When he needed to clear his head as a boy, Clarence Lone Wolf Tyler would head to the western shore of Smith Island to look for Indian arrowheads.

Tyler, a Native American of the Accohannock tribe, learned the technique from his father: look in the clumps of roots of the marsh reeds after a high tide. The grass died off from exposure to saltwater, but the roots remained intact.

For centuries, Tyler says, his people concealed their Native identity in Maryland, hiding in plain sight from the white man, to avoid discrimination.

Tyler’s family took a crab boat to secret Native meetings, he says, where they invoked the creator and learned Native ways.


Tyler, now the 64-year-old chief of the Accohannock, says they are ready to emerge from the shadows. In December, the 81-member Accohannock became the third Native American tribe in Maryland to be recognized by the state.

“It didn’t sink in right away,” said Mike Hinman, 76, the tribe’s historian and chairman. “We’ve had so many disappointments.”

But not everyone is celebrating. Other Native Americans are questioning the Accohannocks’ historical claims.

It would have been impossible, they say, for an entire tribe to keep its identity secret in a town as small as Crisfield, on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Even if the members do have Native blood, they say, the fact that they concealed their heritage means they haven’t paid their dues — and shouldn’t be recognized by the state.


Norris Howard, a Pocomoke Indian, is an outspoken critic of Accohannock recognition.

Norris Howard, right, and his son Buddy are members of the Pocomoke tribe. They opposed state recognition of the Accohannock tribe. (Christina Tkacik / Baltimore Sun )

“When a group gets recognized, it’s going to be put in textbooks, it’s going to be put in lesson plans for the curriculum of the public schools,” he said. “To me, that’s a lie.”

Reminders of the Eastern Shore’s Indian past come in fragments: road signs bearing names such as Nanticoke and Pocomoke City, arrowheads in the marsh reeds.


Ancient arrowheads cover the shelves in Tyler’s home in the town of Princess Anne. Outside, a flag waves with a Native American emblazoned on the Stars and Stripes. Some of his neighbors don’t like it, Tyler says, but he’s quick to point out the image doesn’t cover the stars.

The Accohannock join two other tribes recognized by the state: the Piscataway Indian Nation and the Piscataway Conoy Tribe.

Unlike federal recognition, state recognition does not bring specific benefits, but might help win donations and grants. It does not confer rights to property, or to operate casinos.

Tribes seeking recognition file a petition containing members’ genealogies. An advisory committee reviews the data and makes a recommendation to the governor.


The Accohannock first sought recognition in 2010. The committee, which includes members of Native heritage, voted against forwarding it to then-Gov. Martin O’Malley.

Tribal leaders tried again last year, using a genealogy compiled using ancestry.com. Tyler says he traced his family line back to the Occohannock nation in Virginia.

This time, the committee agreed.

“They had to fight to prove that this is their land,” said committee member Diana Purnell, a Worcester County commissioner who is part Native American. “And they did it. They absolutely did it.”


Gov. Larry Hogan signed an executive order in December. State Sen. Jim Mathias Jr., who has worked with the Accohannock, called it a “proud day” for the Eastern Shore. “Quite frankly the history, to me, was solid,” he said.

Mathias says he looks forward to working with the tribe to obtain whatever state grants they might be eligible to receive.

Hinman hopes recognition will enable the tribe to receive additional money and support. He says the tribe plans to apply for federal recognition.

The tribe’s critics consider the state recognition an affront.


On a clear day in January, Norris Howard lumbered into the Crisfield public library with his son, Buddy, carting stacks of books and thick binders bearing the title “Accohannock debacle.”

For as long as the Accohannock has pursued recognition, Howard has fought to prevent it.

Like Hinman, Tyler and some other members of the Accohannock tribe, Howard, 79, grew up in the Crisfield area. He is paramount chief of the Pocomoke Indian Nation — a tribe that has not sought state recognition.

He says his Native identity was always known to those in Crisfield — and he experienced discrimination because of it. Being Native in Crisfield, Howard says, meant being put in the back, facing racism and feeling powerless to fight it, being reluctant to speak up for fear of retribution.


Those life experiences have become part of his heritage.

“It wasn’t ‘hidden in plain sight’ — which is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” he said.

Tyler insists the Accohannock did conceal their Native ties for generations, a strategy he says was advocated by clan mothers, who believed members should intermarry with Europeans, then allow their Native heritage to reemerge at a later time.

Howard is deeply skeptical.


“You couldn’t hide a mouse in Crisfield,” he said.

Others see recognition as helping a Native community.

Kerry Hawk Lessard is executive director of Native American Lifelines in Baltimore. The group, which receives federal Urban Indian Health Program funds, offers free dental care, behavioral health services and patient advocacy to the area’s Indians.

“Receiving the state recognition is really going to help the Accohannock people,” Hawk Lessard said.


She said she was familiar with questions about the Accohannocks’ authenticity, but is uncomfortable with Native Americans criticizing one another’s legitimacy.

“If anyone is trying to make the claim that they are more Indian than other people, that’s just an act of lateral violence,” she said. Particularly on the East Coast, she said, centuries of intermarriage means people with Native blood — herself included — might not conform to people’s ideas of what a Native American looks like.

On a recent weekday, a few Accohannock members sat in Clarence Tyler’s living room, each wearing subtle emblems of their Indian culture: beaded earrings, suede moccasins.

At what should be a time of celebration for the tribe, the group was downcast. Their future is now uncertain, they say, because the state recognition has come with a rift among tribal leaders.


Since recognition, Tyler says, Hinman, the tribe historian, has made decisions that should have been made by the full Native council. Tyler says Hinman rescinded the membership of a clan the Accohannock had adopted into its ranks, and sold some tribal assets, including a van and a cook wagon.

Clarence Long Wolf Tyler displays a collection of Native American artifacts. He says most were collected by his father. (Algerina Perna / Baltimore Sun )

“Once Mike realized we were getting recognition, he went rogue,” said tribal member Diane Baldwin.

Tyler says he hasn’t spoken with Hinman since last summer. He says he wasn’t invited to the Annapolis ceremony announcing the state recognition.


“They couldn’t have hurt me no more if they’d take a knife and cut my heart out,” he said.

Hinman acknowledges selling the cook wagon and van. He says the tribe’s bylaws give him the authority to do so.

As for critics of the Accohannock’s history and the state recognition, he said: “We played by the book. We got all the documentation.”

He says Native Americans have withstood centuries of cultural erasure — and continue to face skepticism.


“We’re the only ethnic group in the world that has to prove who we are,” Hinman said.

“Think about it. If you’re Irish, no one questions it.”

Tkacik writes for the Baltimore Sun.