Indigenous Voices: Environmental Stewardship and the Politics of Tribal Status

Indigenous Peoples Day is observed in Pennsylvania and as a federal holiday on Monday, October 10, 2022. It has been a long road for Tribes and Indigenous activists, and their allies, to change Euro-American culture’s elevation of someone  who never even stepped foot in North America. It signals legitimate progress that President Biden, state legislatures and governors, and local lawmakers acknowledge and reprimand Columbus’s role in seeding a massive literal and cultural genocide upon his newly discovered “New World’s” Indigenous populations. Now, we take that national holiday and elevate it in remembrance, celebration, and repossession of Indigenous voices and culture. It is long overdue, and it is a start toward ending the pervasive fairy tale perceptions of Tribal histories and cultures that distill the impact of intergenerational trauma upon Indigenous Peoples, whether those individuals are part of a tribal community or not.  

Although Pennsylvania has a rich pre-Colonial and Colonial Tribal history, modern Tribal identity remains mostly unknown, misunderstood, and dramatically unseen in our state. The easiest explanation for this seeming erasure or invisibility of Indigenous context is the lack of what are called “federally recognized” Tribal Nations in the state of Pennsylvania. To illuminate and provide some understanding, this article examines the politics of federal recognition, existing legal protections for tribal cultural properties in PA, and recent efforts to actively involve Indigenous voices in Sierra Club-supported initiatives.