Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 312, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Reservation Reaffirmation Act, will reaffirm the trust status of Mashpee's Tribal land and protect the Tribe from further attacks on its land and its sovereignty. The Mashpee relationship with the Federal Government is one of the oldest in the United States. In fact, their ancestors are the ones who welcomed the pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock, as well as the people who aided those pilgrims through hard times in 1621, in what we now refer to as the ``First Thanksgiving.'' Like many Tribes, the Mashpee were intentionally and systematically rendered landless, through no fault of their own. They fought long and hard over the years to reestablish both their Tribe and their land base. The Tribe first petitioned the Federal Government for recognition in 1978. Finally, after 30 years, the Bush administration extended formal recognition to the Tribe in 2007. However, they still remained landless. This was remedied in 2015, when the Department of the Interior took approximately 320 acres into trust to serve as the Tribe's reservation lands. The two parcels that compose the 320 acres are both within the Tribe's historic and ancestral homelands. The Tribe constructed a government center on the land, which includes their schools, courtrooms and multipurpose room, as well as a medical clinic facility.…”