The Issue:

This petition seeks to stop, acknowledge, and demand accountability for the ongoing desecration of sacred Native American burial grounds and cultural resources at two sites — both of which represent an unconscionable pattern of disregard for Indigenous ancestral remains, federal law, and tribal sovereignty.

Site One: The Choctaw-Apache Tribe of Ebarb Cemetery, Nacogdoches County, Texas

The Choctaw Native Cemetery, located at 6184 Rd 659, Nacogdoches County, Texas — documented at https://theprocellacemetery.org/ — is a sacred final resting place for countless Native ancestors of the Choctaw-Apache Tribe of Ebarb. The troubling and continuous desecration of this sacred space has been occurring since World War II and shockingly persists to this day. The remains of our ancestors have been scattered, the grounds violated, and the community's grief compounded by decades of institutional indifference. This is a clear and ongoing violation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), 25 U.S.C. § 3001 et seq., and of the basic dignity owed to the dead and to the living people who carry them in their hearts.

Site Two: Cherokee Burial Grounds — Murphy, Cherokee County, North Carolina — TVA Appalachia Area Improvement Transmission Corridor

We now expand this petition to include a second and equally urgent desecration — one currently unfolding in Cherokee County, North Carolina, in the path of the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) Appalachia Area Improvement transmission project, a proposed 161-kV transmission line and Martins Creek Switching Station running through Polk County, Tennessee and Cherokee County, North Carolina.

R L. Garland Jr., a property owner whose land sits directly in TVA's proposed transmission corridor in Murphy, North Carolina, formally notified TVA of known and suspected Native American burial sites on and near the corridor. TVA acknowledged to the Court — on the record — that tribal and historic consultation had not been completed at the time the condemnation action was filed and the right of entry was sought.

The December 31, 2025 federal Court Order in this matter explicitly recognized the property owner's position that TVA had been informed of burial sites on the property. The Court limited TVA's right of entry, ordering that no ground-disturbing activity that cannot be immediately remedied was authorized — permitting only non-intrusive visual inspection or immediately remediable core sampling. This Court Order is itself an acknowledgment that the threat to cultural resources in this corridor is real, documented, and legally recognized.

Field documentation gathered between February and March 2026 — photographs and videos taken with GPS metadata — shows active utility and contractor staging operations throughout the  Highway 294 corridor. Evidence preserved in the Miko Evidence Submission Package includes: Substation identification and coordinates (35.09558000, -84.02230100); contractor vehicles including Pike Electric and TRC Environmental branded trucks operating adjacent to the substation and along the corridor; staged utility poles and materials at  Connahetta Street and surrounding areas; active bucket trucks and heavy equipment at multiple corridor points; field markers and measuring lines observed at Pleasant Valley Road; rock and stone features at the same property flagged for expert cultural review; and TVA's own project page confirming surveys began Spring 2025, with easement purchases beginning Fall 2026 and construction beginning Summer 2028.

The Cherokee people have lived, governed, buried their dead, and protected this land in Cherokee County, North Carolina since time immemorial. The Qualla Boundary — home of the  Cherokee Indians — is less than 40 miles from the Murphy corridor. This is Cherokee ancestral territory. The transmission corridor passes through land with known and reported burial sites. TVA's own consultation acknowledgments confirm that tribal notification was incomplete when the project proceeded. Field evidence shows active preparation activity in the corridor. Easement purchases are scheduled to begin Fall 2026 — meaning the window to act is now.

The Laws Being Violated

Both sites represent violations of the same core framework of federal law that was designed precisely to prevent this:

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), 25 U.S.C. § 3001 et seq., requires federal agencies and federally funded projects to consult with lineal descendants and culturally affiliated Indian tribes before any ground-disturbing activity that may affect Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, or objects of cultural patrimony. TVA, as a federal agency, is bound by NAGPRA. The documented failure to complete tribal consultation before seeking access to property with known and suspected burial sites is a NAGPRA compliance failure.

Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), 54 U.S.C. § 306108, requires federal agencies to take into account the effect of their undertakings on historic properties, including those of cultural and religious significance to Indian tribes, and to afford the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation an opportunity to comment. The Garland court record makes clear that Section 106 tribal consultation was incomplete — TVA acknowledged this in federal court. TVA cannot proceed with easement purchases or construction until full Section 106 consultation with all affected tribes is complete.

Executive Order 13007 (Indian Sacred Sites) requires federal agencies to accommodate access to and ceremonial use of Indian sacred sites and to avoid adversely affecting the physical integrity of such sacred sites. Burial grounds are sacred sites. The corridor passes through land where such sites have been reported. The obligation to protect them is not discretionary.

UNDRIP Articles 11 and 12 establish the rights of Indigenous peoples to maintain, protect, and develop their cultural heritage, and specifically the right to maintain, protect, and have access to their burial sites. These rights apply here.

What We Demand

We call upon the TVA, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office (NC SHPO), the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the United Keetoowah Band, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and all relevant agencies to:

Immediately halt all ground-disturbing activity, easement purchases, and pre-construction preparation in the Murphy / Ranger / Pleasant Valley / Highway 294 transmission corridor until full NAGPRA and Section 106 consultation with all culturally affiliated tribes is completed, documented, and confirmed in writing.

Conduct a full tribal cultural resource survey of the entire corridor — not only the Garland property — with tribal monitors present, before any further ground disturbance, survey staking, core sampling, vegetation management, or pole staging occurs.

Provide a written accounting of all TVA, contractor, and local utility activity in the corridor between January 2025 and the present, distinguishing maintenance, survey, pre-construction, and joint-use activity.

Preserve all project records, GIS/shapefiles, work orders, contractor scopes, access logs, Section 106 consultation records, and NAGPRA communications connected to the Appalachia Area Improvement project corridor.

Take immediate action to protect, preserve, and restore the Choctaw-Apache Tribe of Ebarb Cemetery at 6184 Rd 659, Nacogdoches County, Texas — including a formal inspection, legal accountability for all past desecration, and permanent protection of the grounds going forward.

Recognize that these are not separate incidents. They are part of the same pattern: federal and institutional actors proceeding with projects that affect Indigenous burial grounds and sacred sites before completing the consultation and protection obligations the law requires. That pattern must end. Our ancestors deserve better. Our living nations deserve better.

We are still here. We remember. And we will not be silent.

Petition started by Clan Mother — (UIIN). United Nations Indigenous Caucus.