The Tribe

Forty miles south of Washington D.C., the county high school's mascot is an Indian. But for more than 2,600 Patawomeck tribal citizens, Indigenous identity isn't a get-up — it's a proud legacy traced back generations to some of the earliest contact with English settlers in what's now Virginia. What does it mean when that legacy comes under attack — when others in the community dispute those family ties that run as deep as the roots of a White Oak tree? Have times changed? Or does history rhyme?