Rassawek – C-VILLE Weekly

After years of public outcry, the James River Water Authority has abandoned its plans to build a water intake and pump station at Rassawek, the historic capital of the Monacan Indian Nation.

Last week, the authority—a partnership between Fluvanna and Louisa counties—unanimously voted to apply for permits for an alternative project site, located about two miles upstream from Rassawek. JRWA has also agreed to transfer ownership of its portion of Rassawek to the Nation.

During a virtual press conference last week, Monacan Tribal Chief Kenneth Branham, along with attorneys Greg and Marion Werkheiser of Cultural Heritage Partners, celebrated the long-awaited victory, and reflected on the painful battle to protect the historical and cultural site.

“This has been a long road,” said Branham. “We are glad to be moving forward in a spirit of cooperation, to ensure the citizens get their drinking water, and our ancestral capital of Rassawek and the burials of our ancestors are protected.”

Located in Fluvanna County, Rassawek has been an important site for the Monacan Indian Nation for over 4,000 years. British colonist John Smith included Rassawek in his 1612 map of Virginia, and the Smithsonian Institution documented the archaeological resources and human burials at Rassawek beginning in the 1880s.

Before Europeans colonized North America and committed genocide against Indigenous peoples, the Monacans occupied around half of what is now Virginia. Today, the Nation—with around 2,600 citizens—is the largest federally recognized tribe in the state.

In 2014, the JRWA began planning to build a water pump station and pipeline, which would eventually serve the growing Zion Crossroads area, on top of Rassawek. Though the state’s department of historic resources, preservation groups, and archaeologists warned them about Rassawek’s historical and cultural significance, the authority purchased land at the site in 2016.

JRWA did not alert the Monacan Indian Nation of its plans until 2017. The following year, the tribe hired legal counsel, who discovered through public records that the authority had 13 alternative sites for the project from the beginning—but wanted to cut costs by building it on top of Rassawek.

“The tribe had been told that the water authority had looked at a bunch of alternatives and determined that none of them were viable,” explained Greg Werkheiser. “What we discovered when we went in and did a request to the public records…was that, very freely in these documents, the water authority’s advisors were saying ‘yes, there are other viable sites but let’s go with the cheap one.’”

After the water authority applied for a permit in 2020, more than 12,000 individuals and organizations spoke out in support of the Monacans. The National Trust for Historic Preservation put Rassawek on its annual list of America’s most endangered historic places, rallying even more support for the cause.

“We are all caretakers of human stories. If saving Monacan history was the only business of the Monacan people, then Rassawek would have been lost a long time ago. But with citizens and leaders of all walks of life and backgrounds, many non-Monacans saw the fight for our history as their fight,” said Branham. “It’s only by preserving stories…that we can make a strong society.”

The same year, the state disqualified JRWA’s archaeologist, and the tribe filed a lengthy complaint with the Army Corps of Engineers, detailing why the project should not be legally permitted.

In light of this strong public outcry, JRWA brought the project to a halt in August 2020, and agreed to look into alternative options. It hired archaeologists approved by the Nation to ensure there were no human remains at the second site, which already has a road nearby. “If there were archaeological remains there, they were undoubtedly destroyed when that roadway was put in,” said Greg Werkheiser.

The archaeologists confirmed there were no burials at the alternative site last December, and the Nation agreed to officially support building there. JRWA plans to apply for a new permit for the alternative site this spring.

During the press conference, the attorneys reflected on Virginia’s long, painful history of oppressing Indigenous peoples. In the early 20th century, Walter Plecker—a physician, eugenicist, and white supremacist—headed Virginia’s Bureau of Vital Statistics, and helped to pass the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. In addition to criminalizing interracial marriage, the law required every newborn child be classified either as “White” or “Colored,” aiming to erase Indigenous peoples and their identity. State registrars changed birth certificates from “Indian” to “Colored,” and Indigenous peoples were banned from white schools, hospitals, and other public areas.

Branham briefly shared the struggles he faced growing up in Amherst County, thanks to Plecker’s eugenicist efforts. He and his siblings all had different races on their birth certificates, and were not allowed to attend public school until 1962—eight years after Brown v. Board of Education.

“People put us down and didn’t take the time to get to know us. We are proud of who we are,” said Branham.

Decades of erasure made it extremely difficult for Virginia’s tribes to meet the strict criteria for federal recognition. Six Virginia tribes—including the Monacans—did not win federal recognition until 2018.

Last fall, former Virginia governor Ralph Northam issued an executive order requiring the state to consult with tribes on permits that could affect their environmental, historic, and cultural resources. It will remain in effect unless Governor Glenn Youngkin amends or rescinds it. During this year’s General Assembly session, a bill codifying the requirement into state law passed the Democratic-majority state senate, but stalled in the Republican-majority House of Representatives. The House Agriculture Committee agreed to discuss the bill again next year.

“The fight to save Rassawek is one of the first instances in which a Virginia tribe has drawn a hard line in the sand and leveraged its new federal recognition status,” said Greg Werkheiser. “It will not be the last time a tribe draws a line in the sand.”

The attorneys expressed hope that the victory at Rassawek will help other tribes to preserve their land and resources nationwide, and stressed the importance of using multiple strategies at once to win the battle.

“It was not legal arguments, political lobbying, grassroots advocacy, public and media messaging, or coalition building alone that resulted in success—it was an all-of-the-above strategy,” said Greg Werkheiser. “Citizen volunteers proved indispensable.”

“This resolution reveals the false choice between preservation and development,” added Marion Werkheiser. “Early and honest dialogue with tribal nations and other potentially impacted communities can identify concerns, speed development, and avoid unnecessary project costs and delays.”

According to the attorneys, the Rassawek site is owned by multiple people. Cultural Heritage Partners will facilitate conversations between the tribe and other landowners, and develop a long-term plan for “both the tribe’s regular access and eventual stewardship and ownership,” explained Greg Werkheiser.

Branham emphasized that there will be no future economic development at Rassawek.

“We want to possibly clean it up and show the beauty of that particular spot,” added the chief. “We want to make sure we never, never have to do this fight again.”

Fighting for a historic site: Time is running out to speak up for Monacan rights

By Zoé Edgecomb

Between now and May 7, Virginians have a rare opportunity to facilitate a moment of justice for the Monacan people whose land we live on.

Zion Crossroads, at the intersection of I-64 and Route 15, is developing rapidly, and local politicians have known for years that the groundwater is insufficient. Their solution is to pump water from the James River, and Louisa and Fluvanna counties created the James River Water Authority to make this happen.

The men on this board have determined that the cheapest, and therefore best, place for the water intake and pumping station is where the Rivanna River flows into the James —you may know it as Point of Fork or Columbia. The earliest maps of Virginia called it Rassawek, and European explorers noted it as the principal town of the Monacan, who occupied a large area in central Virginia, from the Fall Line (Richmond, Fredericksburg) into the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Several alternative locations for the project were studied, but after a well-attended meeting where over 100 people traveled to a gated community golf clubhouse to speak against it, the JRWA chose to continue the colonialist tradition of prioritizing profit over justice, and voted to submit an application for the third of four required permits to the Army Corps of Engineers.

The mindset that has allowed the project to get even this far is a product of centuries of myth-building: European colonists came to an empty, untamed land in which the Indians had already died off, and made the land fruitful for the first time. But the Monacan people have always been here, even if some of their number chose to incorporate into other tribes. The heart of the current community, a federally recognized tribe since 2018, beats just an hour south of Charlottesville, around Bear Mountain in Amherst County.

Few of us growing up around here learned much about the Monacans, and even today, few know about the doctrine of discovery that helped justify colonization. Accounts vary as to the exact beginning, but a few papal bulls (essentially letters from the Pope) played a critical role: In 1455, Pope Nicholas V gave Portugal the right to colonize the African coast. Portugal was encouraged to “invade, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens, pagans, and other enemies of Christ, to put them into perpetual slavery, and to take away all their possessions and property.”

Later, Protestant colonizers found their own mandate for colonization in the Bible. The kings and queens of England borrowed the Pope’s religious language to grant tracts of land they had never visited.

After they shrugged off their own status as colonial subjects, U.S. settlers relied on a distinction between “Christians” and “heathens” to justify further expansion into Indian territory. In 1823, Justice John Marshall’s ruling in Johnson v. M’Intosh put it this way: “…discovery gave title to the government by whose subjects, or by whose authority, it was made…which title might be consummated by possession…the character and religion of [the original] inhabitants afforded an apology for considering them as a people over whom the superior genius of Europe might claim an ascendancy.” In other words, finders keepers, as long as the original caretakers of the land could be perceived as pagans.

The legacy of the discovery precedent continues today, as corporations, government entities, and private citizens insist that Native Americans’ rights must give way to the “greater good” of pipelines, mining, and ranching.

Federal recognition means tribes must be consulted when federal projects will directly impact the tribe. This is one such project. Monacan people historically buried the dead in mounds near principal towns, so there is almost 100 percent certainty that human remains of Monacan ancestors will be unearthed if construction goes forward at Rassawek. Chief Kenneth Branham has stated that he and the Monacan community have participated in the process of reburial in the past. It is a deeply painful experience that no one wants to repeat.

To issue this permit, the Army Corps of Engineers is required to consider comments from the public. They need to consider all impacts, including on historic and cultural resources. Already, the site has allegedly been impacted by inept investigations: The archaeological firm hired by JRWA is accused of inflating its qualifications to do archaeological work of this nature, and of performing excavations at the site in a manner that may have permanently destroyed historic resources.

For more information, visit the website of the attorneys representing the Monacan Nation in this important struggle. Write to the Army Corps of Engineers and sign the letter to Governor Ralph Northam before the May 7 deadline. Tell them you oppose JRWA’s permit application; it is not in the public interest; and that Rassawek should be preserved as an important part of national, Virginia, and tribal history. Request a public hearing on the permit application and an environmental impact statement.

Louisa and Fluvanna counties must implement sensible water use guidelines, such as disallowing high-impact uses like golf courses. Ask developers to pay their fair share. By now, we should be able to recognize that the Monacan people have given up enough.

Zoé Edgecomb is a landscape architect and visual artist based in Charlottesville, located on Monacan lands.