That Ship has Sailed

Today I read a remarkable blog by Gladys Kravitz entitled Father Knows Best and it got me thinking about the IGRA, and how we as a Country, have allowed casino investors to invade our towns - our communities -- and destroy our quality of life through the exploitation of the IGRA by means of federally recognized Indian Tribes. To me, Gladys’ blog was a poignant reminder of the visions and hopes for our Country held by our founding fathers, not by billion dollar foreign casino investors working the system. Let’s face it, the IGRA was paved with good intentions, but through time, the intent of the Act, as well as the Indian tribes, have been all to often used, abused and exploited by these investors.

I have been told countless times that this casino is a done deal…to shut-up and live with it because it has nothing to do with me, or my rights…it is about the rights of a Tribe to reclaim their ancestral land and build a casino…so live with it. Well all I can say in my defense is…as a United States citizen, who was born and raised in this glorious commonwealth that I understand that the Indian Tribes have rights, and I understand that whatever lands that had been taken through treaty or war were taken at a cost. I also understand that the US Government recognized this and has done its due diligence to right the wrongs of the past....it is time to move on. I understand that the history is brutal, it is not pretty and is downright heartbreaking in many cases….but I also realize and acknowledge the fact that not only did our first President George Washington want to make right the past wrong doings on the part of the Indians, so did Harry S. Truman. In fact it was he who pointed out that the United States needed to address these past wrong doings and ensure that Indian claims were heard and finally settled.

Instead of confiscating Indian lands, we have purchased from the tribes that once owned this continent more than 90% of our public domain, paying them approximately 800 million dollars in the process. It would be a miracle if in the course of these dealings – the largest real estate transaction in history – we had not made some mistakes and occasionally failed to live up to the precise terms of our treaties and agreements with some 200 tribes. But we stand ready to submit all such controversies to the judgment of impartial tribunals. We stand ready to correct any mistakes we have made. - Harry S. Truman

The federal government, along with most other Americans apparently did realize that wrongs had been committed in dealings with the Indian Tribes because on August 13, 1946, President Truman signed into law the Indian Claims Commission Act. This act allowed Indian Tribes a way to file claims of all kinds against the United States Government for past wrong doings, however the Act stated that Indian claims needed to be brought within five years of the passage of the Act and any claims brought thereafter would be forever barred by the Statue.

Not that the ICCA wasn’t without its faults and difficulties…it most certainly was. One of those difficulties was the realization that return of land to Indian Tribes was problematic at best, mainly because most of the land was already settled by private citizens. Returning the land to the Tribes would create an entirely new group of people that would be wronged and would delay, if not allow for a closure of the Indian land claims. Because of this, the Commission decided that monetary awards were highly preferable to the return of land and because the Commission was reluctant to grant lands back to Tribes not held by the Federal Government, they did just that…. awarded the Tribes money for their claims. I must note however, that there were cases in which the land in question was still held by the federal government, which allowed for the return of said land to the Tribes making the claim without causing further harm to others. Although some tribes continued to seek the return of their land, other tribes instead wanted the government to be held accountable for the way tribal money was spent. Sure enough, a relationship between the government and the American Indians evolved to where the government acted as a trustee for the tribes and it is through this relationship that the IGRA was born.

I need to point out one important fact regarding the Indian Claims Commission Act….the Act stated that Indian claims needed to be brought within five years of the passage of the Act, and any claims brought thereafter would be forever barred by the Statue…..yet here we are, 52 years later, fighting the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Tribe’s land into trust application to prevent them from taking 350 acres of land in Middleboro into trust as an initial reservation for the sole purpose of building a mega casino resort.

What I find to be absolutely amazing is that despite the passage of the deadline of the ICCA, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe is still trying to claim land rights in Middleboro in the hopes of building a mega resort casino and the BIA is allowing it. Congress passed the ICCA in order to allow Indian tribes the opportunity to have their day in court….that day is long past ….that ship has sailed. The fact is, the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Tribe has never put in a claim to the Indian Claims Commission.

Why does this matter? Well, it matters because as Congress pointed out itself, the purpose of the Indian Claims Commission Act was to:

“bring this practice to an end and to settle once and for all every claim [Indian tribes] could possibly have under the categories set forth in the law.”

The ICC listened to claims made by Indian Tribes up until 1978, when the Commission expired. All open claims were transferred to the U.S. Court of Claims and a map of judicially established lands was created by the U.S. Geological Survey. . This map portrays the results of cases before the commission in which an Indian tribe proved its original tribal occupancy of a tract within the continental United States. – National Parks Service, Department of the Interior

You can go here for a better look at the map.



So what does this mean? Well, for starters, you certainly aren’t going to find references to tribes, states, and cases involving New England groups such as the Mashpee Tribe in the ICCA because, at least in the case of the Mashpee Tribe, their claim to land in Mashpee (not Middleboro) came up a number of years after August 13, 1946.

So wait a minute here….perhaps this whole Land into Trust deal does have something to do with our rights as well, and is not just about the rights of the Mashpee Indian Tribe to build a mega resort casino in Middleboro as we have been told again and again. I mean, it has been 52 years since the ICCA deadline…..does the Tribe, BIA and the DOI even have a right to take this land? I say no….set aside our constitutional rights as one of the original thirteen colonies, and in my opinion, there is still no legal basis for this land to be taken by the federal government, held into trust and allowed to become a sovereign nation for the sole purpose of building a mega resort casino. If there was, then it should have been taken up a long time ago under the ICCA, not now when there are deep pocket casino investors with countless amounts of cash to push, bully and lobby for an Indian casino in our community. The ICCA was signed by President Truman in 1946. Its intent was to close the door and finally bring closure to the wrong-doings by our Country to the Native Indians. How and why that door is still allowed to be open is beyond me….the way I see it, the claim to put the land into trust in Middleboro should not be allowed by the Commonwealth, the BIA, the DOI, or Congress…. as I said, that ship has sailed.

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