Marks of Tribes of the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Engraving by Thedor de Bry, 1590. The image and its explanation appears in Thomas Harriot, A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia, 1588. Harriot reports that these markings typically appeared on the backs of Indians. According to Harriot, mark A are the kinds of marks found on those belonging to the Chief of the Roanoke Indians; mark B, that of the Roanoke Chief’s sister’s husband; mark C and D to diverse chiefs in the town Secotan; marks E, F, and G, to chief men of the towns of Pomeiooc and Aquascogoc.
Tribes Then and Now is a page devoted to Virginia Indians and their history and treatment from 1607 to the present.
Monacan Nation to Add Virginia Health Center
The Monacan Nation will add a new health center in Amherst County, Virginia. The center will treat all Native Americans belonging to federally recognized tribes (21 October 2032).
Chief Earl Old Person of the Blackfeet Nation dies at age 92
A New Map on the Landscapes of Southwest Virginia prior to European Arrival
Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report May 2022
This 106-page report confirms that the United States directly targeted American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children in the pursuit of a policy of cultural assimilation that coincided with Indian territorial dispossession. It identifies the Federal Indian boarding schools that were used as a means for these ends, along with at least 53 burial sites for children across this system- with more site discoveries and data expected as we continue our research.
The Federal Indian boarding school policy was intentionally targeted at American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children to assimilate them and, consequently, take their territories.
According to the report “The Federal Indian boarding school system deployed systematic militarized and identity-alteration methodologies to attempt to assimilate American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children through education, including but not limited to the following: (1) renaming Indian children from Indian to English names; (2) cutting hair of Indian children; (3) discouraging or preventing the use of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian languages, religions, and cultural practices; and (4) organizing Indian and Native Hawaiian children into units to perform military drills.”