Indigenous leaders meet King Charles III during US state visit

Tribal leaders from the National Congress of American Indians and the Monacan Indian Nation met King Charles III during the British monarch’s four-day state visit to the United States, in talks that ranged from diplomacy to conservation and Indigenous land stewardship.

The visit ran from 27 to 30 April and coincided with the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. Including Indigenous representatives at official events gave tribal nations a visible place in diplomatic spaces shaped by the shared colonial history of Britain and the United States.

NCAI president and Pechanga Band of Indians Tribal Chairman Mark Macarro and Executive Director Larry Wright Jr., a citizen of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska, attended a Garden Party at the British Embassy in Washington D.C. on 28 April, ICT reported. Holly Cook Macarro of Red Lake Nation, an NCAI board member and Macarro’s wife, also attended, alongside UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, House Speaker Mike Johnson and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul.

Macarro was also a guest at the King’s joint address before Congress.

“Tribal Nations and Indigenous Peoples must be seen and included in spaces where diplomacy, history, and future partnerships are being shaped, and NCAI is proud to represent Indian Country,” Macarro said in an NCAI statement.

Cook Macarro told ICT the King asked about Macarro’s role at NCAI, his Pechanga heritage and the relationships between US tribes and First Nations in Canada. She wore a cape top and skirt by Rose McFadden of Isabella Rose Design Company, a purse by House of Sutai and jewellery by Cody Sanderson. Macarro wore a black suit with cuffs by Cody Sanderson, a beaded necklace gifted by tribal chairman Jack Potter, and a necklace from the late Marshall McKay, longtime chairman of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation Tribal Council.

“The moment was not lost on us, that we were there representing the history of colonization in the United States,” Cook Macarro told ICT.

On 30 April the King travelled to Virginia to tour Shenandoah National Park and meet leaders of the Monacan Indian Nation, a federally recognised tribe with more than 2,000 enrolled citizens whose ancestral homeland covers the area.

“We are honored to meet with King Charles III in our historic territory to renew and reaffirm our nation-to-nation relationship that was first established in the 1680 Treaty of Middle Plantation between our Monacan ancestors and King Charles II,” Monacan Chief Dianne Shields told People Magazine. “I look forward to sharing our deep connection to nature and the importance of Indigenous land stewardship.”

At a reception, Shields described the King as a “gentle soul” who was “so polite to everybody.”

The Monacan Indian Nation was federally recognised in 2018 and has lived in its ancestral homeland for more than 12,000 years. Conservation and global climate work are central themes of the King’s international agenda, and his discussions with Indigenous leaders in the US extended that focus to Indigenous-led environmental management.