Dispute over Abenaki identity in Vermont grows more entrenched

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https://vtdigger.org/2024/05/03/dispute-over-abenaki-identity-in-vermont-grows-more-entrenched/

Dispute over Abenaki identity in Vermont grows more entrenched

“We’re going to keep on pushing this,” said the chief of an Abenaki tribe in Canada that maintains many members of Vermont’s state-recognized tribes aren’t Indigenous.

By Shaun Robinson
May 3, 2024, 2:15 pm

BURLINGTON — For the third time in as many years, a crowd filed into a conference room at the University of Vermont last Thursday evening for a panel about Indigenous belonging. The focus, once again, was on Vermont’s four state-recognized tribes.

Among the headline speakers was Darryl Leroux, a University of Ottawa associate professor who’s conducted leading research on Indigenous heritage in the region.

“There’s such obvious and compelling evidence that these groups do not represent Abenaki people in any way,” Leroux said during the panel, detailing the findings of a paper he published last year about Abenaki identity in and around Vermont.

“How,” he continued, “did the state of Vermont recognize them as such?”

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[GiqueCee]

1. Scientists have traced...

... and documented the lineage of First Americans – if that's an allowable term of identity – going back tens of thousands of years, and new discoveries and technological advances push the dates of original emigration back further and further in time.
Would it not be possible to establish the legitimacy of ancestral claims in a similar manner? One would think that DNA testing would provide definitive answers to the questions raised as to who can rightfully claim indigenous ancestry.
Indigenous people have suffered horribly at the hands of government agencies since the first Europeans set foot on these shores, and in their obscene arrogance, asserted the right of discovery.
To the best of my knowledge, the U.S. government has failed to honor a single treaty that it signed with ANY indigenous nations. With that in mind, it is not unreasonable to expect the U.S. government to foot the bill for this research to determine the truth once and for all. It is the very least they can do, but it would be a tiny step in the right direction, would it not?
For the record, I live in Vermont, and, though I was not born here, I got here as fast as I could.