Federal Recognition Is Irrelevant To Indian Identity
By BETHE DUFRESNE
General Assignment Reporter/Columnist
Published on 11/11/2005
Last month, in a column about the reversal of federal recognition for the Eastern Pequots, I wrote that we should listen to our grandmothers.
Grandmothers are traditionally keepers of family stories, history and wisdom. Therefore it's pretty upsetting when your grandmother says you're Indian but the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs says you're not.
Several readers wrote back with grandmother tales of their own.
One was Jan Kepner of Groton, who grew up believing she was a descendant of Pocahontas through John Rolfe and down through the Eldredge family line. Her grandmother gave her a genealogy to prove it.
“We have, for generations, collected Pocahontas things and have books on Pocahontas that have been passed down in the family,” said Kepner, “because we were sure that that was where our roots were — because our grandmothers had told us so!”
Ooops.
In 1995, when Disney's “Pocahontas” movie opened, Eldredge relatives around the country tried to join the “Pocahontas Association,” Kepner said, only to discover that it was the Eldridgenot Eldredgeline that's linked to the Native American heroine.
“Our family was devastated,” wrote Kepner, 69, who had taught her grandchildren about the link. “Not because we thought that we could become a member of an active tribe and get rich (too far away from the Pocahontas blood anyway), but because it was a wonderful thing to think that we were descended from Pocahontas.”
On one level, I understand the letdown. For a long time I thought I was a descendant of Gen. Francis Marion, a.k.a. “The Swamp Fox,” the Revolutionary War hero immortalized in a Disney TV series. Then my mother set me straight. The Old Fox was a collateral ancestor, meaning he merely married into my family. Neither she nor my grandmother had misled me. I guess it was just my own youthful, wishful thinking.
I got over it, and I gather that Kepner has, too.
What's befallen the Eastern Pequots, however, is an entirely different situation. It's not about hooking their lineage to a star, Native or otherwise, for fun or for pride.
I have plenty of problems with the whole sovereign nation set-up, which I won't detail (again) here. Granted, some tribal latecomers may seek the federal seal of approval on their Indian identity primarily for the money.
But for those who hung onto that hardscrabble piece of reservation land, I'm inclined to believe identity trumps all else, and that blood is but a drop in the bucket.
With or without federal recognition, the Eastern Pequots are still a state-recognized tribe. Since that doesn't allow them to open a casino, no one has any inclination to take it away from them. You could say their identity remains intact.
But the fact that their Mashantucket and Mohegan neighbors are federally recognized, and they're not, consigns them to secondary status.
When I wrote that we should listen to our grandmothers, I meant that, on the personal identity scale, it seems to me the Easterns carry about as much weight as any other Connecticut tribe.
What Indian identity should entitle anyone to at this time, in this place, is another story. The kind told by lawyers, politicians and businessman. Not by grandmothers.
This is the opinion of Bethe Dufresne.
Link to Report
Special thanks to Bea Woodward for the lead!
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December 2005 Reports
Last updated on December 08, 2005