Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 29, 1993 TAG: 9303290083
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BENTLEY BOYD DAILY PRESS
DATELINE: CHARLES CITY LENGTH: Long
She and her husband are raising three children in the thick woods where her father once hunted deer. Martin grew up about two miles from the five-acre plot they bought from the Chickahominy Indian tribe in 1990.
"I grew up in a neighborhood where everybody was related to each other, and I wanted my children to have that same kind of childhood I had," she said.
The Martins are part of a secluded neighborhood that has sprouted in the northwestern part of rural Charles City since the tribe began offering land to members.
About eight years ago, the tribe bought a 275-acre farm near the tribal center and began carving it up for members as a way to keep the young Chickahominy in the community.
The farm is just one of the ways the Chickahominy - the state's largest tribe without a reservation - preserves its legacy.
"It is tough. It is our heritage that holds us together," Chief Leonard Adkins said. The tribe has about 700 members, but many young people have had to move to New Kent County or Richmond because it is hard to find a place to live among the large tracts of forested property in Charles City. The 1990 census recorded just under 500 tribe members living near the Chickahominy's tribal headquarters on Virginia 602. Martin and her husband were one of the couples who lived in New Kent. She said the tribe's offer of low-priced land kept her from moving closer to Richmond, where she and her husband work.
"We love it. It's so peaceful back here," she said. "It's obvious to us now that it's going to be like a family in this neighborhood."
First Assistant Chief Steve Adkins said the tribe has sold about 90 acres of the farm, mostly to people who commute to Richmond or Williamsburg.
"Five acres is not a bad lot for people who otherwise would have had to move to Henrico County or another county with well-established subdivisions," he said. The farm lots are just down the road from the tribe's geographic heart: at the intersection of routes 602 and 630 sit the tribal center, the Samaria Baptist Church and the former Samaria Indian School.
The Chickahominy have found other ways to reinforce a cultural revival that began decades ago.
The General Assembly last month granted a property tax exemption to the 11.33 acres around the tribal headquarters, where the popular Chickahominy Indians Fall Festival has been held for 42 years and where children learn traditional arts, crafts and dancing each Saturday.
"There had been talk of it because we qualified as a nonprofit organization, but we were kind of reluctant to ask for it. It was a pride thing, because we didn't want to appear on the dole," said Steve Adkins, the Chickahominy representative on the Virginia Council of Indians.
The break will save the tribe more than $1,500 a year in property taxes, and that money will help the tribe pay off the farm property, he said.
Old Dominion University anthropology professor Helen Rountree said it is no accident that the Chickahominy have survived so long without a reservation.
"I consider them the most successful tribe in the state, in terms of getting things done as a community, like building the tribal center, buying the land and holding the pow-wow year after year," she said. "They are by far the most active."
The tribe was the first in Virginia to incorporate. They did so in 1908 as a defense against racial discrimination. But it was not until 1983 that the state recognized them and included them on the Virginia Council of Indians.
"We haven't always been proud to be Native Americans. It was a burden, a cross to bear for many years, but with the state recognition in the early '80s, there is a heightened awareness," Steve Adkins said. "These things make a difference."
According to a recent history of the county, the Chickahominy fled Charles City after wars with European settlers in 1644. They had several reservations north of the county, but were pushed off them by settlers.
The Chickahominy trickled back as individuals and families who bought land in Charles City in the 19th century. The Civil War drove some away again, but still more returned to insist on their rightful place on the Chickahominy River.
They maintained tribal unity and heritage through the church and an all-Indian school. Tribe member Audrey Holmes, a lawyer, attended the Samaria Indian School from first to fifth grade before it was absorbed into the public school system as a primary school in 1968.
"It was wonderful. For the first five grades, my relatives taught me. Discipline was not a problem because you knew your parents would find out if you did something," Ms. Holmes said.
Now the tribe has a chance to reclaim the school. The Samaria Baptist Church has asked the Charles City School Board for the building after students move into the county's new $16 million school complex next fall.
The Board of Supervisors will make the final decision on who gets the school, which contains half a dozen classrooms, a cafeteria and a library.
Supervisor Rudolph Jones said he supported letting the tribe buy the building, but he emphasized other county residents must have an opportunity to purchase it as well. He said public hearings on the issue will probably be held this summer.
Martin said she would appreciate another monument to the tribe. Off a footpath that runs near the subdivision stands a tree where her father and other Chickahominy carved their initials decades ago as they walked to the Samaria Indian School.
"It was a connection for us," she said. "I know people are close in other small-town communities, but if something happens, I want my child to go to someone who isn't just a neighbor, but someone he has known all his life. It's hard to put into words."
Keywords:
POWWOW
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