I thank the Press Herald editorial board for its wise and just editorial of Sept. 18, reflecting on the frustration and distrust engendered by Sen. Angus King’s and Gov. Mills’ failure to support the restoration of rights to our four tribal nations.

The reflection by Elizabeth Dana, chief of the Passamaquoddy Tribe’s reservation at Pleasant Point (or Sipayik), that the treaty was signed when the people of the nations “had no choice but to sign a deal that our communities did not understand” needs to be understood in the light of all the ways since this country was “founded” that we denied Native Americans not only their rights to live where they had lived for thousands of years but also the right to be seen as fully human.

We of the wise white tribe, who so smugly say we won’t renegotiate the 1980 settlement, signed treaty after treaty with the Wabanaki tribes, then broke them all. We raided reservations into the 1980s and stole the children and sent them to boarding schools where they supposedly were “better off.” Grandmothers hid children for hours while the state social workers (I am a social worker) looked for their grandchildren.

If Sen. King and Gov. Mills had signed this land deal back in the ’80s and been treated the way the Wabanaki tribes were treated, believe me they’d be crying foul.

Kathleen Sullivan
Freeport

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