The culture and history of one Nation buried deep in the ground is about to be uncovered and preserved.
The Sac and Fox Nation was awarded a $49,645.00 grant from the Underrepresented Community Grant Program to preserve the Nation’s history and have historic sites nominated to the National Register of Historic Places.
“We thank the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior for this important grant,” Principal Chief Justin F. Wood said in a press release. “These funds will allow the Sac and Fox Nation to conduct critical work surveying historical Sac and Fox sites. These sites are important to our people, but are also important to our national history. This grant is a necessary tool to protect historical sites of underrepresented communities. The Sac and Fox Nation will continue to preserve our history so future generations may benefit from it.”
With this grant, the Sac and Fox Nation plans to conduct cultural surveys, archeological reports and identify different cultural resources on a GIS location map, according to Chris Boyd with the Sac and Fox Nation Historical Preservation Department.
“The main purpose of it is to preserve out history and culture,” he said. “We want to make sure future generations know where stuff is and what it used to be.”
Boyd said this is for around the Sac and Fox Nation jurisdiction, but they hope to be able to extend the research into the lands they migrated from in the 1830s.
In order to have a site on the National Register of Historic Places, a cultural survey needs to be done to access the site and determine what it was to be labeled a historic site.
One place Boyd said they have in mind is an old school building within the jurisdiction.
“We currently only have a few sites on the NRHP,” he said. “We’re trying to get as many as we can that way people are informed with what these sites were at one time and the history of them.”
The project started Aug. 1 and will take two years to complete, ending July 31, 2022.
Boyd said they applied or the grant in Dec. of 2019.
The Underrepresented Community Grant Program focuses on documenting the homes, lives, landscapes, and experiences of underrepresented peoples who played a significant role in national history.
The grant program is funded by the Historic Preservation Fund, and administered by the National Park Service and the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The Sac and Fox Nation was awarded $49,645.00 to survey and inventory Sac and Fox sites for nomination to the Na tional Register of Historic Places.
The National Park Service awarded a total of $750,000 in Underrepresented Community Grants to support the identification and nomination of sites to the National Register of Historic Places.
Grants were awarded to help fund 18 projects to eight states, six tribes, two local governments, the District of Columbia, and the Federated States of Micronesia.
The Sac and Fox Nation was the sole FY 2019 grantee located in Oklahoma.
Boyd said they also applied for the Tribal Heritage Grant for $50,000 and other grants through the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Boyd said as more money becomes available they will be able to survey and research more land.
“We look forward to getting more grants in the future and making strives to make sure we’re preserving our culture the best we can,” he said.