Josh Brecheen: “If a Tribe cannot prove the necessary documentation to receive Federal recognition, they should not receive it by…”

“If a Tribe cannot prove the necessary documentation to receive Federal recognition, they should not receive it by Congress' action. If the Lumbee have a historical record of being a formal Tribe, if they have evidence of lineage to any particular Tribe, if they had a formal claim to the land that they now occupy, why would the BIA repeatedly refuse to formally recognize them as a Tribe? Whatever Tribe may have occupied the land near the Lumbee River has long since dissipated. In fact, the 1956 bill that acknowledged the Lumbee as a people stated that the Tribe around the Lumbee River had fully assimilated into the surrounding European communities during the colonial era before the Constitution was written. The Lumbee agreed to the language in that bill in 1956 as a compromise. In return for the Federal Government referring to them as a distinct people, they promised they would not seek formal Federal recognition. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a copy of the 1956 hearing on the Lumbee bill where a representative of the Lumbee stated they would rather leave the county than accept the Federal recognition status. That is a strong statement of promise. They could look us up and find we are in the law; in the books at Raleigh, and therefore we are honest in their sight. That is No. 1. Mr. Aspinall.…”