Podcasts. Washington journal prime time, a special evening edition on the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. Our guests are the chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot on the citys and personal response to the pandemic and the latest data on how well its being controlled. Join the conversation tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Up next on American History tv, the principle chief of the Cherokee Nation talks about the tribes history following its removal from the south and relocation to oklahoma. He discusses how the cherokee has concentrated on rebuilding and strengthening their culture amid adversity. Its now my great pleasure to introduce chief adams. As was mentioned earlier today chief adams serves on preservation of virginia board of trustees. He served as a strong advocate of the federal recognition of the upper and in the lead up to 2007 chief adams actively participated in the 2007 Steering Committee and the activities associate would the commemoration, and i can say we spent a lot of time together at various events around the state. His leadership and persistence ensured that commemorative events respected the people, their culture and governance long before the ships arrived at jamestown as steve pointed out. He brought the lack of a permanent memorial on the virginia Capitol Grounds as did other tribal leaders to the attention of governor kaine and delegate peace resulting in the federation of the virginia indian comission and the dedication of mantle in 2018. Chief adams has dedicated himself to numerous causes and organizations across the commonwealth, and its an honor to introduce chief adams. Thank you, elizabeth, for those kind words. Good afternoon. Its an honor to be here today to be part of this event. We started this about 15 months ago, 18 months ago when we just briefed each other on what the possibilities were for us to have such an event as this. And were fortunate to be able to have it in this special location today. Im going to give you a brief history of the tribe. As indians know and know very well the doctrine of discovery still very well still very well alive in the United States. And in some cases its very well alive here in the virginia. And Indigenous People continue to suffer from the effects of the doctrine of discovery which came about in 1452 or 1453 from the Catholic Church with the edict proclaimed all peoples across the planet were available to be taken, were available to be killed, were available to be annihilated. And so it happened. And when the first british ships came to virginia in 1607, they knew full well by planting the flag of Great Britain that they were claiming this land for the united kingdom, england as it was known then. And yet at the end of the day some of us still suffer from the effects of the planting of the english flag in 1607 at jamestown. When the british first came, they were hungry. They didnt have any food. So what did they do . They started going out and locating the indian towns, the small indian towns and stealing their corn, stealing their fields of corn. And the ones they didnt steal the corn they didnt steal, they destroyed so that the indian people that were living there they became hungry themselves. And as steve mentioned and shortly after the british came on one of those trips they went to the town of on the james river, just below jamestown looking for food. And their goal was to take the corn from those people, which is what they did and burned what was left. And as they were going back to jamestown, the kids that they had captured, the children that they had captured were thrown into the water. And as the articles read their heads were blown out, their brains were blown out from the men on the ship. They were taking the wife of the king as they referred back to jamestown with them. They took her ashore and according to the article ran her through with a sword because theyd had enough fighting for one day. They didnt want to take her back because they alluded to the fact she would be burned at the stake. So instead of doing that they ran her through with a sword, but they basically annihilated the tribe. In 1610 that process of annihilation and that process of stealing from the indians that started at jamestown 1607 to 1610, that process continued from virginia all the way to the west coast. In other words, in 100 years after landing, 90 of the population of Indigenous People in virginia was gone. 90 . 300 years after landing 90 of the entire indigenous population of this country was gone. 90 . Imagine that . Imagine what would happen today if 90 of a population of a nation was destroyed, was annihilated. Wed be shouting from the rooftops. Wasnt much shouting then except the shouting that came from the indians. But at that place when the british came they eventually ended up at a place. Its a place name, a place for leaders, a place for chiefs on the york river not far from jamestown. But that was the place where pocahontas and john smith, the governor of the colony and the chief came together and you know the fable. The fable being that pocahontas saved john smiths life, and therefore the colony was saved. Is that true . Not very many people believe it. She was only about 10, 11, 12 years old at that time, so its very doubtful she had the authority as a young indian woman to save the life of the governor of the colony. But that story has been perpetuated through film and other stories from time immemorial. For my tribe if you follow the york river north and west it divides into two rivers. The river on the left is the same rivers and have the same names today. They still reside on a reservation which was established in early 1600s, possibly the oldest reservation in the country. The other reservation was affirmed in 1658, one of the oldest reservations in the country. And in 1670 the largest concentration of indians in the entire commonwealth of virginia was in a little town called alet, and thats where my people live today. We still live in the same vicinity designated on the map in 1670. But we got there in some ways because of removal. In the 1640s after the second indian up rising in virginia against the british all of the local indians were moved west and north to a place called King William County. And King William County was where the two reservations are today. At one time there was another reservation there around 1670 to 1690s, and they eventually moved back to their original place where they reside today in charles city county. But that reservation land that the large concentration of other indians in 1670 on the August Herman map for you historians on the August Herman map of 1673 shows the largest concentration of indians in the commonwealth of virginia. I myself years later years later live today witness a separation of my family as they were forced out of the commonwealth of virginia in order to get a High School Education. Three of my family members went to oklahoma, the college right there next to cherokee land in creek territory in oklahoma. I served on the board for years. My family members had to actually leave the commonwealth of virginia in order to get a High School Education back in the 40s and 1950s. Several of my family members were forced to go to michigan to live with families in michigan to complete high school. Another piece of that whole puzzle as this thing called the racial integrity act, this racial integrity act also caused a serious disruption in virginia among indian communities because the General Assembly approved a law that indicated that there were no indians living in virginia. They were either colored or white. So what did it do . It just ripped the hearts out of people and said basically you cannot even document on your records not even your records, birth certificates, marriage license, you cannot document that youre a nativeamerican in this state. That started in 1923. And because of that my uncles and grandparents and greatuncles, they documented on their draft certificate the draft certificate they were documented as indians. But yet when they went to join the service the service said, no, you cant do that. So they actually left the state in order to register as indians when they were drafted. Thats just a brief piece of the history of the upper. This history is the same for the other indians in virginia. But my time is up. And its my pleasure, chief atkins, you need to step this way, please. [ applause ] im just bringing him up on stage because i have some other work to do. Im going to introduce chief hoskn as our really special speaker this afternoon from the Cherokee Nation of oklahoma. He was elected to serve as a principal chief of the Cherokee Nation with more than 380 tribal citizens in 2019. Prior to being elected principal chief he served as the Cherokee Nation secretary of state. As principal chief he increased minimum wage at Cherokee Nation and Cherokee Nation businesses and secured the largest language investment in the tribes history to expand the cherokee language education and preservation. Chief hotkens also appointed the tribes first delegate to the u. S. Congress, double funding for career Tech Education and established the housing, jobs and sustainable communities act to repair hundreds of homes for cherokees, elders, cherokee elders as well as Public Community buildings across the tribes 14county jurisdiction. Additionally as cherokee of state hoskn worked to secure funding from the federal government to fund a billiondollar joint Venture Investment in Better Health for all cherokees. Hes also served as the Cherokee Nations strongest advocate on sovereignty protection. I like that very much. He formally served as the member of the council of the Cherokee Nation representing district 11 for six years and served his two final years as deputy speaker. On the counsel he worked with fellow councilmembers to Start Building homes for Cherokee Nations, increase Education Funding and sponsor legislation to expand Health Care Service through casino dollars. Chief hoskens has testified at the United Nations on behalf of the Cherokee Nation and serves on multiple boards and commissions including the United States health and Human Services secretaries travel advisory committee. Chief hoskin is from i hope i said that correctly. A community where he lives with his family. He and his first lady in january are the parents of two children, tristan and jasmine. He graduated from the university of oklahoma and the university of Oklahoma College of law and is a member of the Cherokee Nation and oklahoma bar associations. Chief hoskin, we welcome you to this stage and this community. I have one little controversial word i have to say. As i was researching the history of virginia many, many years ago there was one brief Little Corner way down in southwest virginia where it appeared not going to disagree with anyone but it appeared there were cherokee people that lived in that one little small area of virginia, very small. But chief hoskin since the cherokee did live in virginia according to my little recognition, welcome home. [ applause ] we have a gift for chief hoskins from the preservation of virginia. [ applause ] what a wonderful opportunity it is to be before you. Im so honored the Cherokee Nation has been asked to be a part of this. I think it speaks highly of the History Association and Virginia Preservation that you would include the indigenous aspects of the history of this great state and this great country. So i do thank you all for being here. She was mentioned but i do want it recognized in the audience a lady that i would not be here without her, thats the first lady of the Cherokee Nation. [ applause ] it is quite something to be talking about cherokee history and law in front of scholars and noted historians including my friend jack baker and my former law professor lindsey robertson. So next month the symposium will be on everything chief hoskin got wrong about the history of law that should take most of the day. And being in the audience and then being in front of professor robertson, it kind of feels like old times except therell be no test. Now, hes saying there will be a test, so well get through it. So im going to pick up where jack baker left off, and im going to attempt to get to the right slide. And theres our great seal of the Cherokee Nation. September 6, 1839, well talk about that in a moment you see on our seal. Of course the Cherokee Nation we say weve existed from time iimemorial, one thing worth touching on is before the trail of tears there was an earlier migration of cherokees, and when we got to what was our new home there was quite a bit of fighting and controversy. You hear about people being at each others throats and in just mean in a figerative senur figu cherokees were literally at each others throats. And john marshal and his decision might be why i even exist because who knows what would have happened to my ancestors but i certainly would not be here because i believe that decision which is a bedrock today. Im so honored to be with you here for that reason. So the dark chapter of American History leading up and including the trail of tears is something that this country ought to remember. And i think jack baker did a great job of talking about in very personal terms and how it affected his family and how it affected other cherokee. We ought to remember when the governor of this country thought it was a good to round people up into cages. Its not a good idea today, but we ought to take those lessons from our history. When you think about what happened and the great destruction that befell the Cherokee Nation and in human terms we lost a quarter of our population, 4,000 men, women, children, grandmas, grandpas, grand babies wiped off the face of the earth. And you think further it necessarily ripped our economy apart. Before removal remember what was happening. It was touched on before. We had adapted and strengthed ourselves as a nation to deal with what was happening in terms of the encroachment of settlers, to deal with the gump of the United States in a fairly rapid period of time, getting a written constitution. The great genius, he gave the cherokee something more powerful than any shield or any sword we could ever wield, and that was the ability to communicate with each other and then translating that to english, communicating with the world. That was a great resistance by the cherokee people before removal. We werent simply removed because the president of the United States said so or because a minority faction of cherokee signed a treaty. We stood our grounds. He stood his ground and went to washington, d. C. To plaez head case to resist removal and ultimately defeat it to make it as good as it could be for his people. I think that period of time and the period that follows which ill get to did something, shaped something, built something in our National Character that stays with us today. People of tremendous grit and determination to have reswrilsed to have overcome, and as we got to our new home in what is today northeast oklahoma we had a lot of work to do, so we had to rebuild. Keep in mind what we were rebuilding. We were rebuilding the great cherokee democracy that existed before removal. We again had a system of laws, and we had a system of justice based on the rule of law and a constitution. I think it says something about the cherokee people when we were removed and we rebuilt, and you saw that date in 1839, thats when we got back together the act of union of the cherokees that had moved out before and the treaty party, and the ross party all at odds with each other. And we found it within ourselves to rise above that after some lives were lost, but we still rose above it and got our Government Back together. It strikes me that even though justice in this country let us down we still believed in it. We still thought thats what we ought to do, and that would be what would be best to rebuild a Great Society. We still believed in democracy, and so we invested in that in addition to investing in a system of law and justice. And look what else we did, this is the cherokee female seminary. Now that building, that institution is the First Institution of Higher Learning for any woman of any race west of the mississippi in the history of this country, and it happened because the cherokee people believed in education. And we didnt just believe in that form of Higher Education. A free system of Public Education in what is now oklahoma long before that was an oklahoma, 1841 we passed an act establishing free Public Edu