Supporting Tribal Sovereignty & Environmental Governance: In collaboration with the Chickahominy Indian Tribe and the Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe

The Indigenous Environmental Mapping and Resilience Planning Project has worked over the summer with two of the federally recognized Native American tribes of Virginia, the Chickahominy Indian Tribe and the Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe. Historically, Western academia has participated in an exploitative, extractive relationship with Indigenous tribes. Conversely, our project challenges the structures of settler society by aligning our research objectives with goals and values provided by the Chickahominy and Upper Mattaponi. These objectives include establishing environmental data baselines for their ancestral lands, such as recognition of Indigenous food sovereignty and biodiversity mapping. The Indigenous Environmental Mapping and Resilience Planning Project is grounded in collaborative practices and support for Indigenous environmental stewardship while upholding Indigenous data sovereignty. This project is the first step in establishing long-term reciprocal relationships between George Mason University and the Chickahominy and Upper Mattaponi. Project deliverables for the food sovereignty portion include an Indigenous gardening booklet, a presentation on composting, and signage for a community garden. Project deliverables for the wildlife assessment portion include an ethnobiology booklet covering bioculturally significant species and a breeding bird survey and an invasive species survey conducted on recently repatriated Chickahominy ancestral lands.

Dana: Okay the tribe is headquartered in Charles City County, Virginia at an area known as Chickahominy Ridge. My name’s Dana Adkins, I’m a Chickahominy Tribal Citizen and the tribe’s environmental director since 2019.

Sara: Soo my name’s Sara Jefferson, I’m a member of the Chickahominy Indian Tribe, and I’m also a student here at Mason studying psychology, and I’m also a team member of this STIP project going on here down in Charles City.

Dana: Some of the deliverables we are hoping to get from this project are maybe introducing us to some methods that can help us to see what lands we have, understand what’s there, what’s not there, and how to best utilize those lands so that as we grow, we can have growth that’s environmentally friendly.

Sara: To me, sovereignty means kind of taking back what was already ours, if that makes sense, being that we were one of the first tribes to have direct contact with the colonizers back in 1607, and so much of our culture was lost and we weren’t able to get all of that back, but now that we are a sovereign nation, we are able to get these tools that we once lost back in an easier manner, if that makes sense.

[A group of four undergraduate researchers are standing against a white wall]

Domi: Our project, the Indigenous Environmental Mapping and Resilience Planning Project, has been working over the summer with two of the federally recognized Native American tribes of Virginia – the Chickahominy Tribe and Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe. Our overall goal has been to establish environmental data baselines for the two tribes, using specific guidelines given to us by the tribe’s environmental offices.

Guadelupe: Since the beginning of our relationships with the tribes, we’ve focused on maintaining tribal sovereignty over data and knowledge, as historically, Western academia has participated in an exploitative, extractive one-sided relationship with Indigenous tribes and their knowledge across North America, also known as Turtle Island.

Patti: Having a reciprocal relationship built on trust and honoring Indigenous knowledge is key to our project – we want our work with the Chickahominy and Upper Mattaponi to be additive and beneficial to the tribes. By participating in this work, we are attempting to decolonize academia and environmental studies.

Adam: An important part of our research has been honoring Indigenous data sovereignty – that means not everything we’ve worked on over the summer we can show, as the tribes do not want all data available for access to non-tribal members.

[Footage of the Powhatan River]

Dana: The site we’re standing on now is a piece of property that we have named “Chickahominy on the Powhatan.” Uh, this would have been a traditional village site, uh, the rivers uh in the state served as great village sites for the tribes. Uh, the tribes in this state are actually known as tributary tribes because of our villages being along our namesake rivers. Uh, this particular river would have been called the Powhatan River, pre-contact. Uh, post-contact it was renamed the James River.

[A single undergraduate researcher stands with a glass door behind her, with different screenshots interlayed over her at different points in time]

Jasmine: Indigenous and settler scholars Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang explore how the metaphorization of the term “decolonization” has strayed the operational form of the word away from the objectives of Indigenous rights and sovereignty. This metaphorization may look like conflating decolonization with other social justice movements. This metaphorization may also manifest in “settler moves to innocence,” or methods of alleviating settler guilt from Indigenous erasure and forced assimilation. This is achieved by creating distance from the settler to the system of settler colonialism without actually absolving themselves of oppressive power or returning stolen land. Rather than falling into these inappropriate comparisons or settler moves to innocence, it is important that we recognize decolonization as a distinct project on the repatriation of Indigenous land and lifeways. For our project, that means challenging the structures of settler society by supporting Indigenous environmental stewardship and ensuring Indigenous sovereignty over data and, crucially, guiding our work with the stated goals and values of the respective tribes with which we are working.

[Three different voice overs over footage of Chickahominy lands as well as the Potomac Heights Community Garden]

Paloma: Over the summer, we have been working closely with Dana Adkins, the Tribal Environmental Director of the Chickahominy. He’s been working on establishing community gardens for the tribe to ensure healthy living for tribal citizens. With Dana, we’ve been working on establishing food sovereignty for the tribe through these community gardens as well as creating a curriculum on how to teach food sovereignty and the issues of food deserts and accessibility.

Patti: Food sovereignty is the right for peoples, especially native peoples, to have access to healthy, environmentally sound, traditional food. This includes both the ability to cultivate, harvest, and consume those foodways. Food sovereignty does not listen to market demands, but instead, focuses on the need of the people of the respective culture. Food sovereignty is being used across Turtle Island and worldwide to combat food deserts. Food deserts are when an area has a rate of poverty exceeding 20%, with rural folks being unable to access a large grocery store within ten miles of their home. The area in which the majority of the Chickahominy people live in is considered a food desert. The community garden and eventual future gardens established by Dana will help combat the lack of access to healthy, in-season food.

Maiya: One of the ways our team has worked on the community gardens is through research at George Mason University’s own community gardens, maintained by the Office of Sustainability. Guided by Doni Nolan, the Sustainability Program Manager for the Gardens and Greenhouse, we gained insight and ideas to present to Dana on working on the garden to best benefit the citizens of the Chickahominy nation.

Dana: Well we received a grant from the EPA this year to start a community garden. We as a tribe have gotten away from gardening, as a general rule. Like most of society we live fast paced lives and we rely more on fast food and prepared food, rather than stuff than we would have cultivated ourselves out of our gardens and cooked at home. The thought behind having the community garden was to kind of reintroduce some of those gardening techniques to our youth before it’s lost. We also have, like other communities, we have seen an increase in diseases such as diabetes and we feel this is probably attributed, again, to too much fast food, not enough of the foods that we grow ourselves, that are generally healthy, uh foods that you’d want to consume.

[An undergraduate researcher walks along a green path and his voice is overlaid with footage from Chickahominy lands]

For the Chickahominy, we also began collecting data on the wildlife on the lands that currently have regained ownership over. The two lands, Chickahominy on the Powhatan, or James River, and Mamanahunt on the Chickahominy River, were both recently (re)acquired through purchase by the Chickahominy. We participated in a bird survey, led by Dr. Wood, and collected data on the birds, other animals, insects, as well as the flora growing on the Chickahominy properties. We also conducted basic water monitoring from the Powhatan, or James River, and the Chickahominy River as well. One of our deliverables will be an ethnobiology booklet focusing on a select number of native flora and fauna.

[Footage from the Upper Mattaponi Powwow of Women’s Fancy Shawl Dancing]

Domi: Our work with the Chickahominy tribe of Charles City, Virginia in food sovereignty and wildlife data collection is only part of what we’ve been doing this summer – check out our second video to learn more about our mapping efforts with both the Chickahominy and the Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe!