MASHPEE – A long-running legal battle over the status of Mashpee Wampanoag tribal lands appears to have concluded.
On April 1st, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from a group of Taunton residents who sued the federal government.
They argued that the Biden administration acted unlawfully by reaffirming the reservation status of the Mashpee Wampanoag because they said the tribe was not officially recognized when the Indian Reorganization Act became law in 1934.
The plaintiffs originally took action after the tribe began building a casino in Taunton in 2016.
The U.S. Department of the Interior placed over three-hundred acres of land in Mashpee and Taunton into trust.
In a statement celebrating the victory, Senator Ed Markey said the Trump administration unfairly attempted to strip the tribe of their land that they had stewarded for more than ten-thousand years.
“We can now rest easy that we can exercise our sovereignty and preserve our culture and traditions on our tribal lands for generations to come,” said Mashpee Wampanoag Chairman Brian Weeden.
By Jim McCabe, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
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