The greatest negative impact on Indigenous people living in America
has been the denial of their right to enjoy and practice their culture.
Although the overall impact resulted in statistics that reveal similar social
disparities among Indigenous people across the United States, American
Indians were impacted in various ways depending on the region that they
lived in. Several Indians residing in eastern North Carolina were reclassified
as mulatto by Census takers. There are census documents from the
1800’s that clearly reveal instances where recorders listed a community of
these NC citizens as Indian that was later poorly erased and changed to
give them a mulatto designation.
Likewise, during the 1920’s, a Register
of Deeds in Virginia erased Indian from the birth records of all Indigenous
people born in Virginia and reclassified them by changing their race to
colored, or in one instance to white when there was vehement opposition.
However, during the same period of time in the western part of the US, it
was a common practice to take Indian children from their parents, send
them to boarding schools, and prohibit them from speaking their language
and practicing their culture, or face severe punishment. As a result, while
many reservation Indians retained aspects of their tribes’ cultures, it has
been a challenge for them to recall and practice those traditions in a manner
their ancestors had practiced prior to colonization. In modern society,
a consensus among the elders of the tribe is needed to rediscover the
formation of traditional norms.
While the US government began to accept some responsibility in the
1970’s for their mistreatment of American Indians and began to institute
policies to promote Indian self-determination in an effort to correct the
social disparities, their responsibility has primarily been limited to reservation
or tribal Indians that are recognized by the federal government. Their
responsibility to Indigenous people who remained in the eastern part of
the US and who were scattered into small communities to persist distinctively
as American Indian has largely been ignored. Indigenous people
in the east enabled British colonization and are yet to receive reparations
for the mistreatment that incurred beyond their control. Slightly more than
one-half of America’s Indigenous people are recognized by the federal
government, yet only a little over one-tenth of North Carolina’s Indigenous
people belong to a tribe that is federally recognized.
Duvonya, a Chowanoke descendant, is President of Roanoke-Chowan Native
American Association, a non-profit organization whose mission is to help American
Indians in Northeastern NC and Southeastern VA. In partnership with another
Chowanoke descendant, she is currently developing the historic Chowanoke Reservation
in Gates County for Tribal descendants to hold cultural events.
