Originally published in the Spring 2022 edition of the Virginia Defender, issue 68, printed April 21. Reproduced here for accessibility and archival purposes. To find other stories in the Spring 2022 issue or to download the full PDF, see this post. For other issues dating back to 2012, see the Full Issues page.

Some 350 years after being driven off their land by white settlers, the Rappahannock Tribe has regained ownership of more than 460 acres of ancestral homeland along its namesake river in the Northern Neck.

The area known as Fones Cliffs, a major East Coast nesting place for bald eagles that is considered sacred in tribal culture, in recent years had been targeted for commercial development.

“I’m elated about it,” Rappahannock Chief Anne Richardson told The Washington Post. “It is special to us because the bones of our ancestors are there.”

Archeologists have determined that the tribe lived in and dominated the area for thousands of years before the coming of the Europeans.

Tribal members now number about 300.

The Rappahannock Tribe was able to regain its land with assistance from the Chesapeake Conservancy, The Wilderness Society, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Charlottesville benefactor Carole Remmer Angle and musician and environmentalist Dave Matthews.

The tribe will place the land in trust with the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.