This article has been edited since it first appeared in print.
(From left) Assistant professor William Shuart, Chickahominy Tribe environmental director Dana Adkins and VCU faculty research associate Ronaldo Lopez discuss drones used for surveying while standing outside the VCU Rice Rivers Center in Charles City County.
The Chickahominy Indian Tribe, one of Virginia’s recognized American Indian tribes, is trying to get a glimpse of what its parts of the Virginia shoreline and upland forests will look like as climate change progresses. The Chickahominy Tribe — unlike the Pamunkey and Mattaponi tribes — has no reservation; its tribal lands were purchased.
Like most landowners in a time of accelerating climate change, their members are concerned about the future of their property, but that concern is amplified because these lands have been home to their people for thousands of years, before what Indigenous people refer to as “European contact,” when the first permanent English settlement was established in 1607 at Jamestown.
Unlike western U.S. Indian tribes that received federal recognition as political entities decades ago, Virginia’s tribes had to work more than 30 years to gain federal recognition in 2018, with many roadblocks thrown into their paths. “When our tribes received federal recognition, that opened opportunities for them to acquire more ancestral land, such as the 900-acre ancestral property called Mamanahunt in Charles City County,” says Greg Garman, director of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Rice Rivers Center. Mamanahunt is culturally significant to the Chickahominy because it is one of several village sites along the Chickahominy River where the tribe was living when Jamestown colonists arrived.
Dana Adkins, Chickahominy Tribe environmental director and a distant cousin of Chief Stephen R. Adkins, says his tribe needs to determine the condition of more than 300 acres of wetlands at Mamanahunt, as well as upland forest, to have a baseline in an era of rising sea levels and warming global temperatures. They are working with the Rice Rivers Center, primarily at Mamanahunt, to try to visualize the changes expected in the future, including the shrinkage of shoreline.
Rice Rivers Center faculty members over the years have provided the tribes with environmental advice in controlling invasive species such as phragmites, or large, perennial reed grasses, and blue catfish, introduced in the 1970s. “Now we want to help them be informed to make better decisions about which direction to go in the future to preserve their resources,” says Ed Crawford, deputy director of the Rice Rivers Center. He and Ron Lopez are the lead faculty on the project.
Dana Adkins and sixth-grader Jeremiah Adkins (no relation) pick up trash.
The center’s work reaches a new level with two major projects that include the use of its resources and expertise to protect and preserve ancestral lands of the Chickahominy. “We’re cross-fertilizing to build relationships,” Garman says, “between their knowledge base and values and ours. We’re moving slowly to make sure everything is according to tribal wishes.”
The project will take a multipronged approach, providing training in emerging technology, such as remote sensing applications, geodetic surveys and more, for adults and middle and high school students in the Chickahominy Tribe.
Adkins said a partnership on a small project with George Mason University last summer provided an introduction to geographic information systems, “and now we have a GIS license and software, courtesy of the [U.S.] Bureau of Indian Affairs. Now we need to have classes in using the equipment.”
“We’ll start with informal training by having tribal members go out into the field with us,” Garman says. “We need to figure out what exactly is there, the species and types of vegetation they have in their forested wetlands. We want to help them be good stewards of their lands.”
In 2018, a Rice Rivers Center researcher went to England to share findings about restoring Atlantic sturgeon to the James River, which was called the Powhatan River by Virginia’s Indian tribes at the time of European contact. The English have had sturgeon in the Thames River for centuries, and Capt. John Smith wrote in 1609 of his exploration of the James River: “We had more sturgeon than could be devoured by dog and man.”
“Sturgeon helped save colonists’ lives during the starving time of 1609 to 1610,” Garman says, “but overfishing by Americans through the 19th and early 20th centuries almost wiped it out. It’s protected under the Endangered Species Act, and we’re working to help the Chickahominy restore it.”
This is all personal for Adkins, who says having his people’s land back in their possession is culturally important: “We were a river people and were pushed off the river during the time of colonization.” He has three sisters, one of whom volunteers in support of the project. “We want to be a good example for our community,” he adds.
