News from Indian Country
Page 9 Spilyay Tymoo ApHl 13, 2006
Tribe given preliminary recognition
W ASHINGTON (AP) - The
Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, whose an
cestors greeted the Pilgrims at the At
lantic shore, was given preliminar}7 ap
proval last week of the federal recog
nition it had been seeking for three de
cades.
“It’s a tremendous day for the
Mashpee,” Glenn Marshall, chairman
of the tribe’s council, said. “It’s the most
compelling story anybody has heard ...
The culture is alive in our young kids
and our elders.”
The Massachusetts tribe is expected
to receive a final determination by
March 31, 2007. Such a designation
would make it the 564th recognized
tribe in the nation, the tribe said.
The ruling caps a sometimes bitter
struggle for the 1,468-member Cape
Cod tribe that stretches back to 1975.
Pete Fermino, a tribal elder, said he
felt “real joy, and yet sorrow,” since the
news came too late for many. “The
meaning is for so many who have
passed,” he said in Mashpee, Mass.
In hopes of speeding up its quest
for federal recognition, the Mashpee
Wampanoag tribe sued the U.S. Depart
ment of Interior in 2001. The govern
ment agreed to give its preliminary rul
ing by the end of March 2006.
The tribe met all seven of the U.S.
Department of Interior’s Office of
Federal Acknowledgment’s criteria for
recognition, including proving it has
maintained a political and cultural iden
tity throughout its history.
“The evidence demonstrates that the
current group and its ancestors main
tained a community distinct from that
of other populations near the town of
Mashpee, Mass., since the 1600s,” the
government’s statement announcing
the ruling said.
A 210-day public comment period
will begin once the government’s pre
liminary ruling is printed in the Federal
Register next week, according to Scott
Ferson, a tribal spokesman. The gov
ernment would have to discover ma
jor problems in the tribe’s petition to
overturn its preliminary decision, he
said.
Considerable power comes with fed
eral recognition, which would make the
tribe a sovereign entity within a town
that would share its name but have little
authority over it.
The Wampanoag have acknowledged
an interest in casino gambling and ac
quiring undeveloped land, a reminder
of their failed and divisive 1970s land
claim that had residents worried the
tribe would seize private homes.
But tribal leaders speak of federal
recognition primarily as a way to gain
needed government health, education
and housing benefits and preserve their
distinct place in history.
A separate group, the Wampanoag
Tribe of Gay Head-Aquinnah on
Martha’s Vineyard, has been the only
federally recognized Massachusetts
tribe.
The town of Mashpee’s name is
derived from an aboriginal word mean
ing “Land of the Great Cove.” The
Wampanoag once claimed all its 27 square
miles of woodland and freshwater ponds,
and those who remain still hunt and fish
on its undeveloped areas.
The Mashpee tribe’s early history,
during which it was part of the broader
Wampanoag Nation, included conflict
with the encroaching colonists, such as
the bloody war led by Wampanoag
warrior King Philip after the English
murdered his brother. But there was
also an openness toward the setders.
The year after the Pilgrims landed,
in 1620, King Philip’s father Massasoit
struck a treaty with the Plymouth colo
nists and the tribe hosted the first
Thanksgiving.
The Wampanoag adopted the En
glish style of dress, and in the 1660s
the first Wampanoag Christian Bible
was printed. In 1683, the tribe built the
Old Indian Meeting House in Mashpee,
the oldest Indian church in the coun
try. By the mid 18th century, the En
glish and Wampanoag were joindy run
ning Mashpee, and non-Indians
couldn’t buy land without the tribe’s
consent.
The land sale restriction was re
moved by the 1870s, when Mashpee
became a town. But Mashpee’s popu
lation was primarily Wampanoag until
the 1960s and the tribe was in firm
political control of town boards.
Since then, however, residential de
velopment has transformed the town
and pushed the Wampanoag to the
political margins. The land suit the
Mashpee Wampanoag filed in 1976
opened a rift that hasn’t fully healed.
The suit targeted hundreds of local
land owners, claiming that land in
Mashpee and three neighboring towns
was illegally taken from the tribe.
Dave McMechan/Spilyay
Sequoia Poafpybitty digs roots during the recent outing with the
Oregon State University 4-H program.
Florida officials agree to buy and
preserve site of Indian battle
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -
State officials announced plans to
spend $3.2 million to buy and pre
serve the battlefield where Semi
nole and Miccosukee Indians and
escaped slaves fought hand-to-
hand with the U.S. Army in 1837.
The 145 acres where the Battle
of Lake Okeechobee took place
on Christmas Day will be turned
into a state park, with living his
tory events, such as re-enactments
of the battle.
Preservationists have been
afraid rapid growth in the city of
Okeechobee would turn the site
into a subdivision or shopping area.
It is wedged between a commer
cial area and a 300-home develop
ment.
Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida
t
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. (AP) — The Saginaw Chippewa Indian
Tribe has revised a lawsuit against the state that sought sovereignty over
about 200 square miles of central Michigan’s Isabella County, based on
treaties from 1855 and 1864.
The tribe had asked a federal judge to declare that all or part of seven
Isabella County townships are Indian country as defined by federal law.
The attorney general’s office had said that if the tribe’s suit was success
ful, thousands of Michigan residents would find themselves living in a
sovereign Indian nation.
But in a new filing in U.S. District Court in Bay City, the tribe now asks
for an injunction to prevent the governor, attorney general and state trea
surer from exerting criminal or civil jurisdiction over the tribe or its mem
bers “in a manner not allowed in Indian country.”
In the state’s answer to the revised suit, Assistant Attorney General
Todd B. Adams dropped his claim that the tribe is trying to exert authority
over people who aren’t tribal members but live in, work in or travel
through the territory claimed by the tribe.
The tribe filed its amended complaint March 21, and the state filed its
answer three days later. The original suit filed in November claimed that
treaties with the U.S. government gave the tribe sovereignty over the part
of Isabella County that made up the “historic Isabella Reservation,” which
it said includes Deerfield, Denver, Isabella, Nottawa and Wise townships,
as well as half of Chippewa and Union townships.
Indian policy conference set
VERMILLION, S.D. (AP) - A con
ference on national Indian policy has
been scheduled for the University of
South Dakota campus April 18-21.
National American Indian leaders
and scholars plan to present papers and
participate in panel presentations.
The symposium’s title is “From
Termination to Sovereignty: A 50-
Year Retrospective Symposium on
National Indian Policy.”
“It is hard to appreciate what In-
dian Country has struggled through
to get to the present stage where
tribes are confident of their sover
eignty, have developed a solid corps
of Indian legal resources, and have
gained in political sophistication to
defend their governmental rights and
trust protection guaranteed them by
treaties,” said Mark Daniels, director
of USD’s Department of American
Indian Studies.
Proposed settlem ent reached
on Taos Pueblo w ater rights
Regulators
okay casino
management
NEW BUFFALO TOWNSHIP,
Mich. (AP) — The National Indian
Gaming Commission has approved an
agreement between Lakes Entertain
ment Inc. and the Pokagon Band of
Potawatomi Indians for Lakes Enter
tainment to develop and manage the
tribe’s Four Winds Casino Resort
project.
The Minneapolis-based company,
which has development and manage
ment agreements with five American
Indian tribes in Michigan, California
and Oklahoma involving eight separate
casino sites, made the announcement
Monday.
The Pokagon Band earlier said it
expected construction on the $160 mil
lion resort to begin in June and take 14
months to complete.
The casino and hotel will stand on
a 675-acre site in Berrien County’s
New Buffalo Township, in far south
western Michigan near the Indiana
border.
The commission is the U.S. regula
tory agency that oversees Indian gam
ing.
Tribe amends lawsuit seeking
sovereignty in Isabella County
Cabinet unanimously approved the pur
chase of the site from the Rowland
Foundation, created to benefit orphan
ages and religious organizations.
W.S. Steele, historic preservation
officer for the Seminole Tribe of
Florida, which has a reservation nearby,
said he has been fighting to protect the
site for 21 years.
“It was the terminating and decisive
battle of a 200-year conflict that be
gan in the 1680s and did not really end
until 1858,” Steele told the Cabinet.
“The significance of this battlefield
cannot be overstated.”
The battle was part of a government
effort to remove Indians from Florida,
which was then just a U.S. territory.
About 1,100 soldiers and militia
troops led by Col. Zachary Taylor
fought with around 400 Indians and
escaped slaves.
The Army suffered heavier ca
sualties, 26 dead and 112 wounded
versus 11 dead and 14 wounded on
the Indian side, according to histo
rians. But the battle was declared a
victory in Washington because the
Indians were driven from the battle
field. Taylor won a promotion and
fame that helped catapult him to the
presidency in 1848.
The Seminóles and their allies,
however, avoided capture and re
moval from Florida, found sanctu
ary in the Everglades and never
surrendered.
The National Trust for Historic
Preservation joined the effort in
2000 by listing the battlefield as one
of the country’s 11 most endan
gered historic sites.
SANTA FE (AP) - A proposed
settlement has been reached in a Taos
Pueblo water rights dispute, but none
of the parties has yet signed the agree
ment, the state engineer’s office an
nounced.
The proposal represents a step to
ward ending a long-standing dispute be
tween the pueblo and non-Indian irri
gators in the Taos Valley, according to
a news release issued Monday from the
office.
Once local parties review and ap
prove the draft settlement agreement,
they will seek to resolve related federal
interests. Ultimately, congressional leg
islation will be sought to approve and
fund a final agreement.
Negotiations started in 1989 to settle
the pueblo’s claims to the Rio Hondo
and Rio Pueblo de Taos. The parties
have worked with a mediator since Au
gust 2003. “This proposed settlement
is in the best interest of water rights
owners in the Taos area,” state Engi
neer John D’Antonio said.
Taos Pueblo Gov. James Lujan Sr.
called it a fair settlement.
When completed, it will resolve the
pueblo’s claims and set rules on ground-
water throughout Taos Valley “without
injuring surface water supplies or over
burdening the aquifer,” Lujan said.
The agreement was developed in
negotiations involving the pueblo, the
state, the town of Taos, the Taos Val
ley Acequias Association, El Prado
Water and Sanitation District and 12
Taos-area domestic water users asso
ciations, the state engineer’s office said.
The parties represent most of the wa
ter users in the Taos Valley.
Public meetings are set April 12 and
April 19 in Taos to discuss the agree
ment, which runs 88 pages, plus 22
pages for signatures.
In general, the proposal would let
the pueblo irrigate about 5,713 acres
shown on a July 1997 Taos Pueblo
water use survey, maintain impound
ments and stock poncls for livestock
and use 300 acre-feet of water per year
for municipal, domestic and industrial
uses. It also protects a natural wetland
northwest of the pueblo’s traditional
village.
It also establishes amounts of wa
ter for mutual benefit projects for vari
ous parties, gives the town of Taos the
right to its existing groundwater and sur
face water diversions and sets rules for
it to apply for future wells, limits the
El Prado district’s diversions from the
wetlands and gives the Taos-area wa
ter associations the right to operate their
existing groundwater diversions.
Narragansett Indians oust
Champlain family from tribe
SOUTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. (AP) - The Narragansett Indian tribe has ousted
the family of a former tribal council member for failing to produce documents
that prove their ancestry. Narragansett Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas told
the Providence Journal that the Champlain family did not meet their 120-day
deadline for producing the records.
The Champlains were told in early December that certain documents — their
birth, death and marriage certificates linking them to the 1880 tribal roll — were
missing. The family asserts their tribal ties became an issue just weeks after one
of their members, Yvette Champlain, raised questions about how the tribe had
spent $1 million it obtained from Harrah’s Entertainment.
Harrah’s wants to build a casino in West Warwick with the Narragansetts.
Yvette Champlain was on the tribal council at that time. “For the best interest of
the people, I questioned, I asked for accountability,” she said. “If the Narragansett
tribal members do not stand up, are they going to let this happen?”
Thomas said the timing of Yvette’s inquiry and her family’s membership
review is coincidental. The Champlains have used land deeds, wills and names in
the Bible to justify their ancestry. Yvette and others have argued that using birth,
death and marriage certificates to tie their lineage to the 1880 roll is almost
impossible because Indian mothers often did not give birth in hospitals or keep
typical records. They doubt that other tribe members, including Thomas, can
produce such records.
Thomas said all members had the required certificates.
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