For more than 60 years I have worked with the Wabanaki tribes in Maine as an ethnographer and historian. This gives me a perspective I hope you will find helpful on an extremely important issue that will be considered by the Legislature when it reconvenes in January — namely LD 1626, the tribal sovereignty bill.
In recent years the Maine Legislature has passed various state laws that recognized harms done to our Wabanaki neighbors and took rightful steps to undo the damage. In creating Indigenous Peoples’ Day to replace Columbus Day and by rejecting once and for all demeaning Indian mascots, lawmakers put all Mainers in a better relationship with the Wabanaki people who’ve lived here for more than 10,000 years.
LD 1626, which amends the 1980 Maine Indian Claims Settlement Implementing Act, is a bill of far greater magnitude and potential for our state. Among other things, it will undo one huge, faulty concept embedded in the Implementing Act that equates the sovereign Wabanaki nations with municipalities.
The Implementing Act also places Maine law over federal law in relation to the tribes. Since 1980, tribes in Maine have been unable to benefit from more than 150 federal laws benefiting 570 federal tribes in 49 states. Why should the Penobscots, Passamaquoddies, Maliseets and Micmacs be the only tribes in the country missing out on opportunities for economic development, increased access to health care, or federal assistance following natural disasters?
In addition, the Wabanaki tribes have watched from afar as tribes elsewhere in the United States received opportunities to create jobs, protect safe drinking water and take action under the Violence Against Women Act against the epidemic of violence against native women.
Passing LD 1626 would benefit rural Maine communities, as well, by enabling the Wabanaki tribes to use federal tax laws and programs that could attract investors to their communities to establish businesses consistent with sustainable practices of environmental stewardship.
There is no need to continue to deny the Wabanaki tribes rights granted to 570 tribal nations in the other 49 states. That benefits no one. Why is Maine the one state still withholding tribal self-governance from its Indigenous people?
All Mainers should stand up for the tribes’ right to determine their own well-being. Urge your state representatives and senators to pass LD 1626 with a veto-proof majority.
Nicholas Smith is a retired ethnographer and historian who lives in Brunswick. He is the author of many papers about the Wabanaki tribes, including an ongoing computerized bibliography of their history and culture.
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