Archaeologists, anthropologists and historians can trace back the history of the Pamunkey tribe some 10,000-12,000 years. They were an integral part of the Powhatan Confederacy, numbering about some 1,000 persons when the English arrived at Jamestown in 1607.

Earlier this month, some 400+ years after English settlers first encountered those Indians, the Pamunkey tribe was finally granted federal recognition.

It’s almost incomprehensible to consider that it has taken this long for the Pamunkey to receive this designation. After all, the Pamunkey tribe has been recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia since colonial times. What took the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs so long?

What’s even more incomprehensible is that there are six other state-recognized tribes—the Chickahominy, the Eastern Chickahominy, the Upper Mattaponi, the Rappahannock, the Monacan and the Nansemond—still waiting their turn.

Being federally recognized is of utmost importance to an Indian tribe and its members because the recognition helps them qualify for special federal and state programs, funding and social services.

But more than that, federal recognition validates their tribal sovereignty. It says that the United States acknowledges that the Pamunkey are an independent people who have a right to their land (secured by treaties with the British crown in 1646 and 1677), their culture and their way of life.

The numbers we are talking about are small—the reservation in King William County is some 1,200 acres (500 acres of which are wetlands) and the tribe numbers only 203 people. But the impact of this federal recognition is huge, both for those directly involved and, in a greater sense, for what it says about us as a nation.

There is a move afoot in Congress (introduced in the Senate by Mark Warner and Tim Kaine and in the House by Rob Wittman, Bobby Scott, Gerry Connolly and Don Beyer) to grant federal recognition to the remaining six Virginia tribes. We hope that this bill becomes law and the Chickahominy, the Eastern Chickahominy, the Upper Mattaponi, the Rappahannock, the Monacan and the Nansemond are afforded this long-overdue dignity.