The Massachusetts Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, which once envisioned owning and operating a $1 billion casino in Taunton, now faces the loss of jobs and services due to the loss of funding from its partner, the Genting group.
Tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell made the announcement that the tribal government would be implementing extreme belt tightening days after Genting Malaysia Berhad announced a $440 million third quarter loss associated with the fact that the tribe’s chances to ever open a casino are dwindling.
The chairman issued a statement warning of the immanent closure of its language school, layoffs of employees after the New Year and cutting programs if the tribe fails to lobby Congress to pass a bill putting 321 acres in Taunton and Martha’s Vineyard into trust. It is also appealing the unfavorable ruling by a federal judge several years ago that reversed the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ action putting those lands into trust.
If either tactic succeeds, the casino could be back on track.
The bill (the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Reservation Reaffirmation Act) was introduced in the House by Rep. William Keating, and in the U.S. Senate by Senator Edward Markey, both part of the Bay State delegation to Congress.
Cromwell warned: “Unless Congress enacts legislation now to prevent the Department of the Interior from disestablishing our reservation, in 2019 we will have to close programs, shutter our school, lay off our governmental employees, and witness the dissolution of all that we have achieved since our federal recognition was restored in 2007.”
Genting’s statement indicated that the company would continue to support the bill in Congress. It added that if the tribe’s fortunes are reversed it could recover its money “when the promissory notes are assessed to be recoverable.”
The Genting statement continued: “The impairment loss was due to the uncertainty of recovery of the Group’s investment following the U.S. government’s decision concluding that the tribe did not satisfy the conditions under the Indian Reorganization Act that allows it to have the land in trust for an integrated gaming resort development . . .”
This is a reference to the September 7 decision by the Department of the Interior that reversed an earlier action putting the land into trust. That action was deemed to have violated a 2009 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that tribes recognized by the federal government after 1934 (the year the Indian Reorganization Act was adopted) cannot put land into trust. The Mashpees were recognized in 2007, although they are generally acknowledged by historians to have been the tribe that met the Pilgrims when they landed in Plymouth in 1620.
In 2015 the Obama administration ruled that the tribe qualified to put land into trust. This was needed to build the First Light Resort & Casino. Neighbors in Taunton sued to reverse this action and succeeded when a federal judge in 2016 ordered the Department to rethink its justification for putting the land into trust.
In September the Department conceded that it could not find a legal justification for doing so. This is considered to be the first time since the 1960s when the federal government has taken tribal land out of trust.
“It is almost impossible to describe the despair the federal government’s continued inaction has brought to our people,” wrote the chairman.
Earlier this year, for the first time since Genting had been funding tribal functions, the tribal council adopted a budget where Genting’s contribution fell was $5.4 million, compared to $11.944,567 the year before. In 2017 the tribe laid off 31 of its 100 employees.
Genting did increase its lobbying expenditures on both the Department and Congress.
The tribe got the support of an important ally December 8 when the board of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants voted unanimously to support the tribe’s efforts to pass the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Reservation Reaffirmation Act.
The society has more than 30,000 members, who are required to demonstrate lineal descent from a Mayflower Pilgrim. Its purpose is to educate the public about the story of the Mayflower, the ship that brought the Pilgrims to Massachusetts almost 400 years ago. The tribe helped the Pilgrims survive their first winter and eventually gave them the land for the Plymouth Colony.
Cromwell hailed the vote of the Mayflower Society: “Without myth or malice, this is a Thanksgiving story for the 21st century. I am extremely thankful the Mayflower Society has voted to support our quest to maintain our reservation land, as they understand the current threat to our sovereignty is an injustice that cries out for a solution. To get their unanimous support demonstrates that reconciliation and reciprocity are still possible — that the dignity and fairness of the human spirit still soars, even at time when this nation is beset with so much division and acrimony.”
Mayflower Society Governor General George Garmany said the society plans to send a letter of support to both chambers of Congress.
He told Native News Online: “While the Interior Department may not agree with the Tribe on the question of whether the Tribe was under federal jurisdiction for the purposes of the Indian Reorganization Act, we hope the federal government and its representatives agree that the Tribe who played such a central role in the formation of this country ought to have a federally-protected reservation where it can exercise its sovereignty, create jobs, protect its culture, and benefit from the federal laws and programs that are tied to having reservation land.”
