Victoria Ferguson works tirelessly to ensure that the true history of the Indigenous people of our region is told.
Victoria Ferguson was born and raised in the coal fields of West Virginia, but there’s nowhere she’s ever felt more connected to her ancestors than the Blue Ridge Mountains. “My people were here when the first white man came to claim it as their home,” she says. “It feels like home, there is a sense of peace and contentment.”
Ferguson is a member of the Monacan Indian Nation of Virginia, a sovereign tribe whose membership includes individuals who are descendants of Virginia and North Carolina’s Eastern Siouan groups. She takes pride in her heritage, so much so that she’s dedicated her life to research and educating others about the true history of our region’s Indigenous people. These efforts and those of others doing similar work, she says, allows for people of Native American ancestry to be active contributors in the shaping of their history.
“Participating in the work allows us to keep ourselves relevant and in the present,” adds Ferguson. “For too long we have been seen as people of the past. Native Americans are not extinct, we have evolved our processes like everyone else. We are still here.”
Shortly after moving to Roanoke in 1989, Ferguson began volunteering at the Native American Village at Explore Park and used her research talents to locate first-person documentation and other data to support the lessons she had learned in her childhood about the daily lives of Eastern Siouan populations up through early European colonization. “I spent over 20 years doing that type of work and used it to help formulate the narrative we (me and my husband) used to talk to hundreds of thousands of visitors who came to learn about the Monacans while we managed the exhibit at Natural Bridge.”
Ferguson currently works as the director of Virginia Tech’s Solitude-Fraction site, where she continues to teach others about not only some of the earliest inhabitants of the region but also the family who built the site’s structures and the stories of those who were once enslaved there. As an advocate for preserving indigenous technologies, she has also created various pottery, sewing and weaving pieces, a selection of which is on display at Moss Arts Center until December 17.
The most rewarding part of Ferguson’s work is when she’s able to plant seeds of curiosity in the minds of others that move them to learn more about Native American history. But the nature of her work has also triggered traumatic memories for her, particularly while she was working on a project entitled “Fan Me With a Brick.”
“I started researching Fan Me in 1993 when I began to explore historical documents trying to find my mother’s family. She had been separated from her mother since 1924 when the Racial Integrity Act and Sterilization Act was signed into effect and her mother was institutionalized.”
While she finished the book 18 months ago and is currently seeking to get it published, Ferguson always knew that the story was meant for the stage. With the help of playwright Kenley Smith and director Shawn Whitsell, Victoria’s vision came to life with the first showings of the play, which took place last summer in Nashville. The team hopes that the play being based on true local events will spark the interest of playhouses in the Roanoke area and beyond.
“The play and the book have quite a bit of personal and family trauma. I was nervous about sharing such intimate details,” admits Ferguson. But in the end, she felt it was her calling to share her research findings with others. “I realized many families have similar stories and the venting and talking about these past histories can lead to healing.
“We seem to live in a time when someone else dictates what part of our history should be shared and where. Books, plays and movies allow us to circumvent the attempt to prevent our stories from being told and will allow the learning process to continue.”
