In recent years, the Conestoga-Susquehannock tribe has become far more visible, prompting questions about our mission and the reasons behind our increased visibility. Our history, marked by 200+ years of unrecognized status, raises valid concerns about our legitimacy and the extent to which we should have a say in cultural affairs. However, it is important to remember that our tribe did not materialize out of thin air, but came as the result of documented legal efforts spanning generations, including significant milestones like the 1872 Joint Resolution and the 1941 Susquehannock Indian Reservation Bill. For over 175 years we have sought the return of our treaty land, and our survival has been documented in those legal efforts, and in census, vital, and historical records. Today the Conestoga-Susquehannock tribe is still seeking recognition, but remains unrecognized- a precarious and often misunderstood position we seek to improve upon.

What is a Tribe?

Legally, Native American tribes can be categorized into three general groups:

• Federally Recognized Tribes

• State Recognized Tribes

• Unrecognized Tribes

Federally Recognized Tribes: These tribes are entitled to the highest level of rights and protections due to their sovereign government-to-government relationship with the United States of America. Federally recognized tribes are sovereign nations with the exclusive right to determine their own citizenship and enter into treaties with the United States. They are far more similar in legal status to countries like France or Mexico than they are to unrecognized tribes. They also have more religious freedom, as members of federally recognized tribes can request eagle feathers and other animal parts that are illegal to possess unless you are a citizen of a federally recognized tribe. However, the process to attain federal recognition is incredibly demanding and once denied, a tribe cannot reapply, putting Indigenous communities in a precarious position—should they risk permanent disbarment by seeking the rights they are entitled to, or attempt to live with the limitations of perpetual non-recognition? The pursuit of federal recognition is a long and complex journey, often taking decades and costing thousands of dollars in legal fees. The process is further hindered by racial purity laws and colonization, making it categorically inaccessible to many tribes. The process is so inaccessible that it prompted action in 2018 to grant federal recognition to six Virginia tribes through an act of congress rather than through the BIA application process due to systematic issues in the guidelines that left those tribes unable to qualify by default.

State Recognized Tribes: State recognition is provided by local state governments, and provides limited protections compared to federal recognition, but generally has a more accessible process tailored to the historical context of that state. State recognition is often used as a pit stop on the road to federal recognition, as state recognized tribes can qualify for grants and resources that can allow them to begin the federal recognition process. However, state recognition is not universally accepted as legitimate and it is not legally clear if states even have the right to recognize tribes at all. The controversy around state recognized tribes stems largely from the fact that state recognition requirements vary drastically from one state to another. While some states follow federal recognition guidelines, states such as Vermont and Alabama have received sharp criticism for recognizing tribes that many Native Americans consider to be fraudulent. For example, Vermont recognized 4 disputed “Abenaki” tribes without a thorough review of their genealogical claims and Alabama has recognized several “Cherokee” tribes that federally-recognized Cherokee nations have specifically called out as fraudulent, citing a lack of any evidence that these individuals are sovereign Cherokee tribes. Some states, like Pennsylvania, don’t even have a process to recognize tribes and other states have dismantled the process in direct response to fraudulent groups attempting to gain recognition. The state of Tennessee, for example, no longer recognizes any tribes after several questionable organizations gained recognition, demonstrating one more way in which fraudulent organizations harm genuine Native people, and derail the good faith argument to support tribes while they are still seeking recognition. 

Unrecognized Tribes: Unrecognized tribes face numerous hardships and have no legal protections, but are also free to operate however they would like and have no obligation to uphold any genealogical standards for enrollment. There are many unrecognized tribes which are valid and legitimate, but there are also hundreds of fraudulent cases, where members are often asked to pay a fee to join. These organizations rarely have any ancestral ties to the tribe they are claiming kinship with, and almost never have any organizational history pre-1970s. Members of such tribes cannot legally designate their art as "Native American made" or their businesses as "Native-owned." Religious freedom is also restricted, with only members of recognized tribes being legally allowed to possess eagle feathers and other restricted animal parts vital to many Indigenous religious practices. One of the most detrimental aspects of unrecognized status is that legitimate unrecognized tribes share the same legal status as hundreds of fraudulent entities, leading to confusion, and fraudulent suspicions being applied to all unrecognized tribes, regardless of legitimacy (a problem which is now beginning to seep over into state recognized status due to cases of clear fraud). Unfortunately, the Conestoga-Susquehannock tribe has the same legal status as the Susquehannock tribe of Florida, a fraudulent “tribe” which has been known to sell memberships and naming ceremonies for $10, creating erasure, confusion, and suspicion when members of our tribe discuss their own heritage, despite the fact that our tribe enforces strong genealogical standards for enrollment.

Our Purpose:

Our mission centers on protecting and preserving the identity of our people, and creating space for documented descendants to be heard above the many vague claims to our culture and ancestry. Unlike nearly every other tribe originating in Pennsylvania, there is no federally recognized tribal body to represent Conestoga-Susquehannock people or culture. If someone claims to be Lenape or Seneca, there are sovereign nations that can arbitrate those kinship claims, but if someone claims to be Susquehannock there has not been any way of verifying that claim. While our primary purpose is not to “gatekeep” Conestoga-Susquehannock identity, the increasing number of false claims and fraudulent monetization of our heritage has made it necessary. The absence of oversight from a legally recognized community creates a milieu of Conestoga-Susquehannock ancestry claims, each of which must be treated as potentially true or false without a formal tribal community, impeding our preservation efforts and threatening our cultural survival. 

We remain the only organization dedicated entirely to protecting and enriching the culture of the documented descendants of the Conestoga-Susquehannock diaspora. We are the only tribe dedicated to preserving the Mingo language recorded by our ancestors. We are the only tribe with claims to the land at Manor township and the only tribe claiming the stakes of the 1872 joint resolution and the 1941 Susquehannock Indian reservation bill. Our presence and visibility, as Conestoga Susquehannock descendants, does not erase or encroach upon the status of any other sovereign tribal nation. Were there already a sovereign tribe that could mediate claims of kinship and propagate our language and culture, there would be no need for our tribe to assert itself, however, the unmet needs of our community are unique and require an organizational structure to meet them if any semblance of our language and culture is to survive onto the next generation.

Our tribe offers kinship, security, education, and cultural connection to documented descendants of the Indigenous people of the Conestoga Susquehannock community. We understand that some may have reservations about accepting us as genuine due to the ambiguity surrounding unrecognized tribes. Rather than dismissing these concerns, we choose transparency about our organizational history and limitations. We chose to use the title "tribe" with humility, transparency, and honesty, denoting that we are a kinship-oriented organization of American Indian ancestry collectively seeking rights and protections for our identity and cultural history.