“Restoring these rights is essential for food sovereignty, cultural survival, and environmental stewardship, empowering the Piscataway Conoy to reclaim their ancestral relationship with the land and waters.”
Danaisha Proctor (Piscataway Conoy Tribe), 24, is a youth leader and advocate dedicated to restoring Indigenous food sovereignty and protecting the cultural rights of her community. From the Chesapeake Bay region, where the Piscataway people have long maintained deep relationships with the land and waterways, Danaisha is committed to ensuring future generations can access the traditions that sustained her ancestors. Her work centers on uplifting youth voices, strengthening tribal identity, and reconnecting community members to their cultural and environmental responsibilities.
For generations, the Piscataway Conoy Tribe has faced barriers to practicing traditional hunting, fishing, crabbing, and gathering due to colonization, displacement, and restrictive state regulations. These limitations have disrupted access to culturally meaningful foods, contributed to health disparities, and weakened the transfer of traditional knowledge between elders and youth. Danaisha’s Dreamstarter project, “The Next Seven Generations & Beyond: Restoring & Protecting Tribal Hunting, Fishing, and Gathering Rights,” addresses these challenges by working to restore these fundamental rights and rebuild connections to ancestral food systems.
Through a youth-led initiative, Danaisha will organize education, legislative advocacy, and cultural documentation efforts to support the reinstatement of tribal harvesting rights in Maryland. Building on historical precedents, including the partial restoration of Piscataway treaty rights in Washington, D.C., the project will equip youth with knowledge of their history, current policies, and pathways for change. By fostering intergenerational learning and empowering young leaders to advocate for their rights, Danaisha’s work aims to strengthen food sovereignty, promote environmental stewardship, and ensure that future generations can access and sustain their traditional ways of life.
