This paper explores the cross-cultural communication strategies used by a union of Virginia Indian tribes to leverage the Quadricentennial commemoration of the Jamestown founding in support of their sovereignty campaign. The tensions between Jamestown’s mythos as “democracy birthplace” and natives’ historical and modern lived experiences, combined with the (inter)national attention centered on the events, built the 400th anniversary “commemoration” as a riveting social action location. The union used intercultural communicative practices—especially cross-cultural dialogue and negotiation—to mobilize these tensions in order to renegotiate their relationship with the federal government, elucidating the crossing of intercultural communication, memory, and identity. KEYWORDS: Memory, intercultural communication, Jamestown, Native Americans, sovereignty