Country for lectures in history. Why do you all know who lizzy borden is and raise your hand if you had ever heard of this murder, the gene harris murder trial before this class. The deepest cause where well find the true meaning of the revolution was in this transformation that took place in the minds of the american people. So were going to talk about both of these sides of this story here, right . The tools, the techniques of slave owner power. Well also talk about the tools and techniques of power that were practiced by enslaved people. Watch history professors lead discussions with their students on topicses rangi ranging from American Revolution to september 11th, lectures on history every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv. It available as a podcast. Find it where you listen to podcasts. Cspan has around the clock coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic and its all available on demand at cspan. Org coronavirus. Watch white house briefings, track the spread throughout the u. S. And world win the active maps. Watch any time unfiltered on cspan. Org coronavirus. Up next on American History tv, the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation talks about the tribes history following the removal from the south and relocation to present day oklahoma. He discusses how they concentrated on rebuilding and strengthening culture amid adversity. Its my great pleasure to introduce kenneth adams. As was mentioned earlier today, chief adams serves on preservation virginias board of trustees and it was at his urging that this symposium came to be. Chief adams served as a strong advocate for the federal recognition of the upper tribe. In the leadup to 2007, he participated in the Jamestown Steering Committee and activities associated with the commemoration. We spent a lot of time together. At various events around the state. The leadership in persistence ensured that events reflected the perspective of the Indigenous People, their culture, and their governance long before the ships arrived at jamestown as steve pointed out. He brought a lack of a permanent memorial on the capital grounds as did other tribal leaders to the attention of governor cane and delegate peace forming the indian kmemtive kbhigs akme kmemtive commission. He dedicated himself to numerous causes and organizations across the commonwealth and its an honor to introduce chief adams. Thank you, elizabeth, for those kind words. Good afternoon. Its an horror to be here today to be part of this event. We started this about 15 months ago, 18 months ago. When we just briefed each other on what the possibilities were for us to have such an vent as this. Were fortunate to have it in this presentation today. As indians know, know very well, the doctrine of discovery still very well. Still very well alive in the United States. In some cases, its very well alive here in virginia. And the Indigenous People continue to suffer from the effects of the doctrine of discovery which came about in 1452 or 1453 from the Catholic Church through the pope ease edict to claim that all peoples across the planet were available to be taken, were able to be killed, were available to be annihilated. And so it happened. So when the ships came to virginia in 1607, they knew full well by planting the flag of great brittage that they weain claiming this land for the united kingdom, england as it was known then. And yet today, we still, some of us, still suffer from the effects of the planning of the english flag at jamestown in 1607. When the british first came, they were hungry. They didnt have any food. So what did they do . They started going out and locating the indian towns, the small indian towns and stealing their corn, stealing their fields of corn and the ones they didnt steal, the corn they didnt steal, they destroyed so that the indian people there were living there they became hungry themselves. And as steve mentioned, shortly after the british came, on one of those trips they went to the town of passpahay on the james river. Jamestown looking for food and the goal was to take the corn from those people which is what they did. And as they were going back to jamestown, the kids they captured, the children they captured were thrown into the water and as the articles read, their heads were blown out. They were taking the wife of the king as they referred back to jamestown with them. They took her ashore. According to the article, ran her through with the sword because they had enough fighting for one day. They didnt want to take her back because they eluded to the fact she would be burned at the stake. So instead of doing that, they ran her through with the sword. But they basically annihilated the tribe. That process of annihilation and that process of stealing from the indians that started here and at jamestown in 1610, 1607 through 1610, that process continued from virginia all the way to the west coast. And in 100 years after landing, 90 of the population of the Indigenous People in virginia was gone. 90 . 300 years after landing, 90 of the entire indigenous population of this country was gone. 90 . Imagine that. Imagine what would happen today. If 90 of a population of a nation destroyed, was annihilated. We would be shouting from the roof tops. There wasnt much shouting then except for the shouting that came from the indians. They eventually showed up in a place name, place for leaders, place for chiefs. Not far from jamestown. That is the place where pocahantas and john smith, the governor of the colony and chief came togethand you no he the fa. They saved john smiths life and, therefore, the colony was saved. Is that true . She was only 10, 11, 12 years old at that time. Its doubtful she had the authority as a young indian woman to save the life of the governor of the colony. But that story has been perpetuated through film and other stories from time in memorial. The same rivers bear the same names today. The people still reside on a reservation which was established in early 1600s, possibly the oldest reservation in the country. Theyre one of the oldest reservations in the country. And in 1670, the largest concentration of indians in the entire commonwealth of virginia was a little town called alet. And that little town is where my people live today. But we got there in some ways because of removal. Because in 1640s after the second indian uprising in virginia against the british, all of the local tide water indians were moved west and north to a place called penn william county. And King William County is where the two reservations are today and one time there was another reservation there around 16 1670s to 1690s known as the reservation and they eventually moved back to their original place where they reside today in charles city county. On the map of 1673 shows the largest concentration of the indians in the commonwealth of virginia. Years later i witnessed a separation of my family as they were forced out of the commonwealth of virginia in order to get a High School Education. My family members had to actually leave the commonwealth of virginia in order to get a High School Education back in the 40s and 1950s. Several were forced to go to michigan to live with families in michigan to complete high school. Another piece of that whole puzzle is this thing called the racial integrity act. This caused a zeierous disrupti serious disruption because the General Assembly approved a law that indicathat tre were no indians living in virginia that were either colored or white. So what it did, what did it do . It just tore, ripped the hearts out of people you cannot document that youre a nativeamerican in this state. And because of that, my uncles and my uncles and grandparents and great uncles, they documented on the on the draft certificate, the draft certificate, they were documented as indians, yet, when they went to join the service, the service said, no, you cant do that. This history is the same for the other indians in virginia. But my time is up. And its my pleasure, chief atkins, you need to step this way, please. Im going to introduce the chief as our really special speaker this afternoon from the Cherokee Nation of oklahoma. He was elected to serve as the Cherokee Nation, largest tribal government with 308,000 tribal citizens in 2019. Prior to being elected, he serves the Cherokee Nation second of state as principal chief, he increased minimum wage at Cherokee Nation and Cherokee Nation businesses and secured the largest language investment in the tribes history to expand the cherokee language education and preservation, chief hoskin appointed the tribes first delegate to the u. S. Congress double Cherokee Nation for career Tech Education and established the housing jobs and sustainable communities act to repair hundreds of homes for cherokees, elders as well as Public Community buildings across the tribes 14 county jurisdiction. Additionally, as cherokee of state, hos kin worked to secure funding from the federal government to fund a billion dollar joint Venture Investment in better help nl for all cherokees. He is also served as Cherokee Nations largest strongest advocate on sovereignty protection. I like that very much. He served as a member of the council of the Cherokee Nation. Representing district 11 for six years and served had his two final years as dmu ti speaker. On the counsel he worked with fellow Council Members to Start Building homes for it Cherokee Nations, increase Education Funding and sponsor legislation to expand Health Care Service through casino dollars. He has tested at the United Nations on behalf of the Cherokee Nation and serves on multiple boar multiple boards and communications including the health and Human Services secretaries tribal advisory committee. Chief hoskin is from community where he lives with his family. He and his first lady, in january are parents two of children. He graduated from the university of oklahoma and university of Oklahoma College of law and is a member of the Cherokee Nation and oklahoma bar associations. Chief hoskin, we welcome you to this stage and this community. I have one little controversial word i have to say as i was researching the history of virginia many, many years ago, there was one brief Little Corner way down in southwest virginia that it appeared, not going to disagree with anyone, but it appeared there were cherokee people that lived in one little small area of virginia. Very small. But chief hos kin since the cherokee did live in virginia according to my little recognition, welcome home. We have a gift for chief hoskin from the virginia indians and preservation of virginia. Well, oco to virginia. What a wonderful opportunity it is to be before you. I am so honored that the Cherokee Nation has been asked to be a part of this. It speaks highly of the History Association and Virginia Preservation that you would include the indigenous aspects of the history of this great state and this great country. I would mention the woman that i wouldnt be without here, that is the first lady of the Cherokee Nation, january on the front row. It is quite something to be talking about history, cherokee history and law in front of and my former law professor lindsey robertson, so next month the symposium is on everything that chief hoskin got wrong about the history and law. And should take most of the day. It kind of feels like old times but there is no test. He is saying there will be a test. So well get through it. So im going to pick up where jack baker left off. Im going to attempt to get to the right slide. There is our great seal of the share key nation. Of course the Cherokee Nation, we say we existed from time in memorial. There is a date on that. That is when we got back together. We talked about removal. One thing that is worth touching on is before the trail of tears, there was an earlier migration of cherokees and when we got to what was our new home, there was quite a bit of fighting and controversy. You hear about people being at each others throat and in a figuretive sense, they were literally at each others throat. Part of the reason im here today. And quite honestly, john marshal and his decision might be the reason i even exist because who knows what would have happened to the cherokee people and my ancestors. I certainly wouldnt be here as chief of the Cherokee Nation i believe had it not been for that decision which is a bedrock of federal indian law that stays with us today. So im so honored to be here with you for that reason. So the dark chapter of American History leading up and including the trail of tears is something that this country ought to remember. I think jack baker did a great job of talking about it in very personal terms and how it affected his family and how it affected other cherokees. We have to remember that in this country. We have to remember there was a time in this country where the government of the United States thought it was a good idea to round people up into cages. That wasnt a good idea then. Its not a good idea today. We ought to always take those lessons from our history. But if you think about what happened, you think about the great destruction that befell the Cherokee Nation, you think about the fact in human terms we lost a quarter of our population, a quarter of our population, 4,000 men, women, children, grandmas, grandpas, grand babies, wiped off the face of the earth. And then you think further about the fact that it necessarily ripped our economy apart. I mean before removal, remember what was happening. It was touched on before. We had adapted and strengthened ourselves as a nation to deal with what was happening in terms of the encroachment of settlers to deal with the governmentst united statof the United States in a fairly rapid period of time getting a written constitution. The great genius was mentioned. He gave the cherokees something that is more powerful than any shield or any sword we could have ever wielded. That is the ability to communicate with each other and translating that to english, communicating with the world. There was a great resistance by the cherokee people before removal. We werent simply removed because the president of the United States said so or because a minority faction of cherokees signed a treaty. We stood our ground. John ross stood his ground and went to washington, d. C. , to plead his case to resist removal and if not ultimately defeat it to make it as good as it could be for his people. And that took a great deal of effort. I think that that period of time and the period that follows which ill get to did something, shaped something, built something in our National Character that stays with us today. People of tremendous grit and determination to have resisted, to have overcome, and as we got to our new home in what was what is today, northeast oklahoma, we had a lot of work to do. So we had to rebuild. Keep in mind what we were rebuilding. We were rebuilding the great cherokee democracy that existed before removal. We, again, had a system of rule and laws and rule of law and constitution. I think it says something about the cherokee people that when we were removed and we rebuilt and you sa you that date in 1839, thats when we got back together, the act of union of the cherokees that had moved out before and the treaty party and the ross party, all at odds with each other. We found it in ourselves to rise above that after some lives were lost but we still rose above it and got our Government Back together. It strikes me that even though justice in this country let us down, we still believed in it. Now that building, that institution is the First Institution of Higher Learning for any woman of any race west of the mississippi in the history of this country. It happened because the cherokee people believed in education. And we didnt just believe in that form of Higher Education. A free system of Public Education and what is now oklahoma long before there was an oklahoma. 1841 we passed an act establishing free Public Education y did we do it . Well, for the same reason i think most of the rest of society does it, because you want to invest in the future. I also think our people and possessions and with you lost so much blood and treasure that we knew this was going to be our home forever. It was promised to us. It was going to be our last stand. We ought to make the most of it. How do you do that . You look beyond what is happening right in front of you. Investing in education is a way to do. That you would predict that a people that were forcibly removed across the country, rounded up in stockades