn Burks
  • Misti Furr
    • Comments
    • Of the three Indian language groups historically apparent in Virginia in the contact period, only two have received recognition. While language groups were not the primary means by which a tribe organized, these differences were noted by the colonists. In recent history, only one language group (Algonquian), is portrayed as significant in Virginia history. The only other language group (Siouxian) provides a seeming counterfoil to the other. While I by no means wish to diminish the two recognized language groups that comprise the eight recognized tribes--to exclude the other group for seemingly nonexistent reasons seems (to me) to ignore a valid part of our larger history. The Nottoway did not have the means to maintain their reservations, not for lack of trying, nor for lack of culture. Their so called "dispersal and termination" had everything to do with the political cultures that oppressed such groups during the Jim Crow and Walter Plecker eras. What a shame to allow that oppression to continue.
  • James Hottle
    • Comments
    • These folks deserve to be recognized! It's high time we stopped politics and begin to work together as Native People.
  • Virginia Rhinehart
    • Comments
    • For avery good cause!
  • Rosemary Bell
  • M. Fraktman, MsD, PhD
  • Kathy Lamm
  • Lindsay Keiter
  • Ronald Carnegie
  • LARRY GRAYLOCKS CEARS
  • Sean Pearson
  • Linda Lawson Donley
  • gray henry
  • Curtis R. Farmer
  • Jill Jannette Shumaker
  • Julian Sessoms
  • Pamela J. Cote
  • kate spear
    • Comments
    • В
  • Christl Mutter
  • Thomas T. Hay
  • William T. Roach, Sr.
  • Jerry Henley