With lawsuit against N.J., little-known Indian tribe is thrust into spotlight
Arizona Coin Collector
They want to be paid some $1 trillion in 1-ounce
American Eagle gold coins in the lawsuit.
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FROM:
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/03/with_lawsuit_against_nj_little.html
With lawsuit against N.J., little-known Indian tribe is thrust into
spotlight
by Joe Ryan/The Star-Ledger
Sunday March 22, 2009, 8:24 AM
The story of the Sand Hill Indians and the $1 trillion lawsuit
be gins on a wooded slope in Monmouth County.
Rising in Neptune Township, Sand Hill was settled 132 years
ago by Lenape and Cherokee Indians who raised cows and
chickens and helped build Victorian houses in nearby Asbury
Park. Some of their descendants, who say they are more
extended family than tribe, still gather for reunions near
the ancestral hill.
But during the last decade, a second group has surfaced in
North Jersey, headquartered in Paterson. Its members also
call themselves Sand Hill Indians, saying they are named
after the same spot.
The trouble is, the Sand Hills of Neptune say the ones in
Paterson aren't Sand Hills at all. And therein lies the
debate.
It began quietly as a disagreement about genealogy and
bloodlines but gradually spiraled into a bitter feud. And
now, with a federal lawsuit naming Gov. Jon Corzine and
all 21 counties, that feud has thrust a spotlight on the
Sand Hills -- a little-known group that historians say may
include some of the last few local descendants of New
Jersey's original inhabitants.
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Newark last
month by two men -- one from Australia, one from
California -- who say they are long-lost Sand Hills and
are the Paterson group's new leaders. Its demands include
state recognition of the Sand Hills and $1 trillion in
damages, paid in 1-ounce gold coins.
The move stunned the Sand Hills of Neptune. They accuse the
two newcomers of hijacking their heritage to try to
extract money from the government.
"They have stolen our name," said Claire Garland, 64, a
retired middle-school teacher and member of the Neptune
contingent.
In an age of multimillion-dollar tribal casinos, competing
genealogical claims among American Indians are fairly
frequent, scholars say. But they can be tough to unravel.
Tribes traditionally did not keep records. Many records
they did have were lost during forced migrations. Bloodlines
fade with time. Years later, it can be tough to prove who
is related to whom.
"This kind of tangled web is common," said Tom Kavanagh, a
Seton Hall University professor of sociology and
anthropology who studies American Indian cultures.
Roughly 50,000 people in New Jersey claimed some form of
American Indian ancestry on the 2000 census. There are no
federally recognized tribes based here.
But during the last three decades, the state Legislature
has passed several resolutions acknowledging three
groups: the Nanti coke-Lenni Lenape, whose tribal office is
in Cumberland County; the Powhatan-Renape of Burlington
County; and the Ramapough Lenape, headquartered in Mahwah.
Those resolutions, however, did not provide the groups with
access to special services or tax breaks.
So who are the Sand Hills? The two sides agree on this
much: The Sand Hills are descended from Lenape and Cherokee
Indians who intermarried in New Jersey during the 19th
century.
Five hundred years ago, New Jersey was home to the Lenape.
Vestiges of their language echo in names like Hackensack,
Manasquan, Watchung, Lackawana and Cheesequake.
The last large group of Lenape left the state in 1801. But
a few clusters remained, including in Monmouth County,
where they intermarried with Cherokee who had migrated from
the Southeast, according to historians.
During the 1870s, a New York businessman built a summer
resort amid the coastal woodlands near what is now Asbury
Park. He hired local Lenape-Cherokee craftsmen and
carpenters and in 1877 sold them 15 hillside acres, in what
eventually became Neptune.
Locals called the spot Sand Hill. And the craftsmen and
carpenters came to be called the Sand Hill Indians. They
lived there for generations, working as builders, basket
weavers and tanners. They had a chief and tribal council
system and held ceremonial powwows.
But many of the traditions faded by the mid-20th century.
The last powwow was in 1949, and the chief and council
structure dissolved four years later, historians say.
"The old people died and nobody stepped up," said Fortune
Thomas, 62, who is Garland's brother and owns an auto
body shop in Tinton Falls.
Still, Thomas said the family gathered each Labor Day for
reunions in Neptune, where members would grill corn, swap
ancestral stories and pull crabs from the Shark River.
Things grew complicated after the 1998 death of James "Lone
Bear" Revey.
Revey was the longtime head of the New Jersey Indian Office
in Orange. Most say he was the Sand Hills' contemporary
patriarch.
But some -- including the Paterson Sand Hills -- contend
Revey was more than an unofficial leader. They say he
was chief.
Sam Beeler grew up in Paterson and has been active for
years in local American Indian causes. As he recalls it,
Revey lay dying at age 74 when he asked Beeler to assume
leadership of the Sand Hills.
"He asked me to take over," Beeler said.
And so Beeler became chief, he said.
That was news to the Sand Hills of Neptune.
"No one had ever heard of him in our family," said
Garland, who lives in Lincroft and has compiled a 17-page
family tree stretching back to 1790 using property deeds,
obituaries and other records.
At first Beeler and the Neptune Sand Hills were cordial,
they said. But harmony was short-lived. Disagreements
arose about who owned artifacts at the now-defunct Neptune
Museum. Threatening letters were exchanged. Garland asked
Beeler to stop calling himself chief.
Then two of Beeler's relatives arrived: Carroll "Medicine
Crow" Holloway and his son Ronald Holloway. They said
they were Sand Hills, too. Neither had ever lived in New
Jersey before.
The older Holloway is Beeler's cousin and a Philadelphia
native who has spent most of the last 30 years in
Australia working as a fashion photographer. He moved to
eastern Pennsylvania about two and a half years ago,
according to his son.
In 2007, Carroll Holloway be came chief of the Paterson
Sand Hills, whose official name is the Sand Hill Band of
Lenape and Cherokee Indians. Ronald Holloway -- who moved
to New Jersey in November from a town 50 miles east of
San Francisco -- said he is now the group's chief
executive.
The lawsuit was filed last month. It surprised even some
of the Paterson Sand Hills.
"That lawsuit was filed without the advice and consent of
the tribal council," said Yona Youngblood, a Paterson
Sand Hill elder.
And why the $1 trillion in 1-ounce American Eagle
gold coins?
"It's a financial move that says that we are serious,"
said Ronald Holloway, 45, who said he is a theologian
and former police officer who holds a half-dozen
securities licenses.
He is not a lawyer, but he plans to litigate the suit
himself.
Garland and her relatives, meanwhile, say they don't
want the Sand Hill name used for any lawsuit against
the state.
"They are trying to use our legitimacy and heritage to
make themselves look credible," said Garland, who
lives in Lincroft.
Part of the two groups' disagreement is about how to
define who is a Sand Hill.
By Garland's measure, the only true Sand Hills are
direct descendants of the single Lenape-Cherokee family
that bought the 15 hillside acres in 1877. But Beeler
and the Holloways contend there are 14 families who
make up the group and only one of them actually lived
on Sand Hill.
They also say James "Lone Bear" Revey was their cousin.
Not so, said Revey's niece, Carol Clarke.
"As far as I know they are not my relatives," said
Clarke, who lives in Hempstead, N.Y.
The two sides also differ on the matter of chiefs.
Beeler and the Holloways tell of an unbroken string of
chiefs going back hundreds of years, ending with Revey,
Beeler and Holloway.
Most historians say that's not true. And Revey himself
wrote in a history of the Sand Hills that the group's
chief and council system dissolved in 1953.
These days, the Sand Hills of Neptune and the Sand Hills
of Paterson are no longer speaking. Their dispute and
especially the lawsuit -- has jolted the state's American
Indian community, said the Rev. John Norwood, a member
of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape.
"It casts a cloud," Norwood said. "And it airs a dispute
that should be handled inter-tribally."
Ronald Holloway, however, predicted the suit would once
and for all settle the question of who is a Sand Hill
and who is not. Claire Garland hopes he is right.
"I don't care what they do in North Jersey," she said.
"It has nothing to do with us. But using our name to sue
the governor is a whole other story."
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