Monacans await Senate vote on tribe's federal recognition

Victoria Hamilton, a fifth-generation Monacan Indian Nation member, has lived on the same site beside High Peak Road near Monroe for her entire life, even after the structure was rebuilt after a 2004 lightning-strike fire.

The community rallied to help replace the home, which serves as much as a family social center as Hamilton’s home and served as a fitting setting for a glimpse into her extended families’ lives.

“I still work around my house,” said Hamilton, whose 4-year-old great-grandson, Adam Jacob Hamilton, sat with her. She has a total of 14 grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren, said Susan Tyree, a granddaughter.

Tyree presides over much of the everyday goings-on at Hamilton’s home.

“I’m the lawyer, the sheriff, everything,” Tyree said.

But it is Hamilton who has been involved her entire life in all of the close-knit relatives’ lives

“She’s helped raise them all,” Tyree said.

“She’s actually my mom,” said Bryan Hamilton, who is actually Victoria Hamilton’s grandson.

The extensive family tree –– the patriarch was Corell Hamilton, who died five years ago –– is well known among the Monacan family.

But it can seem byzantine to outsiders, made more complicated by an absence of official records that complicated and hampered the Monacans’ lives for generations.

Tribal identities were eliminated by the state’s Racial Integrity Act, which was in effect from 1924 to 1967.

The racial identifications of Native people in Virginia who had no white ancestry were changed to “colored” on birth certificates, which prevented the Monacans and other Native people from obtaining the same federal assistance as other tribes nationwide.

Virginia recognized the tribes in 1983, and the tribes have lobbied for recognition for 10 years.

Legislation approved by the U.S. House of Representatives in June would make all six Virginia tribes eligible for up to $800 million in federal funds for housing, education and health benefits.

The six Virginia tribes, which have about 3,000 members, are the Eastern Chickahominy, Chickahominy, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock, Nansemond and the Monacans.

Some 565 other tribes around the nation have benefitted from the sovereign status granted them by the Congress.

The measure now must be voted on by the Senate.

Last month, the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs took up the measure, introduced by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., and co-sponsored by Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. That action was the final step before a full Senate vote.

For her part, Hamilton will remain happy being around her relatives, young and old.

It also helps that just a few months ago, she began a new pastime –– riding on four-wheel vehicles.

“It’s good riding,” she confides softly, recalling that her great-grandson Bryan Hamilton drives. “I get on behind him and do down through the field.

“I’ll ride anytime.”

Why?

“I don’t know, I just did,” she said. “Wheeeee!”