There are Indians in Pennsylvania
According to reports from the Museum of Indian Culture in Allentown, Pennsylvania and a quote attributed to a former PA governor, “there are no Indians in Pennsylvania.” There seems to be a general consensus that Native Americans no longer inhabit what is now known as the state of Pennsylvania.
Growing up on my Rez, we would get visited by aunts, uncles and cousins that traveled from the Philadelphia area. They would come down for big events like major holidays, the annual fish fry or church revival. When I was little I didn’t understand why all of these people didn’t live on the Reservation or even in Richmond or Williamsburg. My mom explained that a lot of people, even tribal elders, left at the turn of the century to find work in factories in Philly. My Great Uncle Peach told us stories about working at the Campbells soup factory when he was a young man (the reason he never ate canned beans again).
Separate from my and my tribe’s personal experiences, Pennsylvania has an interesting Native history. The area of Pennsylvania was originally inhabited by the Lenape (or Delawares) and Susquehannock tribes. Members of the Six Nations migrated from New York to Pennsylvania and created settlements in the 18th century. The Shawnee and Nanticoke migrated to Pennsylvania after the Europeans invaded and pushed them from their tribal lands. Pennsylvania also became a safe haven for displaced Native Americans in the 1900s when the United States government worked to break up tribes and force American assimilation of Indians. States like Virginia under Walter Plecker’s rule also forced Indians to states like Pennsylvania in search of better economic opportunities. This is how so many of the Pamunkey men and their families ended up in Philadelphia and the surrounding counties.
The exodus of Pamunkey people from our Rez to Philly happened for a number of reasons, racism primary among them. Walter Plecker, the Virginia State Registrar and a noted white supremacist, drafted the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. This act reclassified Virginia Native people as “colored” while carving out exceptions for wealthy white families who claimed Pocahontas as an ancestor. My Great Grandfather Chief George Major Cook fought hard against this law, taking his fight to the floor of the Virginia general assembly. The reclassification would lead to an unprecedented loss of tribal identity that has reverberated throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Most men on the Reservation sustained themselves by farming, hunting and fishing, but with the ever-changing world around them, those professions brought in little money. Elder Pamunkey women shifted from making traditional coil pottery to using molds to increase their output and support their families. Young Pamunkey men and women uprooted their lives and moved north to work in the factories of a city that was somewhat more excepting. Some were called back to their Homeland, like my Uncle Peach, Chief Tecumseh Deerfoot Cook, who led our tribe for 42 years. Many others stayed and formed their own communities in the areas around Philadelphia; the pull of our tribal homeland calling them home for visits.
Today there are no federally recognized tribes in Pennsylvania. According to a survey published by the Society for Applied Anthropology, there were 32 different native affiliations represented by current Native American associations in Pennsylvania. The Lenape have three tribes that are federally recognized but none of them have any access to their original homeland in Eastern Pennsylvania. The Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania are not currently recognized by state or federal authorities. Native citizens have been working since the 1970’s and have introduced bills to the State Assembly for at least 17 consecutive years but a vote has never been taken in any relevant committees.
I often wonder what Pamunkey life would be like had Walter Plecker not infected the Virginia Native people with his vile white supremacy. A colonial idea that unfortunately, turned my people against other marginalized groups out of pure survival. An idea the took root in our tribal identity for generations, that until fairly recently was still there. We as a tribe, have changed so much in the almost 100 years since the Racial Integrity act, but we have so far to go. We should learn our lesson by looking into our past to secure our future.
When I was researching Pennsylvania Native history, I was struck by both the similarities and differences in their struggle. So many Natives in Eastern states continue to struggle to prove their identity, ties to their land and value as important historical and cultural touchstones in modern society. There are Indians in Pennsylvania - those with original ties to this land and those that were forced to create Urban Indian associations to survive.