Our Circle
Last month, I was honored to be elected as the First Vice President of the National Congress of American Indians during their 80th annual Convention and Marketplace. I see this as a win not only for our tribe, but for all northeast tribes who now have an elevated seat at the table on the national level.
During the convention, NCAI members were presented with a proposed constitutional amendment that would limit NCAI membership to only include federally recognized tribes and remove the voting rights from state recognized member tribes. I was happy to see that when this amendment was brought to membership it ultimately failed, and the vote was in favor of continuing to support and acknowledge state recognized tribes.
As we all know, the federal recognition process is lengthy, expensive, arduous, and subject to bureaucratic obstacles caused by administrative changes. Our own tribe fought for more than 3 decades to be re-acknowledged as a federally recognized tribe. This span of time included the historic 1970s land claim suits filed by the Tribe and a lawsuit filed against the Bush administration that resulted in OFA finally issuing a decision in 2007. Judge Skinner, in the land claim suit, ruled that lacking federal recognition as a tribe, the Mashpee Wampanoag people had no standing to pursue the land claim. This abhorrent decision was marred with the racism of the time and paved the way for the implementation of the Part 83 regulatory framework for federal recognition we see today.
Like other "landless" tribes of the Atlantic Coast, we encountered difficulties documenting our continuity. The recognition process required documentation of continued existence since first contact with European arrivals. Although the Tribe’s extensive documented history could not be ignored, we know well the effects of failed federal policies, assault by local governments, competing business interests, racism, and most painfully opposition by other tribes.
Around a month ago, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Department of Interior’s decision to place land into trust for our Tribe providing us justice that is long overdue. Our Tribe has been members of NCAI since the 1980’s long before we received our Federal Recognition. I feel it is important to stand with our relatives and sister tribes, and not dismantle the fabric of NCAI as an organization with its goals to be a “unified voice”, to encourage “diverse membership” and continue as the “most representative” organization serving tribes.
The NCAI founders in 1944 did not distinguish tribes based on federal recognition and intended to support the unity of All tribes and the mission to “secure to ourselves and our descendants the rights and benefits [of] the traditional laws of our people to which we are entitled to as sovereign nations.” As professed by the NCAI, it was “founded in response to the emerging threat of termination and the founding members stressed the need for unity and cooperation among tribal governments and people for the security and protection of treaty and sovereign rights.”
We, the Mashpee, must stand for unity and support the ideals of empowering nations rather than erasing them. Let us remember that united we stand and divided we fall! I am glad to say that NCAI stands on the right side of history by continuing to support unity over division, and disregarding actions of the oppressor that threaten tribal sovereignty.
Ahâpây,
Chairman Weeden
