Mashpee tribe leader turns to Trump for help

Mashpee tribe leader turns to Trump for help




By Jessica Hill

Posted Feb 28, 2020


Appeals court ruling on land-in-trust status another setback in bid for sovereignty.

MASHPEE — The leader of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe has called upon President Donald Trump for help in the wake of another court ruling that threatens the tribe’s land-in-trust status.

“We’re relying on our courts thinking justice is taking place,” Tribal Council Chairman Cedric Cromwell said. “Justice doesn’t take place ... I need our president to help us. He is the only one who can fix this.”

Cromwell wants to invite Trump to visit the Wampanoag Tribe and learn about its history in hopes he will understand where the tribe is coming from and “extend an olive branch” to secure the tribe’s homelands. Cromwell said he would meet with the assistant secretary of Indian Affairs and work to coordinate a meeting with the president.

The tribe has been caught up in legal battles for years over whether it qualified to have its land taken into trust, which cleared the way for it to build a proposed $1 billion casino and resort in Taunton. The latest ruling, issued Thursday by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, upheld a 2016 decision by Federal Judge William Young that the tribe was not under federal jurisdiction at the time the Indian Reorganization Act was passed in 1934. The Interior Department therefore lacked the authority to take land into trust for the tribe in 2015, the appeals court found.

One path forward for the tribe is legislation before Congress that would reaffirm that initial decision by the Interior Department.

The bill, called the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Reservation Reaffirmation Act, could stop litigation and confirm the tribe’s homeland, Cromwell said.

Sponsored by U.S. Rep. William Keating, D-Mass., the bill passed the House in May but has not been acted on by the Senate.

“The recent court decision is disappointing, which is why my bill is so critical to the Tribe,” Keating said in a statement Friday. “It’s beyond comprehension that the first tribe mentioned in our history books is having its very existence questioned.”

“We’re cautiously optimistic about winning in D.C. and getting our legislation passed,” Cromwell said.

Based on the outcome of the litigation in Boston, Cromwell is concerned about another case pending in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In that case, the tribe sued the Interior Department for reversing its decision to take the land into trust after Young’s ruling.

Historically, Cromwell said, it has been one injustice after another for the tribe, whose members have been treated as “second-class citizens.”

The Interior Department had taken 321 acres of land in Mashpee and Taunton into trust for the tribe. The federal government has long acted as trustee for tribes for the purpose of self-government.

The tribe had planned to use the Taunton land for economic development, mainly the resort and casino, and the Mashpee land primarily for housing, according to the appeals court ruling.

Crowell said the tribe was asking for only 1% of what its total land base once was.

A group of Taunton residents led by David and Michelle Littlefield went to court to fight the planned casino.

“We said in 2012 that if the federal government took land into trust in Massachusetts, it would be against the law and we would fight it at the local, state and federal level,” the Littlefields said in a statement after Thursday’s court ruling. “We had a small group of citizens who committed eight years to researching and learning. It was an uphill battle and we were outspent and outnumbered at every turn.

“We kept our word,” their statement says. “We fought hard. We stayed the course, and we won.”

The legal arguments focused on specific definitions in the Indian Reorganization Act, such as the words “such” and “now.”

″‘Such’ is not animate,” Cromwell said. “It’s inanimate. We’re talking about lives here. We’re talking about people. ... We are the first Americans.”

Cromwell remains hopeful that he and the tribe will get help.

“Our land is still in trust,” he said. “And we’re going to continue to fight for our homelands. We’re not going to give up. We need our commander in chief to help us.”