Turtle River Nation Incorporated

In 2023, our new fundraising goal is $100,000. This coming year the Piro/Manso/Tiwa Tribe will finalize the tribes technical assistance response. The tribe needs to hire historians, anthropologists, genealogists and archival researchers. This means we need your help more than ever! Remember that our tribe has to fund any endeavors on our own. Without recognition we receive no monies or land from the government and we lack any rights as a group. Even programs or grants that are available to Native Americans always require documentation, often from a federally recognized tribe. A donation of any amount allows the PMT Tribe to continue our fight to become a federally recognized tribe and eventually get our #landback

Federal recognition allows tribe’s to protect and enhance their language, culture and traditional forms of Native religious practices by strengthening tribal governments that possess a measure of sovereignty. These tribes can have their reservation lands placed in trust. This means that their land is protected by the federal government from being purchased or taken by non-Indians. Thus, federally recognized tribes also have what is a called a trust relationship with the government. This means that the federal authorities will protect their sovereign status, their lands and tribal property, and their rights of their Native people by recognizing this government to government relationship.

The Piro/Manso/Tiwa Indian Tribe, Pueblo of San Juan de Guadalupe is an historical tribe located in the Mesilla Valley in southern New Mexico.  The Tribe constitutes the only organized Piro and Manso Indian group remaining in the United States.  Our ancestors are from the Piro Pueblos of Abo, Senecu, Gran Quivera, Tabira, Socorro, Alamillo and Sevilleta in central New Mexico. Our original homeland was in central New Mexico, where we had occupied various villages and had enjoyed a well-differentiated culture by the time of Spanish conquest. The Piro/Manso/Tiwa Indian Tribe's members have continued to reside in close proximity, and the Tribe persists as a modern Indian community. We hold regular meetings, ceremonies, community events, special meetings and annual elections in our tribal homelands in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Quarterly tribal meetings and ceremonies have continued at tribal members’ residences because the Tribe is not federally recognized and lacking a reservation.

There is a list of seven mandatory criteria to become a federally recognized Indian Tribe. The petitioning group must prove from historical times until present that they have identified as an American Indian entity, existed as a distinct community, maintained political influence, established a membership criterion, consisted of individuals who descend from a historical Indian tribe, are persons who are not members of any acknowledged tribe, and are not subject of congressional legislation. The Piro/Manso/Tiwa Indian Tribe, Pueblo of San Juan de Guadalupe has sought Federal acknowledgement for many long and frustrating years. Our effort started in the 1960s and continues to the present day, involving at various times the efforts of several law firms, Native American assistance groups, anthropologists, ethnologists, and Tribal volunteers.

Our petition is in the final stages of the recognition process and needs your help to pay for anthropologists, genealogists, and legal services. Your donations will go directly to the Tribe’s non-profit charity, Turtle River Nation, Inc a 501( c ) (3) organization. This will help us fund professional researchers and travel for tribal government officials and project staff to attend critical meetings in Washington D.C. with the Office of Federal Acknowledgment.  We even need assistance to help cover the basic costs of paper and postage.

Thank you kindly for any donation and just for listening to our story!