Virginia tribal nations rally to protect one of America’s most significant sites: REPORT

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Published Jun. 20, 2026, 9:01 AM • Updated Jun. 20, 2026, 9:51 AM

Greek revival style plantation house and visited in 1824 by Lafayette on his farewell tour of the former colonies. It also was the site of one of America’s first race track and also the site where Major Joseph Mayo surrendered Richmond to union forces in 1865. — Picture By JERRYE & ROY KLOTZ, M.D. - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69431176, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Virginian tribal nations have been striving to protect a multiacre historic Native American site from being potentially built up, according to a report.

The tribes formed a preservationist coalition to shield the 530-acre site along the James River in eastern Henrico County, amid renewed interest in a planned mixed-use development project on the site, VPM News reported Wednesday.

The site, known as Tree Hill, includes the state-recognized historic birthplace and chiefdom of WaHōnSeNaKah, more widely known as Chief Powhatan, according to the outlet. It also is the site of the surrender of Richmond, the confederate capital, on April 3, 1865, according to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

The Canada-based real estate developer Brookfield Residential Properties had reached an agreement in 2024 to purchase Tree Hill and revive a significant portion of the Town of Tree Hill project that was approved back in 2007 and that proposed over 2,000 housing units, commercial space, parks and open space, according to VPM News.

The United Indians of Virginia were signatories to a memorandum of understanding in 2010 for the development of an established settlement commemorating Tree Hill’s historic importance to Native American heritage in eastern Henrico, according to the developer.

However, Ashley Spivey is a citizen of the Pamunkey Indian Tribe and an anthropologist who helped rally the Native American coalition, said when the site was first zoned in 2007, several Native American tribes in Virginia were not yet federally recognized, VPN News noted.

“We know that it’s in our best interest to come together and work together to ensure a place like Powhatan’s village or birthplace is protected,” Spivey told the media outlet.

Spivey and some other members of the coalition bemoaned what they alleged were inadequate engagement by the state authorities, the limited legal avenues to prevent the development, and the thin spread of Native American communities, all of which they say have caused them to take to advocacy for the site.

“We are not against development. We just want to be included in the conversations,” Allyson Gray, a member of the Pamunkey Tribal Council, told VPM News. “To just completely disregard us as people in our histories is sad.”

Tree Hill, once touched, cannot be recreated, the group argued.

Chief Powhatan was one of the first Native American leaders to meet English colonists arriving in the U.S. At the time, in 1607, he was the leader of over 150 Native American villages, according to a preservationist group, Protect Powhatan’s Birthplace.