One sovereign Indian nation
THE MASHPEE Wampanoag tribe has received a lot of attention over the past year. After a 32-year battle for recognition, much of it fought with little attention outside our tribe, we found that proposing a casino resort in Southeastern Massachusetts has gotten people's attention.
Now that we have it, let me be clear about our intentions and plans.
All that we do, and all that we will pursue, can be summed up in one word: sovereignty.
Indians have a long history of nationhood. We governed ourselves, here on these shores, for thousands of years. After greeting the Pilgrims, we tried to keep our nation together despite being, from time to time, close to extinction.
The relationship between the US government and Indian tribes has been long and stormy. Our ancestors were there at the beginning, at that first Thanksgiving. There is no need to recount the turbulent road from then until now, except to say that the federal government recognizes the need to give clear status to the nations that populated these shores before the Pilgrims arrived.
To do so not only corrects a historic wrong, it ensures that our unique culture, language, customs, and history, so central a part of who we are as a nation, will not die. Federal recognition, or sovereignty, gives us the power to not only survive, but to succeed as a nation and as a people.
The programs now available to us as a tribe -- housing, healthcare, job assistance, and cultural and heritage preservation -- are only available through that sovereignty. Our tribe is not immune from the same economic pressures that face many families. To stay together, as one family, is now possible.
Why is this important? The immigrant experience is a personal one, one of leaving ancestral shores in search of a better life. The Indian story is the mirror image. Immigrants have their roots in another country to ground them. We have our roots in our sovereign territory restored through federal trust.
The federal government also gives tribes the right to game, if it is allowed in the state in which the tribal reservation is located. We filed our petition for recognition in 1976. Gaming was allowed in 1988. So it is a right given, but not originally sought. The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was established to promote tribal economic development, self-sufficiency, and a strong tribal government. If they gave us the right to sell widgets, we would be selling widgets. But they gave us casinos, and that attracts backers with funds to construct a casino that will be profitable. That all allows us to assist tribal members with housing needs, healthcare, and jobs.
Within the next month, we will file a petition with the Department of the Interior to take land over that we currently have control, in Mashpee and in Middleborough, into trust to form our initial reservation. We will build a gaming facility on the land in Middleborough, to do at least what is currently allowed in Massachusetts, a Class II facility, or a Class III facility, should the state allow that. Many people wonder what the difference is between those facilities. Structurally, very little. Financially for the state, everything.
There are advantages to Indian gaming. It provides triple oversight; from the federal, state, and tribal governments. Because it begins with a compact, or contract, negotiated between the governor and the tribe, it can be of benefit to both. Finally, the members of the Mashpee are also residents of Massachusetts, and have a vested interest in not only the future of our new nation, but of our state.
Situated as we are, on the Cape, we are called the Tribe of the First Light. It is the optimism inherent in that name that we wish to bring to this endeavor, for our tribe, this new sovereign nation, for this Commonwealth, and for all of its citizens.
Glenn Marshall is chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council. 
