Sharon Bryant at the 2012 Monacan Nation powwow. Photo from Flickr

Sharon Bryant, the first woman to serve as chief of the Monacan Nation of Virginia, has been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer, The Lynchburg News and Advance reports.

Bryant, who was elected to her first term in 2011, recently underwent surgery for cancer. She was anticipating a full recovery until doctors told her the prognosis was fatal and that she might only have a few more weeks to live.

“You can always hope for a miracle, but sometimes it doesn’t happen,” her uncle, Herb Hicks, told the paper. “But I’m praying that it does but, if it doesn’t, it will be a big void in our church, and our tribe, and for me too.”

Prior to learning her diagnosis, Bryant had already filed to run for re-election -- the vote takes place later this month. She spent most of her first term focusing on federal recognition for her tribe.

“My people have paid such a high price to exist in this country and in the commonwealth of Virginia,” Bryant, 53, told the paper. “We’ve watched our villages and our burial grounds plowed under in the name of progress."

The Senate Indian Affairs Committee approved S.465, the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act, at a business meeting in March. The bill extends recognition to the Monacan Nation and five other tribes in Virginia.

"[W]e’ve been disregarded as a people, and still we retained our sense of community, and I guess I want my legacy to be — if I could convince my people how important they are," Bryant told the paper. "Not just to me, but to the survival of our people and to the survival of this nation and this commonwealth. We did play a part in that. How unspoken it may be in the annals of history, we’re here.”

The bill has not been brought up for a vote in the Senate.

Get the Story:
Monacan chief receives terminal cancer prognosis (The Lynchburg News and Advance 6/3)

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