PLEASANT POINT, Maine — After a six-year legal battle over claims of federal mismanagement of tribal assets, the U.S. Department of the Interior has agreed to pay the Passamaquoddy tribe in Down East Maine an $11.4 million settlement.
Given legal expenses, the tribe is expecting to net $10.2 million from the settlement. That federal money is expected to be in hand within a few weeks.
Meanwhile, hundreds of tribal members who live within the Pleasant Point and Indian Township settlements in Washington County have signed petitions asking the Joint Tribal Council to distribute 100 percent of the money equally to those who meet the lineage, age and residency requirements that are used in compiling the tribe’s official census. The current census shows 3,369 tribal members, including 1,364 at the Indian Township reservation and 2,005 at the Pleasant Point reservation, according to the tribe’s website.
The lawsuit alleging asset mismanagement was filed in 2006 by 60 tribes from throughout the United States. Among the Passamaquoddy’s assets was $13.5 million in federal funds that were allocated to the tribe in 1980 through the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act, which was settled for $81.5 million.
Of that amount, $54 million was spent to buy 300,000 acres of land in northern and eastern Maine. The Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes split $27 million, and much of the Passamaquoddy funds were invested in gold in 1991 and 1992.
The petitions that were circulating recently within the two Passamaquoddy communities seek an “apology” from the Joint Tribal Council for what those who signed the petition view as a “covert effort” to keep tribal members in the dark about the settlement and any plans to allocate or reinvest the money.
The Joint Tribal Council met March 6 and voted to ratify the settlement, but the council also agreed not to discuss it. Leslie Nicholas, a member of the Indian Township tribal council, said attorneys who represented the tribe instructed tribal officials not to openly discuss the settlement until all terms are finalized, according to a letter written by Nicholas that was distributed to tribal members. Nicholas declined to talk to the BDN about the settlement.
In the letter, however, Nicholas said the funds will be deposited in an account and frozen there until the issue of disbursement can be discussed at a future regular Joint Tribal Council meeting.
We all live in the aftermath of the greatest genocide that ever took place. It still affects us, owns us, and unless we consciously face its force and deal with it honestly and ethically, it takes hold of each of us like a curse.
“It” certainly doesn’t “own” me nor do I feel I’m” cursed” because of someone else’s behaviors. If one or all of my ancestors acted like barbarians, idiots, greed-mongers, killers, etc, etc I am the first to condemn them but I don’t feel a whit of responsibility for them …..even if what they did was totally unconscionable I don’t feel guilty and never will. We are responsible for our own actions, not someone else’s crimes that I would not and did not commit.
Congratulations to the folks who brought and won this suit, and may they enjoy much prosperity and good fortune.
If my father stole a man’s money, bought a store with it and gave the store to me, would I feel any responsibility toward the victim? I would. Winterporter would not. Bernie Madoff would not.
And yet throughout history, We (collectively now and then) the USA, rebuild entire Nations after the inevitable stomping we vigorously dispense.
Do you really believe this drivel?
At least we will get most of it back in scratch off ticket sales !
Its very important that this financial windfall will not serve as a means of increasing divisiveness and polarization inside the tribe. Given the uncertainty of these funds utilization something easier said than done. Its imperative for these people that they pull it off.
equal distribution would be like 3000$ to each person which would do nothing for the tribe itself – the tribe could do much more with this money be investing it or growing work opportunities
Hopefully the Tribe will now be able to settle some past debts, and use these funds to seed new and sustainable projects to create jobs. How short sighted it would be to dole out the cash rather than invest in the future generations .
Unfortunately, the Tribe as an entity does not have a tremendous portfolio of successful business ventures and many of the Tribal members would prefer to chance “investing” monies their own way. That is how the petition reads to me. How it reads to another may provide a different interpretation.
“We the undersigned members of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at
Indian Township Reservation in Indian Township Maine are requesting that the
elected governing body of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township
Reservation provide the following: Full
disclosure and comprehensive review of the governance practices, have one
hundred percent of the proceeds from the litigation disbursed to all tribal
members currently listed on the tribal census;
release of information used to make this unilateral decision and implement
a community engagement process of apology for the following reason:
On Tuesday, March 6, 2012, the governing body attended a
meeting for settlement of BIA mismanagement of funds. This has a significant financial impact on
the people of the Passamaquoddy Tribe.
The governing body engaged in a covert effort to keep this information
from the People.”
More free rides. This is a bottomless hole and doesn’t help the folks down there.
This is exactly how I feel about the people in my off reservation community who have been lifetime welfare people. It is not helping any of them because they are dependent on the state on their free ride.
Rod Hotham was hired by the Penobscot Indian Nation back in
the late nineteen eighties to look at their finances because they suspected
that their settlement money was being mismanaged (it was being controlled by
the same company who was managing the Passamaquoddy’s -Tribal Assets
Management). He opened a can of worms that eventually got him killed. This is
obviously being covered up and controlled at a high level within our government.
I can’t believe the Cracker Jack reporters at the BDN haven’t made the connection
yet.
More money for a select few to steal and line their own pockets with.
That is why is should be distributed before it is wasted by tribal government.
And yet with 300,000 acres and millions left in the trust, and gold, they can’t produce income for under 10,000 people? They have health care and free education, yet here they are. I thought we are from the land? 1 acre will sustain a family of 4.
This is a stereotype. No one in my family on the reservation collects welfare. Many are college educated and have careers. I know more people in my coastal town who are life time welfare folks than those on the reservation.