The Pamunkey Indian tribe of Virginia has filed for federal acknowledgment as a self governed nation in Virginia. The tribe’s 1,200-acre reservation on the Pamunkey River in King William County is the oldest continuously inhabited Indian reservation in America. This is the tribe and the land where the famous Pamunkey Chief Powhatan once ruled, father of Pocahontas.
The tribe filed its petition with the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs on Oct. 14, 2010 documenting how the Pamunkey has remained an identifiable Indian tribe with self-governance throughout the centuries of English and American rule.
Supporting evidence
Evidence supporting its claims of sovereignty include newspaper articles showing that the Pamunkey pay an annual tribute to Virginia’s Governor every Thanksgiving to honor their part of the 1646 and 1677 treaties. In full tribal dress, they come to Richmond bearing gifts of wild game like deer or turkey along with traditional pottery. It’s said that they have never missed a payment since the treaties were signed hundreds of years ago.
Federal acknowledgement would establish a government to government relationship and provide access to federal services and benefits for the some 200 tribal members.
Open to the public
The Pamunkey reservation is about 50 miles east of Richmond and is open to the public on weekends, 10-4 Friday and Saturday and 1-4 on Sunday. A museum and gift shop sells many Pamunkey handcrafted items including pottery that is made using centuries-old techniques with clay dug from the Pamunkey River. The tribe has also constructed a miniature village and railroad depot on the reservation.
According to the Pamunkey’s website, their “museum is the only documented history of a tribe that has existed on its present homeland since the Ice Ages.”
Visitors can mapquest the reservation at 175 Lay Landing Road in King William, Virginia 23086.
The Pamunkey were the largest tribe in the Algonquian Powhatan Confederacy. It was the Pamunkey who gave gifts of food to the Jamestown settlers in 1607 and kept them from starving that winter. It is one of only two tribes that still retain reservation lands assigned by the 1646 and 1677 treaties, the nearby Mattaponi being the other.
