Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and US Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams celebrated the tribe’s reacquisiton of the land Friday, according to a press release from the Department of the Interior.”We have worked for many years to restore this sacred place to the Tribe,” said Rappahannock Tribe Chief Anne Richardson, according to the Chesapeake Conservancy. “With eagles being prayer messengers, this area where they gather has always been a place of natural, cultural and spiritual importance.”
Fones Cliff is the ancestral home of the tribe, located on the eastern side of the Rappahannock River in Virginia. The area, located inside the Rappahannock River Valley National Wildlife Refuge, will be publicly accessible and placed in trust with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Tribe plans to educate the public about their history by constructing a replica 16th-century village and expand their “Return to the River” program, which trains Tribal youth in traditional river knowledge and practices.
“The Department is honored to join the Rappahannock Tribe in co-stewardship of this portion of their ancestral homeland. We look forward to drawing upon Tribal expertise and Indigenous knowledge in helping manage the area’s wildlife and habitat,” Secretary Haaland said in the statement. “This historic reacquisition underscores how Tribes, private landowners, and other stakeholders all play a central role in this Administration’s work to ensure our conservation efforts are locally led and support communities’ health and well-being.”
The cliffs play a central part in the history of the tribe. In 1608, the tribe first encountered and defended their homeland against English settler Captain John Smith, who played an important role in the first permanent English settlement in America at Jamestown, Virginia. In the 1660s, the tribe began to be forcefully displaced from their homeland on the Rappahannock River by the English, according to the Chesapeake Conservancy.
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