Chickahominy Gallery: Chiefs

Chief William Henry Adkins (09 DEC 1850 – 30 JUN 1921) led the movement for organization of a tribe in 1901 and served as the first chief.  The movement for organization grew out of a visit by Smithsonian ethnographer James Mooney.  In the early 1900s Mooney visited and studied several groups in Virginia who identified themselves as Indians but were not living on the surviving tribal reservations.  Mooney urged these groups to organize formally and to establish tribal rolls.  Photo courtesy National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, negative no. 852.

Chief Ozias Westmore Adkins (29 SEP 1881 – 03 DEC 1939) was elected in 1918 and served until his death in 1939.  He led an unsuccessful effort to unite Virginia Tribes in a renewed Powhatan Confederation and is pictured in many of the earliest photos of the Virginia Indian Chiefs.  Photo courtesy Chickahominy Indian Tribe.

Chief Peter Ledbetter Adkins (11 AUG 1883 – 14 FEB 1968) served briefly between the death of Ozias Westmore Adkins and the election of Ozias Oliver Adkins. Photo courtesy Charles City County Center for Local History.

Chief Ozias Oliver (Lone Eagle) Adkins (24 MAY 1911 – 23 OCT 1987) was elected in 1940 and served nearly half a decade (46 years) until 1986. During his tenure the Chickahominy, and other Virginia Indian Tribes, received State recognition (1983). Photo courtesy Chickahominy Indian Tribe.

Chief Arthur Leonard (Lone Wolf) Adkins (01 OCT 1926 – 10 MAR 2001) served from 1986 to 2001. Chief Adkins lasting legacy was as a lifetime educator and teacher at Samaria School. Photo courtesy Chickahominy Indian Tribe.

Chief Stephen R. Adkins was elected in 2001. He has worked on behalf of the Virginia Indian Tribes to gain federal recognition and to assure that America’s commemoration of its 400th Anniversary includes a Native American voice. Chief Adkins (center) is pictured here at the 2006 Vital Powwow with Rep. Bobby Scott (left) and Gov. Timothy Kaine (right).

 

next Pow-Wows