Faxed document Wednesday, May 31, 2000 1:07 PM to chief david hill 802 873 3236
To: David Hill
From: Lyn.Bixby@courant.com
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2000 4:07 PM
To: napod@together.com (Native American People of the Dawn, Inc.)
Subject: news story
Published 04/27/2000
Page: A1
Section: MAIN NewsSource: LYN BIXBY; Courant, Writer
Column: Series
Book Questions Mashantuckets' Tribal Validity
Author Suggests Congress Was Misled When It Granted Federal Recognition:
Congress was tricked into betstowing federal recognition on the Mashantucket Pequots 17 years ago and should consider revoking the privileged status that has made the tribe the richest in America, the author of a new book said Wednesday.
"If Congress had really looked at this, they would have seen that there were no vital records which identified the Haywards, who at the time were the tribe, as Native Americans," Jeff Benedict said in a telephone interview. "If they're not who they say they are, this is a big, big deal for Congress."
Their heritage, a crucial step that would have been required if they had gone through the normal federal recognitin process at the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The Mashantuckets declined to comment Wednesday because a spokesman said tribal officials had not read the book.
Benedict's book, titled "Without Reservation" became available in stores Tuesday and was the talk of eastern Connecticut Wednesday, particularly in the towns of Ledyard, Preston and North Stonington, which borders the Mashantucket reservation and its crown jewel, Foxwoods Resort Casino. The book is published by HarperCollins.
The three towns, along with Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, are engaged in a long-running federal court fight to sop the Mashantuckets from expanding their reservation.
Ledyard mayor Wesley Johnson said Wednesday that the Mashantuckets should be willing to produce the documents to prove they are a tribe.
"And if they can't do that, what Congress giveth, Congress can take away," he said, "I'm sure we weill be talking without our attorneys and our congressional representatives to see what can be done if these allegations are true."
North Stonington First Selectiman Nicholas Mullane said he believes Congress was deceived in 1983 when it approved legislation that recognized the Mashantuckets and settled a 6-year-old lawsuit the tribe had filed to claim aboriginal lands around its state-recognized reservation.
Mullane said he had read about 100 pages of the 376-page book and a dozen other copies were circulating among town officials. "The book could have far-reaching effects on an awful lot of people," he said. "The [federal recognition process] is the key, that there should be strict standards."
In going through Congress, the Mashantuckets bypassed the lengthy and epensive Bureau of Indian Affairs recognition process, required for other tribes.
Preston First Selectman Robert Congdon said he had read part of Benedict's book. It is easier to show that Congress made a mistake, he noted than to prove that longtime Mashantucket Tribal Chairman Richard "Skip" Hayward set out to deliberately deceive Connecticut's senators and representatives at the time.
U.S. Rep. Sam Gejdenson, who since 1981 has represented the district where the Mashantucket reservation is located, does not know whether he will even read the book, according to his press spokesman, Scott Kavarovics. He said Gejdenson's only comment Wednesday was that he had never heard anyone question whether or not the Mashantuckets were Native Americans.
In addition to Gejdeson, Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., a U.S. senator at the time, was instrumental in passage of the congressional act. Weicker declined to comment Wednesday, saying he had not read the book. He was governor in 1993 when he negotiated a historic agreement with the Mashantuckets, allowing them to have slot machines at Foxwoods in return for the state's getting 25 percent of that revenue.
"Without Reservation" is the fourth book written by Benedict, who is 34 and grew up in southeastern Connecticut. He graduated from Waterford High School in 1984 and next month is scheduled to graduate from Boston's New England School of Law, where he has pursued a degree while researching and writing his books.
Benedict said the research for "Without Reservation" was extensive, including more than 600 interviews and thousands of documents. However, he said one gorup of people he was not allowed to interview were tribal officials.
The Book opens in 1969 with 21-year-old Skip Hayward filling out a form to get a license to marry his first wife, who was 17 at the time. On the form Hayward lists his race as "white."
At the time, Hayward's grandmother, Elizabeth George was living on the reservation, and when she died in 1973 the reservation was left unoccupied for the first time since the 1880's according to the book. She had made Hayward aware of the reservation's history and encouraged him to move into her homestead and take over her property.
George had a "faint connection to Indian ancestry," the book says, but her link was to the Narragansetts, not the Pequots.
Hayward did not show any interest i nthe reservation and Indian heritage, according to the book until he met Tom Tureen, a Maine lawyer who was trying to help tribes that were not federally recognized to recover tribal lands.
Hayward moved onto the reservation and created a tribe witha group of relatives.
"To legitimize their tribal claim, Hayward and his family formed a corporation called the Western Pequot Indians of Connecticut, Inc.," the book says, "In the Pequot's corporation the artificial legal identity was that of a Native American Indian tribe to capitalize on the injustices inflicted on an extinct tribe."
Hayward's alliance with Tureen led to a filing of a lawsuit to recover aboriginal lands and eventually to Congress, where, Benedict said, the deception was twofold.
First, Benedict said, Hayward led lawmakers to believe that his tribal members had the genealogical credentials for recognition when they did not.
"When Congress recognized the Pequots," he said, "it made joining an Indian tribe as easy as forming a corporation"
Second, he said, Gejdenson, Weicker and other members of Congress thought they were approving an 800-acre reservation area to settle land claims, when the actual area drawn on a map was 2,000 acres, reaching Route 2, a main road through eastern Connecticut. he said many landowners were not aware their property was within the reservation map.
"The map, in my mind, legally is as crucial as the genealogy because that map is an indication of how the Congress was deceived," Benedict said, "if these people aren't who they say they are and they acquired land through deceptive practice in the statute, then there is sufficient legal grounds for Congress to first and foremost conduct an investigation."
If Congress were to revoke the Mashanatuckets' tribal status, he noted, congressional and state officials would have to decide what to do with Foxwoods.
"Congress is creative enough to come up with a number of things they could do with that casino," Benedict said, "one of which is taking into receivership and having those funds go to real Native American tribes that need the money."
Page 33: In May of 1973 From Calais, Maine Susan MacCulloch and John Stevens of the Passamaquoddy Native Peoples in Maine investigated ten leads on potential Indian tribe clients in Massachusetts......The state of Vermont turned up no potential clients. Neither did New Hampshire.....
What?! No, St. Francis/ Sokoki Abenaki Band/ASHAI, Inc.'d led by the St. Francis Family? No Lampman's? No Phillips Family? No Cowasuck of North America, Inc.'d? or Nulhegan-Coosuk, Inc. of Orleans County, Vermont either?! No Koasek Traditional Band of the Abenaki Nation, Inc. led by Nancy Doucet? No El Nu Abenak Tribe?
What? No New Hampshire Inter-Tribal, Inc.? No Cowasuck Band- Abenaki/Pennacook People, Inc.? No Abenaki Nation of New Hampshire, Inc.? or First Nations, Inc.?
Oh yeah, thats right, the whole U.S. based alleged and re-invented "Abenaki Tribes, Bands, and Nation" was "hiding in plain sight." It wasn't a matter of discrimination or racism etc nor about the remembrance of the Eugenic's Era, that kept Abenakis out of "plain sight," but rather it was PROFITABLE or FASHIONABLE AFTER May 1973 to be claiming one was Abenaki Indian, considering what was happening in Maine and down in Connecticut! Now, since ca. 1974 onward to the present time of March 10, 2010 it is O.K. to jump up and down in front of the Vermont/ New Hampshire Legislature's and EVERYONE and their Grandma wants to be "Abenaki" and join these Incorporated groups.
The State of Vermont and or New Hampshire Legislature's are deaf, dumb and blind to realize the FACT that none of these groups are legitimately documented genealogically, historically connected to, or socially documented as being anything more that Incorporations! These "groups" are certainly not documented as being connected to any "historical Abenaki communities" ALL THESE GROUPS ARE, ARE INCORPORATIONS, CREATED UNDER STATE LAW.
It must be entertained and questioned if, by merely inquirying whether or not "tribes" were in Vermont, that Tom Tureen, Susan MacCulloch and or John Stevens "put the motivation into" the St. Francis family bunch, to "Play Abenaki" up there in Swanton, Vermont beginning in the early 70's. We know that Susan MacCulloch and John Stevens went to Massachusetts, and we know that there was a fella (I can't think of his name right now) in St. Albans "trying to organize" this group up in Swanton, who was associated with the "Boston Indian Council". I mean there was and is BIG $MONEY$ to be had from the Federal and State, by claiming to be a "Abenaki" Tribe, and or persons these days. To the monetary tune of $380,000.00 / $83,604.00. Far cry from May 1973 that's for sure:
Now, let's switch the words around......
When the State Legislature's of New Hampshire and Vermont recognize(d)) the "Alleged and Reinvented Abenaki Tribes/ Bands," then, "it makes joining an Indian tribe/ Band as easy as forming a Incorporation."
Just before this HB 1610 was O.K.'d by the New Hampshire Legislature, Mark William Mitchell just happened to mention an article published yesterday March 09, 2010 regarding $42 Million in Grants, issued to NAtive Americans through ACF and ANA. It is very interesting that Mr. Mitchell would post this on Sherry Gould's HB 1610 Facebook page literally within 24 hours BEFORE the NH Legislature was to allegedly "debate" this particular HB 1610.
FYI and BTW
Wijokadoak, Inc.
Executive Director
Sherry L Gould
Board of Directors
Peter Newell, President
Peter Newell, President
Chief of New Hampshire Native American Intertribal Council, Penobscot
Lynn Clowes, Vice President
Director of the Cultural Competency Group, NH Minority Health Coalition, Micmac
Anita Blanchard, Treasurer (Sherry Gould's mother)
Accounting Manager, Whaleback Systems Corporation, Abenaki
Marlene French, Secretary
Smart Care Program Manager, Lutheran Community Services, Metis
David Stewart-Smith
David Stewart-Smith
Ethno-historian, Pennacook / Abenaki
Aaaah, it is NO wonder Lynn Clowes wanted to see HB 1610 pass in the NH Legislature!
Go figure, she is on Sherry Gould's Board of Directors, of course. And Barry Higgins is associated with Sherry and Bill Gould as well.
WHO is going to BENEFIT from HB 1610 being passed by the Legislature of NH today?
The answer is already obvious: The "Executive Directors, of these Inc.'s" and those associated with them.
If the majority of Native People who reside in N.H. are NOT associated with ANY Incorporate groups in N.H., this HB 1610 does not BENEFIT any Native person(s) EXCEPT those who control the Inc. groups and who are associated with these various Incorporated alleged-and-reinvented
Abenaki-Cowasuck-Pennacook groups!
IT IS ALL ABOUT BEING PAID, TO "PLAY INDIAN ABENAKI"
!!!!
The Mashantucket Pequot Museum opened a special display in their main hall on June 28, 2003 entitled "Honoring the Nations".
The display Includes the national flags of many Native American Indian Nations.
The flag of the Cowasuck Band of the Pennacook - Abenaki People was included in the display and will be a part of their collection.
Nancy Lee nee: Millette - Doucet "screamed," ranted and raved about Paul Pouliot's "flag" being in Mashantucket Pequot Museum and well, look what one does find....
The Koasek Traditional Band - Abenaki Nation, INCORPORATE.
The Koasek Traditional Band - Abenaki Nation, INCORPORATE.
The book
"Playing Indian" by Philip J. Deloria
Another well written book I highly recommend this blog's viewer's to read asap.
Also HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READING
"Without Resevations" by Jeff Benedict.
"Playing Indian" by Philip J. Deloria
Another well written book I highly recommend this blog's viewer's to read asap.
Also HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READING
"Without Resevations" by Jeff Benedict.
