For more than 40 years, the tribes in Maine have had to play by different rules than other indigenous groups across the country, and they have suffered in tangible ways as a result. Now, a push for greater tribal autonomy has come to a head
"18th-century treaties were never intended to deed away land. Like many American #Indigenous groups, the #Wabanaki viewed stewardship as a communal undertaking — they didn’t share European conceptions of private land ownership. Unattuned to this foreign mindset, the Wabanaki signed treaties assuming the documents outlined land use, not ownership."
By Rachel Slade
March, 2024
"The #HoultonBandOfMaliseets’ administrative headquarters, built to resemble a log cabin, sits on a small tract of tribal land in Aroostook County, just north of where I-95 intersects the Canadian border. A few steps away, the #MeduxnekeagRiver roars past, the sound of rushing water a reminder of the harm done by 19th-century log drives, when clearing the river of obstacles turned the flow fast and shallow. A decade ago, the Maliseets took it upon themselves to start a #restoration project, partnering with federal and state agencies and nonprofit groups to add boulders and bends to the Meduxnekeag. To date, they have covered a four-mile stretch, recreating conditions that will cool and oxygenate the water, in order to help insects, birds, and fish thrive. The work requires patience. So does much else. The river is hardly the only historical damage tribal leaders around the state have been attempting to repair.
"One of the four remaining Wabanaki tribes whose forebears arrived in Maine more than 10,000 years ago, the Maliseets inhabited an area now split between the United States and Canada long before the existence of an international border. Chief #ClarissaSabattis, who wears her heather-brown hair in two long, thick braids that drape over her shoulders, was elected to lead the #Maliseets in #Maine in 2017. Since then, she says, she has struggled daily with the complex legal relationships the tribes have with the state government, dictated by the 1980 #MaineIndianClaimsSettlementAct.
"The terms of the settlement were the result of a decade of legal wrangling (and centuries of fraught dealings before that) that resulted in the state wielding unprecedented power over tribal affairs. The tribes have come to find the arrangement both burdensome and unjust. 'Our tribal council is our governing body,' Sabattis said when I met her at the Maliseet administrative offices. 'We should have full authority to make the laws and serve our people without interference from other governments.'
"Several years ago, the Maliseets, Mi’kmaq, #Passamaquoddy, and #PenobscotNation banded together and formed #WabanakiAlliance to collectively push for #TribalSovereignty. Most of the country’s 570 other federally recognized tribes are sovereign, which in the context of tribal affairs implies a sort of quasi-independence: through a direct nation-to-nation relationship with the federal government, indigenous groups can run their own communities. They administer their law enforcement, courts, schools, health care, and civil infrastructure on their reserved lands with federal assistance and funding — and, unlike in Maine, can do so without state-level interference. Sovereignty also means that if the tribes believe the state has violated their federally protected rights, they have recourse both through federal agencies and courts. It’s a system under which tribes across the nation have begun to flourish in recent decades."
"If the #WabanakiTribes were #sovereign, they would need to be consulted on every land-use decision that might impact their territory. Potential harms to human health, water and air quality, or plants and animals would be grounds for blocking commercial activity. The influential #MaineForestProductsCouncil lobbies for #timberland owners, #logging companies, and #mills, including Maine’s largest landowner, the Canada-based #JDIrving company, which controls 1.25 million acres in the state. It has also been one of the most forceful opponents of #TribalSovereignty, arguing that any additional regulatory hurdles would stifle economic activity in the #MaineWoods."
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