RALEIGH, N.C. – Section 11 of House Bill 385 is proposing harmful amendments that will impact Native American burial grounds and other historical sites on the North Carolina coast. This bill favors developers by fast trackingprojects and seeks to dismantle decades of special protections of sacred sites, which are already limited in the state of NC. Each year, nearly all of the permits reviewed by the Office of State Archaeology are signed off on and HB385 would make it even harder for construction to be halted for archeological concerns.
Section 11 of House Bill 385 is associated with a specific subdivision under construction in Carteret County called Cedar Point, where extensive Native American human burials and an undisturbed Woodland period (1000 BC – AD 1600) village site have been found. Developers have donated thousands in campaign funds to legislators championing the bill.
Civil War battlefields and cemeteries would also be negatively impacted by this legislation. The amendment sets dangerous precedents by weakening protections for North Carolina historical markers and Native American burial sites across the state. Historical and heritage tourism could take a nosedive if legislators are not mindful of continuing to protect these cultural gems in our great state of North Carolina, in addition to shamefully disturbing the protected remains of the state’s longest ancestral residents and its fallen heroes.
7 Directions of Service Policy Director Aminah Ghaffar thinks that legislators should see the value in preserving historic grounds and gravesites over profit from outside developers:
“This is another example of developers and corporate entities trying to bypass protective procedures in order to prioritize making profit over preserving history. Imagine someone digging up your relative without good cause. That is what is happening to these unmarked gravesites. Human remains are being disturbed. If this bill goes through, it will legitimize graverobbing not only of Native American remains, but the remains of fallen soldiers in the Civil War.”
