Vickie Jeffries, tribal administrator of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, says she was sitting, looking at the tribal grounds in Mebane, when a vision came to her. She was thinking about how the tribe needed more space to expand but did not have a lot of money to spend. Jeffries was sitting underneath the shelter, looking at the areas where powwows were held when her vision came to her.
“Something said to me, ‘look around,’” Jeffries says. “I go, ‘wait a minute, the shelter.’ I think it was the ancestors that said, ‘yeah, look around, you have it right here.’”
On May 30, the tribe celebrated the unveiling of a highway marker showcasing the tribal grounds from Dailey Store Road and the opening of its new community center in the Alamance County town. Now, the tribe will have a physical marker showcasing its history, where people can read a little bit about the tribe while driving past its land.
The Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation is a small, newly recognized Native American tribe, with close to 25 acres of tribal land located in Mebane. The tribe settled in Alamance, Caswell, and Orange counties after the Revolutionary War but didn’t receive state recognition until 2002. Before this, much of the history of the Occaneechi Tribe was lost as earlier generations were afraid to claim this part of their identity due to fear of discrimination and therefore didn’t pass down the tribal culture.
Within the Occaneechi Tribe, this generational fear was prevalent and something Tammy Hayes-Hill, a cousin of Jeffries and the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation’s tribal secretary, knows well.
Twenty years ago, a historian knocked on Hayes-Hill’s door informing her she is a member of a core family of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation. Before this, Hayes-Hill did not even know her family had Native American lineage on both sides—it was something her parents never discussed because they were worried they would face more discrimination.
“Growing up, not knowing who you are, you were always just placed in the category of either white or Black,” Hayes-Hill says. “And for us, it was the Black community.”
The highway marker is not an easy thing to get, Leslie Lenoard, administrator for the North Carolina Highway Marker Program, says. A committee of 10 professors from colleges and universities from around the state meet twice a year to decide on new markers.
“They only pass markers for those applications that can qualify and demonstrate statewide significance, not just local or regional significance,” Leonard says. “These markers are handmade, they’re substantial, and they’re expected to last for many, many generations.”
Historically, there have not been legal protections put in place for Native Americans. Tribes legally were not able to practice meaningful rituals until the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978. Before this act, state and local laws still in effect denied Native Americans the ability to visit sacred sites and use religious symbols. This led to a loss of practices such as powwows or expression of culture and is a large part of why many Native languages—such as Tutelo in the case of the Occaneechi—have been lost, leading to a loss of identity. Only recently has their community started to rebuild.
When the tribe started doing this work of rebuilding and seeking recognition in 1984, people laughed, Forest Hazel, Occaneechi commissioner of the North Carolina American Indian Heritage Commission, says. At the beginning of Hazel’s work with the tribe, things were very different. The tribe didn’t have its own land and had to have powwows elsewhere, he says.
People viewed the work Natives were doing as a joke, but through persistence the tribe has been able to achieve many of its goals, he says. He wishes that many of the late tribal elders were still around to see the new center and highway marker today.
“It’s been just at 40 years and the Indian people of this area have organized, have started working to build something,” Hazel says. “It’s hard because so much has already been lost, but there’s a lot of things that if you go and look for them, you can still find.”
Tony Hayes, tribal chairperson, is grateful for the support from both Occaneechi tribal members and other community supporters. That support led to the creation of the highway marker and community center.
“We have been fighting for this moment for a lot of years, and this is just the beginning,” Hayes says. “This is the tip of the spear as far as I’m concerned. But the best thing I can say is this, this is what happens when nobody cares about who gets the credit.”
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