City should give land to Nansemond

Staff

Published Saturday, June 28, 2003

Editor, the News-Herald:

I would appreciate it if you would print the following rebuttal to the City of Suffolk's stand on the Nansemond Indian Tribe's Mattanock Town proposal. This is addressed to City Council members.

I recently became aware of the Nansemond Indian Tribe and the Mattanock Town proposal that is on the City of Suffolk's desk. As a registered voter and executive director of the International Native American Flute Association, I am stunned and embarrassed by your apathy toward the Nansemond tribe and your ignorance of the historical injustices that have been perpetrated against the Native American people. If you were taught by the same politically correct, highly inaccurate history textbooks that our children are being taught with today, you most likely would know that:

nNative Americans are the only minority group who has to prove their heritage to the United States government in order to receive the benefits freely given to other minorities in America.

Would you like it if your ethnicity was null and void until you sufficiently proved it to the government via a very lengthy process geared to create frustration and defeat, and were then forced to carry a card identifying you as your ethnicity? That's the case for Native Americans.

nThe United States government had in place and on the books extermination policies to rid themselves of the Native American population, offering money for scalps, sport shooting buffalo which was the primary means of survival for the Plains Native Americans, and deliberately supplying the starving, enslaved Native American population with disease-infested blankets, causing many to die horribly from smallpox as a result.

In short, the United States government practiced and supported genocide, in addition to stripping the Native American people - a beautiful and culturally rich people - of their rightful lands and their dignity.

If you had a home that I really admired and I though myself to be much more educated and refined than you and your family, how would you like it if I ordered you (with accompanying force) to get out of your house and off of your land so that I could have your belongings, after all I have the ability to make better use of it than you and God meant it to be that way...Manifest Destiny, you know.

That was the case when the Europeans came to America which, by the way, never needed to be "discovered," since there were already people here with highly developed societies, cultures and religions firmly in place.

I have read the proposal for the Mattanock Town, and I assert that the benefits far outweigh any detriments that the city perceives. The Nansemond tribe is the only remaining tribe in the Hampton Roads area and they should be cherished and nourished by the City of Suffolk.

Not only does it help to right an injustice perpetrated upon this tribe long ago, it helps in establishing diversity and cultural understanding in the community. There are many minorities in our world and each and every one deserves to be respected, including Native Americans! If that doesn't translate to the City of Suffolk, then the substantial money and prestige that this site will generate with regard to the tourist traffic should be easily comprehended.

I urge you to support this project and stop the discrimination against the Native American people. Be culturally proactive, Suffolk. Support a project that breeds diversity and cultural understanding. Stop being part of the discriminatory problem, help heal by helping the tribe reconnect with their history and culture, something that was violently ripped from them many years ago.

Thank you for your prompt and professional attention to this matter.

Dr. Kathleen Joyce-Grendahl

Suffolk

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