WinsingtonIII t1_j8rusg7 wrote
Reply to comment by homeostasis3434 in 'Land, heritage and culture protected.' U.S. court sides with Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe by zsreport
Ah, I see, thanks. I can see why they thought they could make that argument based on a narrow reading of the law even if logically it would be pretty ridiculous to tell the Wampanoag they aren't a tribe.
But yeah, feels like a stretch even so considering how they were treated by the government.
homeostasis3434 t1_j8rwmcn wrote
I'm fairly certain the Mashpee are a bit unique among tribes in the US in that the integration forced on them was somewhat "succesful".
They were given a town as a Christian Praying Tribe, so they didnt live on a reservation under federal jurisdiction. Many intermarried and had children with white people so the " more than one-half blood" metric didnt explicitly apply to them all either. Their traditional customs were largely wiped out.
But this was done before 1934, so they weren't on the list that was made when the law was passed.
It's like the government decided the tribe was fully "integrated" by the time they defined what an "indian" was.
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