About the Exhibit
This exhibition was originally shown in 1993 as a research project of anthropology major, arts management certificate student, Katherine Schupp Zeringue, Sweet Briar College class of 1994 and organized for an Ewald Symposium. Entitled Family Portraits: Virginian Indians at the Turn of the 20th Century, the project features a collection of candid, studio, and ethnographic photographs taken of Virginian Indians at the beginning of the twentieth century. Members of the tribes of the historic Powhatan paramount chiefdom and their allies are pictured in family portraits, school pictures, and in tribal gatherings. Included are images of the Monacan, the Pamunkey, the Nansemond, the Chickahominy, the Rappahannock, and the Mattaponi tribes. These reproductions are from the collections of the Library of Virginia, the Virginia Historical Society, the Valentine Richmond History Center, the Smithsonian Institution, and the University of Virginia Special Collections and are used with permission. Many of the photographs are anonymous; others were taken by Smithsonian ethnographic photographer, James Mooney, D.L. Gill, and the Foster Studio of Richmond, Virginia. James Mooney (1861 – 1921) was born in Richmond, Indiana and eventually moved to Washington, D.C. where he found a job with the Bureau of American Ethnology. During his career, he studied the beliefs of the Cherokee, Kiowa, and the Sioux Tribes. D.L. Gill was involved with the Smithsonian Institution as a photographer specializing in American Indians. The Foster Studio Collection documents Richmond, Virginia with more than 30,000 glass-plate negatives dating from 1900 to 1925. At the time of the Ewald Symposium in 1993, many Virginian Indians gathered at Sweet Briar College, along with tribal leaders from across the United States. Many of the persons pictured in these photographs were identified at that time, and names have subsequently been added to our labels. The exhibition has been refurbished to coincide with activities at Sweet Briar College during the Fall term in association with Virginia Archaeology Month and National American Indian Heritage Month in November.
The history of the Native Virginians encompasses several centuries of genocide and discrimination. Following the arrival of the English colonists in 1607, the tribes of Virginia were gradually pushed from their land. With the establishment of a government, which failed to recognize the Indians as citizens, these individuals became legal unknowns in the land where they had once thrived. As the centuries passed, the Virginian Natives continued to encounter injustices. Through the Racial Integrity Act, which was in force from 1924 to 1969, the state officially designated them as “colored”. Constantly marginalized, Indians in Virginia were officially classified as “colored,” but since they were neither white nor black, their integration into 20th Century Virginia society was difficult. Through a sequence of events focused on desegregation, including Brown vs. Board of Education (1954), the 1958 school closings in Virginia, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Indians became enrolled in public schools in Virginia. The process of desegregation, within the twentieth century and along with a growing awareness of the continuing Indian presence encouraged the Native tribes of Virginia to take steps toward attaining equality, as well as the to celebrate and the acknowledgement of their tribes. In 1983, the Virginia government began recognizing the Virginia tribes with the General Assembly’s establishment of the Virginia Council on Indians by the General Assembly. This group serves as an advisory board to the Governor and General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, making recommendations to the Commonwealth on issues regarding Virginia Indians, and advocating for the education of the general public about the Virginia Indians. Most recently, six of the Virginia tribes have attained a new step in their campaign for federal recognition by getting approval form the U.S. House of Representatives in the spring of 2007. While more than 560 other Indian tribes have been federally recognized across the United States, the Virginia tribes are still awaiting recognition.
Today, the Commonwealth of Virginia recognizes eight organized Virginian Native American tribes. These recognized tribes include: the Chickahominy Indian Tribe in Charles City County, the Chickahominy Indian Tribe – Eastern Division in New Kent County, the Mattaponi Indian Tribe in King William County, the Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe in King William County, the Monacan Indian Nation in Amherst County, the Nansemond Indian Tribe in the cities of Suffolk and Chesapeake, the Pamunkey Tribe in King William County, and the Rappahannock Indian Tribe in Essex, Caroline, and King & Queen Counties. Approximately 4,000 individuals are listed on tribal registers with an estimated 20,000 individuals of Native American heritage living throughout Virginia.
After graduating from Sweet Briar, Katherine Schupp Zeringue received an M.A. from the College of William & Mary, worked at Colonial Williamsburg, and is currently Historic Preservation Specialist Supervisor for Preservation Resource Center in New Orleans.
Informative texts including this title panel and labels were updated through the kind assistance of Deanna E. Beacham, Program Specialist, Virginia Council on Indians and Lynn Rainville, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology, Sweet Briar College.
Additional information was retrieved from:
