Land case raises red flags across Indian country

MASHPEE, Mass.— A modest courthouse and a fledgling police force, a housing development for American Indian families and a school where students are taught exclusively in the tribe’s ancestral language. These are the visible signs of an independent tribal nation that has grown on the famous vacation getaway of Cape Cod in recent years.

But the future of those and other developments is uncertain as the Mashpee Wampanoag — the tribe whose ancestors broke bread with the Pilgrims nearly four centuries ago — awaits a decision from the Interior Department on whether it can continue to govern a slice of its historic lands.

The U.S. Department of Interior is reconsidering its 2015 decision to place some 300 acres into trust for the tribe. A federal judge who sided with local residents challenging the declaration sent it back to the agency for reconsideration in the final months of President Barack Obama’s administration in 2016.

Land in trust is a special status in which the federal government holds the title to the property and allows the tribe to make its own decisions on how to develop the taxexempt land and its natural resources.

“It’s incredibly frustrating,” says Jessie “Little Doe” Baird, the tribe’s vice chairwoman. “We’ve been struggling to keep land under our feet since the 1600s.”

The case — and separate regulatory changes contemplated by the Trump administration in the way tribes apply for trust lands — has raised red flags across Indian country.

Apart from instances in which tribes request it, the federal government hasn’t removed a tribe’s land trust status since the notorious Termination Era of the 1940s through the 1960s. Back then, Congress sought to end tribal independence by removing federal protections and pushing for the assimilation of American Indians, say Native American groups and federal Indian law experts.

Tribes argue the Interior Department must commit to defending its land trust decisions — all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary — since opponents critical of the loss of taxable land frequently go to great lengths to keep lands out of tribal hands. Philip Marcelo and Felicia Fonseca are Associated Press writers.