Institution

<div>Mollie Wade Holmes Adams (October 8, 1881–December 14, 1973) grew up in King William County in the Adamstown (later the Upper Mattaponi) Indian community. She faced the same hardships as her neighbors, including poverty, difficulty in attaining education, and the racism of outsiders. In 1900 she married Jasper Lewis Adams, who served as chief of the Upper Mattaponi from 1923 to 1973. Mollie Adams joined her husband as a leader of the tribe as he facilitated the purchase and construction of the Sharon Indian School in 1919 and the Indian View Baptist Church in 1942.</div><div><br></div><div>Raising her twelve children, Adams faced the bigotry of Walter A. Plecker's management of the Virginia Bureau of Vital Statistics. Plecker systematically worked to reclassify all Virginia Indians as "negro" or "colored" and therefore relegate them to the same racist laws to which African Americans were subject. In a counter move to Plecker's claims against the Indians, several white men signed a statement certifying Adams's Indian ancestry. Despite this adversity, Adams was a tribal elder and passed on the almost-lost skill of feather weaving. She aided anthropologists by allowing her picture to be published in one study and by explaining her herbal remedies to researchers. Adams built a strong base for the modern Upper Mattaponi through her church and tribal activism. Her son Andrew Washington Adams was chief of the Upper Mattaponi from 1974 to 1985, and her grandson, Kenneth Adams, is the current chief.</div><div><br></div><div><i>Nominated by Arlene Milner, Keysville.<br><br></i><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><i><br></i></div>

Photograph of Mollie Holmes Adams,courtesy of the Library of Virginia

A document signed by eight people certifying that Mollie Holmes Adams was an Indian, in the James R. Coates Papers, 1833-1947, Accession 31577, Library of Virginia.

The Library of Virginia honored Mollie Holmes Adams as one of its Virginia Women in History in 2010.

The Virginia Women in History Digital Trail is made possible by the Library of Virginia and American Evolution: Virginia to America, 1619–2019.

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Mollie Holmes Adams helped preserve the Upper Mattaponi heritage by passing on the almost-lost art of feather weaving and recording her herbal remedies, and in 1919 she helped facilitate the establishment of the Sharon Indian School.

Mollie Holmes Adams

A driving tour showcasing the Library of Virginia's Virginia Women in History honorees from the Eastern Virginia region. 

Virginia Women in History - Eastern Virginia Region

<div>Growing up in Caroline County, Mildred Jeter Loving (July 22, 1939–May 2, 2008) fell in love with Richard P. Loving. In 1958 they married in Washington, D.C., because he was white and she had African American and Native American ancestry. A few weeks afterward, the couple was arrested at their home for violating Virginia's law against interracial marriage. They were each sentenced to one year in jail, with the sentence suspended so long as they lived outside the state and did not return together.</div><div><br></div><div>The Lovings moved to Washington and had three children, but Mildred Loving did not like living away from her home. In 1963 she wrote to the U.S. attorney general for help. At his suggestion, she contacted the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a motion in the county court to vacate the sentence and allow the Lovings to live in Virginia as husband and wife. The local judge refused and the ACLU filed subsequent unsuccessful suits in state and federal courts. The United States Supreme Court heard their case, and its unanimous ruling on June 12, 1967, overturned Virginia's law, stating that the freedom to marry a person of another race was an individual civil right that a state could not deny.</div><div><br></div><div>Loving and her family returned to Caroline County, where they lived quietly in the home they built together. She often demurred that "all we ever wanted was to get married, because we loved each other," but Loving's courage ensured that interracial couples no longer faced legal discrimination against marriage.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

As a plaintiff in the 1967 Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia, Mildred Jeter Loving helped legalize interracial marriage in Virginia and the United States. She and her husband lived in Central Point and are buried at St. Stephens Baptist Church's cemetery there.

Mildred Delores Jeter Loving

<div>G. Anne Nelson Richardson (b. 1956)&nbsp;became chief of the Rappahannock in 1998, when she succeeded her father, Captain O. Nelson. As a child her Indian name was Princess Little Fawn. She grew up on Indian Neck, in King and Queen County. At age eighteen she was elected assistant chief. Her work on a study to establish the historical predecessors of the eight modern Virginia tribes helped the Rappahannock win official state recognition in February 1983.</div><div><br></div><div>In 1991 Richardson became executive director of Mattaponi- Pamunkey-Monacan, Inc., a consortium providing training and employment services for Virginia Indians. In January 1998 she was elected to her first five-year term as chief of the Rappahannock, the first woman to hold the position since early in the eighteenth century. Of the three hundred Rappahannock, about half live on or near tribal lands in Caroline, Essex, and King and Queen Counties. Richardson has diligently worked for cultural, economic, and social revitalization, including completing a cultural center and planning for housing and future tribal development.</div><div><br></div><div>Richardson became chair of the Native American Employment and Training Council in 2005. She campaigns for federal recognition of Virginia’s documented tribes and lobbies at both state and federal levels to ensure their rights. She seeks to educate the public by dispelling stereotypes. When asked in 2000 the single thing she wanted the public to know about the Rappahannock, Richardson replied, “That my people still exist and will continue to exist. I think most people, when they think about the history of Virginia and the Indians in particular, . . . think about these things like the dinosaurs that existed and died and now we’re writing about them and learning about them. But that’s not the case with the tribes. They have vibrant communities that have been preserved for thousands of years.”<br><br><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div></div>

The Rappahannock Tribe Cultural Center opened shortly before the tribe elected G. Anne Nelson Richardson its first female chief since the 1700s. As chief, Richardson works to revitalize her community and win federal recognition for Virginia’s Indians.

G. Anne Nelson Richardson

<p>Born in rural King and Queen County, India Hamilton (ca. 1879–April 18, 1950) displayed an unwavering passion for teaching and learning throughout her life. She studied at Howard University, in Washington, D.C., and in 1913 began teaching at a two-room segregated school in King William County. For almost 20 years she was also the county's Jeanes supervisor and received support from the Jeanes Fund, which was set up in 1907 by Philadelphia philanthropist Anna Jeanes to improve education for African American youth in rural schools. Fulfilling the informal motto of Jeanes supervisors of "doing the next needed thing," Hamilton helped her community raise money for school improvements and new buildings, including the King William Training School, which provided manual training in addition to academics. She advocated longer school terms and implemented an annual Exhibit Day to showcase the work of the county's African American students.</p><p><br /></p><p>Hamilton's work extended beyond King William as chair of the Better Schools Program of the Negro Organization Society of Virginia, a grassroots community advocacy association at Hampton Institute. She promoted collaborations between local teachers and nearby colleges for workshops and improvement projects and served on the executive committee of the Virginia State Teachers Association.</p><p><br /></p><p>In 1952 King William County formally recognized Hamilton, who was known as "the children's friend," when it named Hamilton-Holmes High School in honor of her and Samuel B. Holmes, a fellow education pioneer. The Negro Organization Society also named its India Hamilton Camp on the York River in her honor.  </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</p>

As a teacher, India Hamilton continuously pushed for the expansion, implementation, and improvement of educational opportunities for African American students in King William County, which named one of its public schools for her and another educational leader.

India Hamilton

Caroline Bradby Cook (born ca. 1839), a resident of the Pamunkey Indian Reservation in King William County, was widowed in 1861, a few months after giving birth to her only child, George Major Cook. She and most of the other Pamunkey remained loyal to the United States during the Civil War, and her brothers and other relatives guided United States Army units in eastern Virginia and served as river pilots. When the Union army encamped at the Indian town, she cooked and washed for the soldiers even as they systematically dismantled her house and fences and burned the wood in their campfires. &nbsp;After the war Cook went to the county court in order to take out letters of administration on the estate of her husband, Major Cook. Pamunkey Indians did not own the real estate on the reservation land, but as a widow she inherited the house and fence that the soldiers had destroyed. Cook filed a claim with the Southern Claims Commission for compensation from the United States government for her ruined property. In rebuilding her house and fence, she carefully counted the posts and pickets in order to apply for compensation for no more than she was entitled to. Cook received $100 in 1879. <br><br>She was a founding member of the Pamunkey Baptist Church, organized in April 1865. Her son, whom she raised with the help of her relatives, served as chief of the Pamunkey from 1902 until his death in 1930. He championed the rights of Virginia's Indians when their cultural heritage and even legal existence were being challenged. The last known reference to Caroline Bradby Cook in public records is the 1910 census, which recorded that she was then living in the house of her son the chief.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br>

A Unionist during the Civil War, Caroline Bradby Cook protected, preserved, and passed on the Pamunkey heritage, and in 1865 helped establish the Pamunkey Indian Baptist Church, located on Lay Landing Road on the Pamunkey Indian Reservation.

Caroline Bradby Cook

<p>When famed Pamunkey leader Cockacoeske died in 1686, her successor as chief was a niece who might have been known as "Mrs. Betty, the Queen," according to a petition filed with the General Court in 1701. Pamunkey leaders sometimes changed their names in accordance with important contemporary events, so it is possible that Mrs. Betty became known as Ann following the ascension of Queen Anne to the English throne in 1702. Much about her life is not known, but Ann did send a son to the Indian school at the College of William and Mary to be educated and also to serve as an English captive to guarantee the tribe's good behavior. </p><p><br /></p><p>As a Pamunkey weroansqua, or female chief, Ann worked to uphold Indian rights in the face of increasing pressure from the English colonists. Her name appears on several documents between 1706 and 1712, petitioning Virginia's colonial government to confirm Pamunkey ownership of tribal lands and pushing leaders to prohibit white settlers from encroaching on these lands in violation of established treaties. Ann sought to reduce the annual Indian tribute to the English, which had become more difficult as settlers' incursions reduced Pamunkey access to fish and game. She also requested that Indian youth employed beyond tribal lands be returned to their people and that colonists refrain from selling liquor in Pamunkey towns, a practice that had caused indebtedness among some Indians. Ann does not appear by name in any extant documents after 1712 and is thought to have died about 1723.</p><p><br /></p><p>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</p>

As chief of the Pamunkey Indians, whose reservation is located in King William County, Ann fought to preserve the rights of her people when they were threatened by English colonists in the 1700s.

Virginia Women in History - Eastern Virginia Region

Mollie Holmes Adams

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