A report in the News Leader treaded quite lightly in its reporting on the move by the Frontier Culture Museum to cancel its planned Nov. 22 Native American History Day event, citing the possibility of a “disturbance” based on social media posts.
Curious at the nature of the possible “disturbance,” it took me all of five minutes to see that the issue is frustration over the nature of the planned event raised by a member of The Upper Mattaponi Tribe, who blistered the museum on its socials for planning a very generic presentation of Native culture as part of its festivities.
“This museum was told they needed to consult Monacan the natives whose land they reside. They chose not to,” reported Joanie Beverly, who identifies herself on her Facebook page as an agricultural technician with The Upper Mattaponi Tribe, which is based in King William County, “in the traditional lands of Tsenacomacah.”
The tribe, which was here in Virginia before any White people tried to settle on the land, is recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States government.
Frontier Culture Museum CEO Butch Smiley didn’t go into detail in his communication with the News Leader about the nature of the “disturbance” that led to the decision, announced on Nov. 19, to cancel the Native American History Day event.
“It was brought to our attention there was ‘chatter’ on social media about the potential for a disturbance to occur during the day,” Smiley told the News Leader. “Our staff expressed concern about the effectiveness of any programming in the event of a disturbance, nor did we want our staff and visitors subjected to any potential intimidation that may occur during the event.”
The “’chatter’ on social media” seems to have been erased from the record; my best guess is, it was contained in the comment sections on posts on the museum’s Facebook page that have since been deleted.
Scanning through Beverly’s personal Facebook page, the only evidence of anything resembling a “disturbance” that I see is Beverly and fellow Natives discussing the perceived disrespect toward the Native population from museum staff, along with a line from Beverly to the effect that if she didn’t have to work to pay her bills, she’d be at the types of events the Frontier Culture Museum was planning to “shame them.”
Following the cancellation of the event, Beverly took to her personal Facebook page to do a victory lap.
“The disrespect shown to a beloved elder and refusing to work with our people is not acceptable! For them to make money off of their own generic Eastern Woodland exhibit or this talk they cancelled is absolutely unacceptable,” she wrote. “I’m glad they decided to do one thing right and cancel. If you want to hear real Native American history, go the tribes themselves, or else you’ll get the colonized, whitewashed version from people profiting off of us!”
Frontier Culture Museum cancelled Native American History Day
