Feds order reservation disestablished

Post Reply New Topic

The federal Bureau of Indian affairs has notified the Mashpee Wampanoag that there reservation will be disestablished and there land taken out of trust.

Secretary of the interior David Bernhardt notified the Mashpee Wampanoag of his decision on friday,tribe chairman Cedric Cromwell stated on the tribes website.

The action was cruel and unnecessary,the secretary is under no court to take our land out of trust.He is fully aware that litigation to uphold our status as a tribe eligible for benefits of the Indian reorganization act is ongoing.What is driving our federal trustee's crusade against our reservation.

The MW have been involved in a legal battle over 321 acres of land in Taunton,MA and a proposal to build a casino there.

A Bill H.R 312, sought to recognize and protect what was described as tribal homeland,it passed the house but failed the senate,Trump criticized the bill in a tweet,calling it a special interest casino bill backed by Elizabeth Pacahontas Warren.

Cromwell has vowed to keep on the fight,saying we have survived and these are our land and the lands of our ancestors.

masslive.com

Does the tribe still have credible legal avenues to pursue in defence of their lands and proposed business venture?

^ just read the article, and the statement on the tribes website: you didn’t miss anything.

They sound very determined, hope they can win through against the current adversity.

I guess it never stops.

The problem with many of these issues is that the people who supposedly own the land, have to fight off challenges over and over again. The government only has to win once.

I am not an expert on Indian affairs but I believe the Mashpee Wampanoag's are a offshoot of the main Wampanoag tribe.

I'm pretty sure the Wampanoag's will still be around along with the small Mohawk population in the western part of the state and upstate NY.

Until this morning I had never heard of the Mashpee Wampanoag's,so this leads me to believe there a offshoot of the regular Wampanoag's who are the main tribe of the Eastern part of the state.

The Mashpee Wampanoag's are one of three Wampanoag sect's in Massachusetts,so it is a big loss if they loose there land,there are not many reservations left in the state.

At on time Wampanoag's lived throughout coastal Massachusetts including 3,000 people on Martha's Vinyard.

Yeah, I had a peek at the Wikipedia page on the Wampanoag: it describes them as a grouping of multiple tribes organised in a similar manner to the Iroquois Confederacy with territories that extended beyond Massachusetts

(Image is from Khan academy, the Wikipedia one wouldn’t work: all the tribes in this image are talked of as part of the grouping on Wikipedia)

Also talked of them doing extended fishing and trading voyages along the coast in both directions for up to several months at a time.
Interesting: you don’t come across much info about the indigenous peoples of the eastern seaboard over here, rather overlooked in favour of peoples further west.

Thanks for the post and the map

Coolness
Think I should hunt down an academically respectable tome on the tribes and peoples of the north-eastern seaboard of the US/Canada at some point: less easily digested romance than the Great Plains, but very interesting political and social structures.

I can't see the original story link, but I think it's worth nothing that this is probably a dispute about casino development. There are two plots of land in question that are each about 150 acres — note that's 150 acres, not 150 square miles or something you might be imagining from out West. They're in no sense "reservations" — they're suburban lots that have been proposed for casino and slot parlor construction, and "reservation" status confers or would confer certain legal/tax advantages. As is often the case with such development, other people who live nearby are objecting.

The Mass state senate and house of representitives has condemned the actions of the Trump administration.