Transcripts For CSPAN2 Virginia 20240704

Leadership roles. Therell be an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the lecture. A member of virginias tribe ms. Gates is a managing seniorte National Center on tribal Early Childhood development where her projects focus on embedding native culture and language into highquality educational high quality Educational Opportunities for native use. She is also the founder of everyday eastern, a nonprofit preserving existing knowledge and practice conducting Community Engaged research and Building Partnerships with tribal communities on the east coast. In addition to earning a bachelor of arts degree in international inhumanity and affairs from james mattis university, ms. Gates earned a masters of social work from Columbia University and a masters of education from Vanderbilt State University she current lived in richmond, virginia it with her husband, daughter and dog. Please join me and welcoming diana gates. [applause] [laughter] hi everyone. I have to start by saying how interesting it is to take off a mask and talk to people in a room we are a year post introduction of covid. It is a definitely an interesting experience to have. Thank you all so much for coming tonight. The title of this discussion is naexceptional women, virginia indian women and leadership are adjusted to start byyi saying to all of the virginia indian or Indigenous Women in the room or who may be watching this presentation is especially for y you. And i hope you find strength and power in the stories of our grandmothers that are included here tonight. I know personally the tenacity, strength and commitment to community especially through tryingng times and adversity isa message we can all gain inspiration from. Soap up first lets talk about these things. I set up a formal agenda slide i like to sort of openn with poins of discussion that we will talk through tonight. Will start the land acknowledgment. Well talk about what time in memorial means and then we willd go through some for general faces i think categorize some time periods in virginia indian women and leadership including matriarchy, exceptional women, tending the embers and repatriation closeout time immemorial revisited. Thene well have a question and answer time. So first for atlanta acknowledgments, i want to start this presentation with that acknowledgment that we are in the traditional territory other eastern algonquian speakers called this land. The originals treaties met their original inhabitants of Turtle Island occurred in this traditional territory. I also like to add a reminder the people existed here long before that. Contact negotiation was ever made and will continue to exist long after here. These are some pictures of our beautiful territory here. So, up first we have time in memorial. This is basically im providing a framework for the evening and the different general faces that we will talkk about as i mentioned earlier. I wont to flip the script on historical presentations that focus on dates pretty will not hear me refer to specific dates very often. When we discuss indigenous existence and resistance to the colonial settler state with focus that characterize that time and from indigenous perspective thinking very literally and date specific about history focuses us on how we fit into a specific timeline that has been imposed upon us rather than reflecting on what we learned during that phase of time where we can and should go next. With that being said, we will talk through these four phases of matriarchy, exceptional women soak up first is matriarchy. Matriarchy is a social system hold the primary powerwh positis socialer privilege and control f property. I like to start this dazed by talking a little bit about european bias and critique of that on the way the accounts are recollected b about virginia indian people. The english speak of the native men hunting, fishing, fighting and going to war at their leisure while women do the drudgery. What he means by drudgery are things like working in Agricultural Production for it t working in the home. This is definitely a bias of European Society. For men to hunt and fish he has to own land. These are considered leisurely activities due to the domestication of farm animals. In those societies men and specifically lowerclass men are working in the fields doing hard labor. See women produces 60 to 7 of the diet of the community per year. The drudgery types activity. When in reality thats part of what creates the society is the control the Agricultural Production. Native societies atul that time hunting andnd fishing are the primary ways ofim securing protn for the diet. Women remain around the town sites working the field like i mentioned, raising children so all of these activities create a Matriarchal Society that European Society will not see for hundreds of years from the point of initial contact in the early 1600s. In addition some other aspects is found here in our communities women are heads of households. They hold and own property. They retain the right to divorce in it know the relationships they remain retain custody of the children on the vast of thet majority of the property in the household, and the household itself. Kinda flipping the script on what we initially see in the accounts suddenly a biased account of whaten was actually creating in the society. The quality found within native societies will lead both european women when they captured they can become resistant to returning. It become so rampant that government will put out false captive narratives to dissuade people from running away from European Society. In a false narrative about mistreatment that was not occurring once lay the foundation for defining Political Leadership and communal leadership. Oland so by political leadershii mean access to power that provides an opportunity to lead and guide within a governmental structure. By communal leadership i meet access to power that provides aa opportunity to lead and guide within the community. Its not the best definitions that still communal leadership. You are accountable to your community. I think it making that distinction early on as we talked about how it leadership with virginia indian women has evolved over time we set that the economy at the beginning. So we will see. Okay. Our next phase is exceptional women. And so i have two definitions here of exceptional women. The first definition is unusual exceptional. The first definition is unusual or untypical. The second definition is unusually good or outstanding. We have two different definitions here and i will talk a little bit how these women are both exceptional and different ways. In this picture we have here is an algonquian couple. The woman on thepl left is wearg some 18th century style clothing for algonquins in the Northeast Area i like to just call that out. So during this phase specifically we will look for the lens of four exceptional women. They will talk about how they were exceptional in the first sense of the definition of unusual or untypical from european or american perspective. We will also discuss other w exceptional in the sense of our second definition of unusually good or outstanding. That will come from our own community perspective. During this phase youll see changes developer jenness women indian women access politicals leadership. Youll also see how communal leadership has maintained a constant part of our lives. Our first exceptional woman she was born sometime in the 1500s and died in 1610. She was a female chief of the tribe. The appomattox tribe was located near current eight Chesterfield County was confederacy of around 30 tribes at that time. It was related closely to the royal line although we are not exactly sure what that connection was. And so here in the early contact time we see that women and Political Leadership roles across the society was a common occurrence. It was very rare in european societies. That initial set up of single women in these very high Political Leadership positions was not a common occurrence. They had just had their First Experience with a soul queen monarch ruling within that same 50 or 60 years. Versus this is a very common part of native society at the time. So, during one of the initial encounters between the appomattox and the settlers at jamestown, a man name Gabriel Archer was with the first waves ofhe settlers at jamestown. His accounts we just awesome of the same time i relate to her, she may be my altar ego forward to rename myself out probably rename myself that. [laughter] most importantly she was a fearless, unflinching and persuasive leader. She was commonly adorned with a copper crown. Chest absolute dripping and copper jewelry which was a huge status symbol, and it still is today. We still retain that mentality. It was clear she was the chief or the queen during the initial interactions. One of the original accounts of the english interacting was with Christopher Newport she requested one of his men to shoot their guns in front of her to see how they operate. They fired the guns and she did so without flinching or blinken. She was a pretty tough a woman having never seen that most likely never seen that technology and showing absolute no fear in the initial fire. A basic of the next years the appomattox tribes became more and more weary of the continual colonial encroachment by the english on the settlers at jamestown the summer of 1610 invited 15 settlers to the talent she provided over i presided over. Claiming the women of the village to be afraid of their weapons persuaded the men to leave them in the boat and she invite them to sit down for a meal at which they had them ambushed her men killed all but one who managed to escape. The survivor it was a man named thomas he returned back to the h boat and report back to jamestown what had happened. An unfortunate dude you prolonged conflict between the settlers in the appomattox tribe she was mortally wounded in battle and died in the winter of 1610. She is our first exceptional woman she was named one of the virginia women in history in 2007. The illustration we have here comes from jon whites a watercolor 1585 this is a depiction of theof wife of a chf in the roanoke tribe on the outer banks of North Carolina. There is no depiction we are aware of. This is there closest depictionf a woman of high status. But was also known to be dripping and copper jewelry. Not quite exactly as she would look but pretty close. Our next exceptional woman, she was alive from around 1648 1686. She was the queen or chief. She is a treaty signer. The idea of Land Protection as sovereignty for tribes, it really comes into play with her leadership. I will talk a little bit more about what w i mean by that in a Second Period protecting huntind fishing rights for all virginia indians todayt part to her leadership during that so, 1600s there was a prolonged conflict bacons rebellion between the english and the virginia indians. Essentially during that rebellion and prolonged conflict land owners on the frontier of virginia demanded all indians be driven off their land or killed. And so king charles the second sentence commissioners to virginia to meet with several of the indian leaders and broker a treaty. That treaty became known as the treaty of Middle Plantation 1677. Seand so, as part of those negotiations she was a very strong leader and those negotiations. A lot of the protections we as virginia indians still have today for hunting and fishing are largely due in part to her leadership in that treaty negotiation. That retaining title to lands. Specifically is a huge piece from that treaty, couple the tribes of we were able to retain their traditionalal land as a result of this treaty. She is an exceptional woman. On this a photo we have here which was essentially a silver piece we think was originally adorned in front of a t crowned but this is the remaining piece that we have it. It was commissioned by king charles the second to give to her for her involvement in brokering that treaty and peace negotiations. And it just recently in the last few years made its way back to this continent which is great. She is included in the virginia womens monument on the Capitol Grounds if you ever get a chance to visit the Capitol Grounds there is a set of maybe 10 or so virginiao women who have been recognized as exceptional leaders and she is one of them you can see her bronze statue there. All right. So, our next exceptional woman is edith turner she was born around 1754 live tour in 1858. She was a chieff or the queen se was a very tenacious and Community Minded leader sheet negotiated numerous land allotments for the people she brought discriminatory politicians or people to justice through multiple court cases. She was not she was a fluke conversationalist and not away and english she was not particularly literate in the sense of being able to take the prominent states people to court it was really impressive. Also she was a foster mother and advocate for tribal children which is really important so she started and taken part in land transactions as early as 1794. But as the chief she let a push to divide the reservation land among the remaining tribes people. And it was unfortunate because at the time they were forced to sell their reservation land to pay debts. So increasingly we are seeing parts of the reservation be sold off to pay their debts. That makes traditional ways of life increasingly difficult. So she transcended these problems. I owned a farm and encouraged the adoption of farming practices. A lot of which arees still in existence today. Elements of culture in terms of farming that have maintained until today. She also in speaking about her as a foster mother she had so much compassion for tribal children. Records in 18 oh eight show heart is acting as a foster mother for two children. We also know that she successfully negotiated with trustees of the states politicians in charge of helping to manage the tribe. She was able through negotiation with them to bring four children back to the reservation. And thats the fort we know of it. There could be more than that. Even at the age of 76 she was still looking after at least two home. En in her so for at least 70 years she continually brought local tribes children into her care. She instructed the children in the traditions of the tribe she took her role as a communal leader he like to learn more about her you can look up that way. This image this woman was part of an illustration of three not away who had migrated up north to another tribe. What we think is the older sister of one of the two men who were also pictured in this illustration. This is really the only same period of time artists notes to even this is definitely the only that we know of of a woman during that time. And the fourth exceptional woman is molly holmes adam shoot was born in 1881 and passed in 1973. Tribal cultural preservation of local Medicinal Plants and herbal remedies. It was also named one of the virginia it women in history for 2010. So a little bit more about molly holmes adams was born into the upper medicine tribe. She married Jasper Lewis Adams and was a chief of that tribe for five decades. He joins him as a tribal leader and was involved in the purchase and construction of the Indian School in 1919. And the Indian Baptist church in 1942. And in her role as a tribal elder sheet played a pivotal role in the preservation of feather weaving or knitting which is an art that was almost lost it she passed on to others and is still in existence today. There are people in the audience that i dont know how to do it so thats very exciting to acknowledge you. So with her contributions she is the anthropologist with a variety of studies including discussing herbal remedies. So a lot of the information we have retained about herbal remedies is because of her leadership. Enter activism provide a strong base of support for continuing tribal ice communities in a time that was increasingly even and dangerous to continue tribal identity. Ll i really looked to her as a great example of leadership. And that is molly holmes adams. I think its the next slide i have the picture of this feather mantle that molly holmes adams created around the 1930s. Thats actually on display upstairs in the focused exhibits. And so you can see an example of herna original work here which s really amazing. If you have a chance to flick a check that out to see all the crafts woman ship it took to create that. And so what i kind of wanted to talk about next is what i referred to as attending the embers of as. The definition iin have is a motion of both caretaking and stoking a gentle coaxing and potential remembering of that which lights our fire. And so as i mentioned earlier the distinction of Political Leadership in communal leadership. As we see over time Political Leadership with virginia indian women dwindled to some extent. But the communal leadership maintained a constant. Just some policies that were in place that sort of t encouraged exclusion of women and Political Leadership, even as early as the 1600s native women are left out of government to government meetings. Ve while that was discussing trade, land borders, military alliance, ore the ending of conflict or violence. They refused to meet native women who were in Political Leadership positions. They would only meet with men. Native women were barred from the governors meeting rooms. It was a really rampant a policy of excluding native women from Political Leadership positions. And after the American Revolution this policy was set in stone with something called the american civilizations active. Which would not allow women to be heads of household opera to participate in orbit leaders of government. Which as you recall at the beginning, those are critical elements of what makes a matriarchy which is what our societies were. It was really through policy, alimits access to Political Leadership. During the times of contact through the mid 1900s we see the dwindling of indian leadership political access but again i definitely want to stress communal leadership has continued to exist. Throughout this time. As so information we have about traditional arts, skills, lifeways still in existence today is due in large part to the work of women. Until i could just mention drawing a parallel precontact or early contact matriarchy, a lot of the ways that women still today pass on tribal culture through communal leadership is still an element of matriarchy even if the political aspect is not as prevalent. And so women were both young girls and young boys first teachers. Boys only went to learn from men, we surmise that lets of women also top their sons are true during the time. So that original education was always some by women in the home. So that has not changed as much. I would like to change attention to that as well. That is an element of matriarchy. It is just that in our current country, society, womens work is often devalued work within the home is often devalued. It is work. It is definitely at work it is often, its not always unpaid. Thewo women and imams in the audience will shake their head yes, that is true. We can look at this phase lament and criticize the power structures and that prevented women from having consistent access to Political Leadership. But i do not want us to look at this time. And think women were not leading at all because that could nothae further from thero truth. That is again or the distinction of leadership is important. So, our last phase is a phase i am calling remain creation. Remain creation is sort of a new word that spink constantly define and redefine there is no specific definition of this. It iss essentially a return to women centered in indigenous ways of existing, being and knowing. So remain creation is the response of women returning to especially those of Political Leadership opportunities re enfranchise in themselves within their communities to step up and be leaders and be recognized in ways that are beyond communal leadership so i have to say thats my baby right there she is somewhere out there she is lasted a little bit but she is out there. This is another mother and daughter, mother is here tonight. I love these two pictures. I think the huge weight remain creation is occurring in our societies, communities today is through Cultural Revitalization and language revitalization. Its working to reestablish that traditional equity that women and men had in traditional society. And this work that is happening to remake create and return to women centered indigenous ways of being is not perfect. It is hard. It is a struggle. The internalization of centuries of patriarchy and statemandated patriarchy state and country mandated exclusion of women and Political Leadership hasnt found its way into our communities and into our mindsets. And so some of our women today have barriers to access and governmental structure, Political Leadership or outright banned in some cases still today. I want to note historically our communities did not operate this way. This occurred through generational transference or the transfer from generation after generation that women are not meant for Political Leadership. So where weha see that still in our communities today, there are a lot of women i think that mentality. And so i just join them in saying continue your work and i support you. It is not traditional to disenfranchise women in our communities. Lets see. Along the lines a couple of bright spots i also want to mention that are really exciting is the monic and tribe. They actually in their constitution for theirst tribe have a closet states the majority of Council Members must be women. Which i think is amazing. There are other tribes that have predominantly women led Tribal Councils in 2021 including the tribe of North Carolina currently has eight of its 11th council sees old by women. Change is happening. Apit can be slow and frustratin. But it is possible and women are working really, really hard to make thatll happen. Not to discount men and ourng communities either, they are working really hard as well. It is definitely a process for remain creation it took 500 years to lead to the disenfranchisement its a lot to unpack and work on in the time being. Another bright spot virginia indian women in leadership today. We are accessing pose portions of medical leadership at unprecedentedly high amounts. These are just some of the amazing women ihe know. These are their jobs. Some of us have multiple jobs appear the work is never done. I would like to point out we have multiple chiefs that are women. Many, many counsel women in our tribes. We also have the director of indigenous and native american outreach of the secretary of the commonwealth of the governors office. She is a virginia indian woman. We have Advisory Board members on several boards that advise the governor of virginia. We have virginia indian women on the council on women. Usthe council on Environmental Justice including the previous chair of the council. The virginia indian women. The Virginia Advisory Committee on juvenile justice and virginia fine arts board of trustees. These are some of her major Political Leadership roles that virginia indian women india womet are in at this time. Founders and a public defender, Program Specialist and Program Analyst federal offices working directly with tribes and native american organizations and we have cultural and awardwinning artists. It we have whose works displayed in the fine arts and an awardwinning screenwriter Tribal Program director. Practitioner, environmental manager, grandson conservation advocates. I could probably fill five or more slides and we will see a few things leadership positions takeat on so this is the most exciting slide to me and that our women are recognized as leaders across the commonwealth in the country at this however the rate is exciting for anyone of us thatti have children being able to show our contribution to this increase is a really special thing for all of us. Before we wrap up, i want to revisitor time in memorial. Its time that reaches beyond your memory is the time that exists beyond the recollection of history and so as ive mentioned in the land acknowledgment, virginia indians have been here since time immemorial. We will continue to be here for time immemorial. And so thinking about where we are ine phases of leadership we are currently remade creating our society. We are returning to the Womens Center at indigenous ways of knowing. But some things i think are interested is what comes after remade creation and what is the future of the virginia indian Women Leadership look like. Does anything come after remade creation. Also what is the future of virginia indian women and leadership. Those are some of the things that keep me up at my to that i think about a lot. I feel very inspired that women are carving out a new way of blending Political Leadership and also taking great care finding ways to transfer this new way of thinking for generation to generation to sort of combat that transference. We are trying t to overwrite to someof those affect us through e initiatives and as i mentioned before it is hard and arduous work but we are working very hard to restore the traditional equity that we found in our communities and that we will find again. In closing i just want to thank the foundation for the opportunity to speak tonight and also encourage the commitment for letting the voices speak for themselves in this space. Its important to t bring the perspective from the folks that are from those communities so i would encourage the foundation and the museum to push themselves and find new ways to represent a more inclusive and equitable story that fully represents the introductions of Indigenous Peoples and i thank them for that opportunity to do some of that work tonight. And thank you all for coming and i would be happy to answer any questions or talk more about what you think is the future of rematriation. Thank you for coming. [inaudible] can you name a couple of those things . Some of the traditional practices that are still in existence today the most recent wasnt even through the 1900s and a lot of folks are repurchasing that farmland which is great. One specific practice that is popular is a certain way to differentiate from others in the area so thats one specific way that practice has continued on today. I think growing up in the communities and seeing, not to seeing myself reflected in leadership even from a young age i canhe remember not feeling god about that and not feeling that that was right and so even from a young age i just felt like i was a boundary pusher with that and i think i got to a certain point in my life especially around the time of having a child its beyond feeling a certain way and now we need to act and push and do things so that we can look as grandmothers and feel the same inspiration and sort of play that role. I think especially having a daughter was ar major turning point for me because i cant look at her and think in any way that you should be excluded from anything. So i think for me that a new motherhood was definitely the critical turning point for me. That is a really loaded question. [laughter] so, i dont know. I havent been in the Virginia Public School system for a while, butbl i can say from my experience not a lot. I dont think that we were ever mentioned after. Cant recall so when we refer to virginia indian people and one time period the stories of these women are not to stories that are told in any of our social studies curriculum and so even speaking from a couple of decades ago, i dont know that much has changed but i also dont want to step on anyones toes who is a person working to fix that so i want to make that known i am not aware of that. But i do know that even in some, young childrens schools, some inappropriate s songs and thanksgiving activities and things like that are still occurring but its hard to tell of the directive from the school versus teachers that may just need additional diversity and equity training. Theres a lot of folks even in the audience contributing to educating beyond their own children and i think that is definitely a part of the work those of us thatt our parents i know that i wont be able to sit by if something untrue or unappropriate comes home with my child so that is definitely going to be a considerable part of the work moving forward. In our Public School system. Thank you. I would love to. And thank you for answering that. I dont want to step on anyones toes because im sure theres someone doing that right now i just dont know who they are so thank you for offering that answer. Right now we have at least one tribe that has a female chief. No, to that have a female chief but im not aware of any recent tribal elections. [inaudible] they all lived in different areas. The chief of the tribe lived around presentday chesterfield so that is where she was from. The chief or queen lived there with the king and queen and William County and then ian turner in southampton county and mary adams. Im looking to make sure that im getting it right. Kind of a mix of different places. When we think about high quality education a lot of things we are referring to is the standard of education but also the method that we present information are conducive to indigenouse learnig so even instructional methods, less focused on individual students competing against each other and more of a focus in the classroom of learning. Thats one thing. But i think beyond just the instructional methods and design its also about makingng sure tt the children feel represented in the curriculum so using indigenous namesrr and places, indigenous terminology items we count the slices of a pizza theres nothing that says we have to to learn fractions. We can count seeds in a pop off road. The Different Things to make sure their identities are reflected in the curriculum so just off the top of my head, that is of few but the key focus is on linguistically and culturally responsive education and thats the primary means that we feel is highquality. [inaudible] its interesting todian think at in our commonwealth, there are a ton of place names we grew up with them so we just assumed the name ofe a place, but a lot of places they are named after the original inhabitants of the area or words from the languages so any time you see the name of a town or street that you think i dont think thats from english its always good to do extra research and think about where did that come from. I tried to look at the date but i couldnt find it. I know that its at the library of virginia so more research might find a specific date, but that is a good question. Thank you so much. If that was awesome. Thank you. [applause] will. A healthy democracy doesnt just look like this. It looks like this. Americans can see democrat