Candidate Trump makes big promise to unrecognized NC tribe
Former President Donald Trump, speaking at a campaign rally in Wilmington, N.C., on Saturday, promised that if elected again, he would grant the Lumbee tribe federal recognition, along with access to federal benefits, services and protections.
"The Lumbee Tribe has been wrongfully denied federal recognition for more than a century," Trump said. "We're going to fix it. We'll fix it right at the beginning."
Historically, the tribe has been known by several names, including Tuscarora, Croatan, Cheraw and Cherokee. In 1953, they changed their name from "Cherokee Indians of Robeson County" to the "Lumbee Indians of North Carolina."
In her book "The Lumbee Indians: An American Struggle", University of North Carolina history professor Malinda Maynor Lowery, a member of the Lumbee community, describes the tribe as descendants of several tribes in eastern North Carolina, as well as free European and enslaved African settlers who lived in the tribe's homeland.
In 1956, Public Law 570, also known as the "Lumbee Act," acknowledged the tribe as an "admixture of colonial blood with certain coastal tribes of Indians" but denied them federal services. In the 1990s, the Department of the Interior rejected their petition for federal recognition because they could not prove cultural, political or genealogical ties to any historic tribe.
The Lumbee tribe has repeatedly sought federal recognition through Congress but has never succeeded in getting Senate approval. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), the only federally recognized tribe in North Carolina, opposes Lumbee recognition.
"It's not just the Lumbee," former ECBI Chief Richard Sneed told VOA in 2022. "It's any group trying to bypass the Office of Federal Acknowledgment. Congress isn't equipped to do the necessary research to determine whether a group is an authentic historic tribe."
The Lumbee tribe did not respond to VOA's request for comment.
Side wheel steamer USS Saginaw, built at the Navy Yard, Mare Island, California, in 1859. Depicted at at Mare Island Naval Yard, circa 1860.
Navy apologizes to Tlingit for historic attacks
The U.S. Navy has formally apologized for its 1869 bombardment of the Alaska Native village of Kake, more than 140 years after the attack. During a ceremony held in Kake on Sunday, Rear Admiral Mark B. Sucato expressed the Navy's regret, marking the first of two planned apologies for military actions against Alaska Native communities in the late 1800s.
The attacks on Kake and Angoon occurred shortly after the U.S. acquired Alaska from Russia in 1867, when the U.S. Army and Navy were patrolling the region. Sailors aboard the USS Saginaw fired on Kake's three villages and two forts, completely destroying the community. The Navy acknowledged that, following the bombardment, landing parties set the village ablaze, causing the death of "possibly one elderly Kake woman" and leaving many villagers to die of exposure during the harsh winter.
Undated photo of a Tlingit woman appears in Appletons' 1893 guide-book to Alaska and the northwest coast.
The attack on Kake was triggered by the killing of two Tlingit men by a sentry, which may have led to the killing of two settlers, prompting the USS Saginaw to be dispatched to "seize a few of their chiefs as hostages" and "burn their villages." While no one died during the bombardment itself, the destruction of food supplies and shelters led to many deaths from starvation.
Thirteen years later, the Navy bombarded the village of Angoon following a dispute over the death of a Tlingit traditional healer. When the tribe's request for compensation was denied, Commander Edgar Merriman ordered the bombing.
A second ceremony is scheduled for October 26 to commemorate the anniversary of the Angoon bombardment.
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President Joe Biden signs a proclamation designating the Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument at the Red Butte Airfield Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023, in Tusayan, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Judge rules tribes, conservation groups cannot join national monument lawsuit
A legal battle has erupted between Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs and the Republican-controlled state legislature over President Joe Biden's 2023 designation of the Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument.
The land, considered sacred by several Northern Arizona tribes, was protected from future mining under the monument's designation. All 22 of Arizona's federally recognized tribes contributed to the drafting of the monument designation, but Republicans argue that the designation exceeds presidential authority and violates the Arizona Wilderness Act of 1984, as some wilderness-designated lands fall within the national monument's boundaries.
U.S. District Court Judge Stephen McNamee allowed Hobbs and Attorney General Kris Mayes to intervene in the case, as they argue that only the state's executive branch, led by Hobbs, has the authority to sue on behalf of the state's interests. The Biden administration contends that only Congress can reverse a national monument designation, and that state lawmakers lack the legal standing to sue.
While Hobbs and Mayes were granted participation, the judge denied requests from Native American tribes and environmental groups to join the defense. A trial date has yet to be set.
"Baaj Nwaavjo" means "where tribes roam" in the Havasupai language, while "I'tah Kukveni" translates to "our footprints" in Hopi.
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