Massachusetts: Federal judge rules in favor of Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe
Taunton residents had sued the Government due to plans the Tribe had to build a casino.
A federal judge has ruled against residents in Taunton, Massachusetts who sued the Government. Local citizens filed a suit in an effort to stop a casino from being built by the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, according to a local report from The Sun in Westerly.
The judge said in the ruling that the “historical record indicates that the Mashpee have had a robust connection to the designated lands for over four centuries.”
The Tribe has been federally recognized since 2007. The Mashpee lived in southeastern Massachusetts thousands of years before European settlers and Pilgrims arrived.
Prior to the judge’s ruling, the Tribe’s 321 acres were placed in a trust by the US Department of Interior (DOI). The ruling affirmed that decision by granting summary judgment to the DOI.
The land set aside represents a “small fraction” of the Tribe’s ancestral territory, according to The Sun report. Tribal Chair Brian Weeden told The Sun “this reservation is crucial to our ability to exercise our sovereign right to self-governance, to preserve our language and culture, and to provide for our people.”
The lawsuit originated from a claim by some Taunton residents that the Tribe’s historic domain did not include the city.
This led to the plaintiffs filing the suit in February 2022, after the Biden administration decided that “the tribe’s reservation was arbitrary, capricious and unlawful because the tribe isn’t eligible for a reservation since it wasn’t an officially recognized tribe in 1934, the year the federal Indian Reorganization Act became law.”
Massachusetts recently joined more than 30 US states that have regulated sports betting (this time, on a retail basis, with online yet to come). The state went live on January 31.
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