March 29, 2024
LEGACY OF THE LAND CLAIMS

Left out of 1980 deal, Micmac able to ‘taste freedom’

Billy Phillips, a member of the Aroostook Band of Micmac Indians, was just a kid when President Jimmy Carter signed the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980.

At age 11, Phillips – the Micmac’s future chief – didn’t see the historic agreement as about land or money or sovereignty or hunting and fishing rights.

At the time, he was more concerned about the survival of the Association of Aroostook Indians youth group, of which he was a member. The group, which included kids from the nearby Houlton Band of Maliseets, was to become a peripheral casualty of the 1980 settlement, which essentially dissolved the Micmac-Maliseet association.

Phillips’ tribe, which wouldn’t receive federal recognition until 1991, found itself excluded from the 1980 settlement that allowed the state’s three other tribes to split $81.5 million – the vast majority of which went to the Penobscot Indian Nation and the Passamaquoddy Tribe – and buy thousands of acres.

“Some people were feeling left out,” said Phillips, although as far as the youth group went, the Maliseets still invited the Micmac children to participate in a new organization.

Today, Phillips, now 36, sees the 1980 settlement, subsequent interpretations of which have stripped the other Maine tribes of many of their sovereign powers, as too high a price to pay for his tribe, which has roughly 1,000 members and 1,400 acres.

“In many ways, being left out has helped us taste freedom and preserve our tribal rights,” said Phillips, whose tribe has a lawsuit pending against the state in which the tribe argues that, as a sovereign government, it is not subject to state law – specifically the Maine Human Rights Act as it relates to its employment practices.

“We’re very confident our future is going to be bright,” he said.

Some of Phillips’ confidence comes from an April 2005 ruling in the case from the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, suggesting the tribe might be correct in its interpretation of federal Indian law.

“An Indian tribe that is unlawfully called to answer before a state agency may suffer both practical harms and intrusions on its sovereignty,” reads the decision. “As a more symbolic matter, simply being called to appear and defend its internal employment practices before a state agency may be an insult to a tribe’s sovereignty and right to self-governance.

“In short, inherent tribal sovereignty is a federal common law right that preempts contrary state law,” continued the decision, which pertained only to whether the Micmac case should he heard in state or federal court and did not deal with the merits of the case.

The merits will be argued on Nov. 2 at the U.S. District Court in Bangor.

The tribe’s position also is supported by the U.S. Department of Interior, attorneys for which contend that a 1989 agreement between the Micmac and the state of Maine making the tribe subject to state law never took effect because the tribe, largely disorganized at the time, never submitted the required written certification.

Furthermore, the related federal act adopted by Congress in 1991 gave the Micmac federal recognition and $900,000 to buy land, but did not specifically require the tribe to abide by state law.

State attorneys have argued that even if the 1989 state act isn’t in effect, the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980, meant to cover all Maine Indians, would apply.

A favorable ruling for the tribe could make it the most independent tribe in the state, where courts consistently have interpreted the 1980 settlement as limiting the powers of the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy in areas including water rights and access to tribal government records.

For the Micmac, the fight with the state over sovereignty came to a head in 2003, when the tribe sought to open a tax-free cigarette store on land it owned in Presque Isle.

Although the U.S. Department of Interior supported the tribe’s right to do so, the Micmac chose to proceed with their lawsuit pertaining to the Maine Human Rights Act before defying state officials and opening the store.

“Honestly, we don’t want to be on bad terms with the state,” Phillips said during a recent interview, “but we don’t want the state in our business either.”

As it stands, the Micmac have little interaction with state government, relying mainly on federal programs and grants to sustain the growing tribe.

For Donald Sanipass, a Micmac elder and the tribe’s former chief, the lack of state participation in tribal affairs has in no way hindered his tribe’s ability to sustain itself. On the contrary, he said, the Micmac enjoy their relative autonomy and will not quietly yield to state control if the courts find against them in their pending lawsuit.

“I imagine whatever happens we’ll keep on going along and doing what we’re doing,” said Sanipass, 75, from his home at a tribal housing development in Caribou. “When it comes down to doing that, we know how to put up a fight if we have to.”


Have feedback? Want to know more? Send us ideas for follow-up stories.

comments for this post are closed

You may also like