(I hate to be the one to point out the fly in the ointment, but not all local Abenaki are thrilled with the passage of this bill.  A  couple of weeks ago, a trusted friend with connections to the Abenaki community told me of a controversy within the community that concerns the political back-story of this bill, and I am still trying to learn more about  the arguments on both sides of the debate.  That being said, I hope that promoting this diary to the front page will result in  a constructive discussion that will encourage people to share what they know of the issues involved so that we can all be better informed. – promoted by Sue Prent)

(crossposted at vtdigger.org)

Update, May 5, 6:20 PM:

On Tuesday, May 4, the Vermont Senate concurred with the House version of S.222 with amendment.  The amendment was the result of discussions with members of the “Alliance”, and has made the bill more complete.  Concessions made in negotiations have addressed important issues to the Abenaki, including but not limited to protecting their geneology in a way that allows it to be used for recognition purposes but does not allow it to be entered into the public record. Also written into the bill was language that will restart the Vermont Native American Commission this fall, as well as clarifying the criteria for applying to the commission.

On Wednesday morning, the bill was returned to the General, Housing & Military Affairs committee for further review.  After a short discussion, we voted to concur with the further amendment and declared so on the floor.  With this, a final voice vote was taken and S.222 passed the House.  The bill will now be messaged to the Governor and he will decide whether to sign or veto the bill.

We are extraordinarily proud of the work we have done in concert with the Senate on this bill.  Recognition of our local Native Americans has been an extremely complex issue, with differences of opinion on the direction S.222 should take, differences of opinion on the criteria and process, and finally, differences of opinion as to what the words within the bill actually mean.  In the end, the process worked as it is designed to do, and we are prepared to see this bill submitted to the Indian Arts and Crafts Board for their approval of the criteria we will use to recognize tribes.  If the law passes muster, we can begin, once again, to legally recognize our Native Americans so they may pursue their own lives and culture in a formal and established way.  With this recognition, our Native Americans will inherit rights and responsibilities they have been denied for generations.

We are pleased to pass S.222 to the Governor for signing and moving forward on this long and decidedly arduous path.

On Friday, April 30, the Vermont House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed their version S.222, an act relating to state recognition of Native American Indian tribes in Vermont.  This bill was originally written in the Senate and came to the General, Housing and Military Affairs Committee in the House for review and, eventually, revision.

Recognition for our Native American citizens has been a long and rocky road.  In 1976, Governor Thomas Salmon issued recognition to the Missisquoi Abenaki, but in 1977 Governor Richard Snelling rescinded that recognition.  In 2006, the General Assembly passed and Governor Douglas signed S.117, which recognized the Abenaki people and all other Native Americans living in Vermont as a minority population.  

This recognition, long sought and especially important after an application by the Missisquoi Abenaki for federal recognition failed, was meant to provide our Native Americans with a legal status so that they might apply to get, among other benefits, recognition of their crafts as “Abenaki made.”  This ability to identify their crafts in this manner would have legitimized their efforts to get their culture, as represented by their crafts, installed in such institutions as the Smithsonian, our national museum.

Without this recognition, Abenaki artisans have been unable to sell their wares as authentic, and any galleries who displayed their wares as authentic were at risk of facing large fines for doing so.

The legislation passed in 2006, as well intentioned and crafted as it was, contained a major flaw that ended up neutralizing its intent: its reliance on calling the Abenaki a minority population, rather than recognizing them, and individual tribes or bands within, as political entities.  The Indian Arts and Crafts Board (IACB), responsible for granting the desired craft status, notified the state that its recognition of the Abenaki as minorities  was not sufficient, and that Abenaki artisans still could not market their wares as “Abenaki made”.

With S.222, the House has taken the fine work of the Senate and, in our opinion, improved upon it in a way that may gain federal approval for our criteria in granting recognition to our Native American tribes and bands.  It was clear that we needed to craft criteria that would, first and foremost, recognize our tribes and bands completely and totally.  We cannot try to craft criteria that would allow, in its simplest terms, craft based recognition.  The standards we found in federal law and in other states that have recognized their own Native Americans were drawn in a way that was inclusive and reasonable — but they were not necessarily applicable to our Native American tribes and bands.  

The House version of the bill has attempted to make a process that was open enough to acknowledge the difficulty of proving certain criteria, including geneology.  We know that one of the reasons federal recognition was denied was the inability to show a continuous local history — a fact exacerbated by the large holes in recordkeeping that exist in towns across the state due to flood, fire or what have you.  This lack of consistency in birth and death records certainly has affected certain tribes’ and bands’ attempts to use geneology as a method for proving their case.

Geneology, however, is not the sole criteria used to recognize tribes.  S.222 attempts to utilize criteria that has been collected not only from the original Senate bill, but from statutes from across the country.  This bill also establishes a process that we hope, in combination with the criteria, will gain the approval of the IACB and allow our Native Americans — including and most numerously, the Abenaki — to receive full state recognition first (and most importantly) and craft recognition for their artisans.

This bill also creates a process wherein the Native American Commission will work with a review panel and the legislature to process applications from bands and tribes for recognition.  This, we hope, will allow the applicants a level playing field and remove personal politics from the decision making process.

Rep. Kesha Ram championed this bill in the House.  As we took testimony and chose to go in a different direction than the Senate version of the bill, Rep. Ram worked hard to balance the needs and concerns of all the different groups of Abenaki who reside in our state and had a stake in the outcome of the bill.  We feel the direction we took and the bill we produced will give us a reasonably good chance to gain the recognition we seek for the Abenaki — and at the same time putting the responsibility for creating good criteria directly where it belongs: on the legislature. We have seen the pain of having recognition yanked away, and it is real. By creating a bill that limits its language to the process and the criteria, it will be upon the legislature to fix any problems that may arise.  In years past, we have attempted to provide recognition for the Abenaki and we have failed.  If we are to succeed, we must put ourselves in front of the decision-making process on behalf of the Abenaki.  

The House version of S.222 is an attempt to right wrongs done to our indigenous people  throughout our history. We are hopeful that the Senate will concur with our version of S.222, and if it does, and the governor signs the law, and if the federal government approves our criteria, that it will be seen as a crowning achievement for Vermont, for the Abenaki, and for all Native Americans in Vermont.

Rep. Tom Stevens (Washington-Chittenden 1) is a member of the House General, Housing & Military Affairs committee.