The tribes of Maine, like other federally recognized tribes throughout the United States, possess inherent rights of self-government. No state may abridge or diminish those rights. Tribes are not required to adopt governments based on some state or federal requirement. Nor do we need to ask permission to do so. Under this premise, the United States Supreme Court has consistently upheld a tribe’s inherent power of sovereignty.

In the case of the Penobscot Indian Nation, we have governed ourselves for several millennia and long before any European set foot on our shores. The Maine Attorney General is dead wrong when he says we cannot form our own government; we can and have. What we haven’t done in recent history is exercise our complete sovereign rights. Instead, and in the interest of collaboration, cooperation and mutual respect, we attempted to participate in Maine’s governmental process, but it has been to no avail. It is time for us to walk away from the relationship.

It is now time for the Penobscot Indian Nation people – who are culturally, governmentally and legally distinct from Maine government – to make our own way. We’ve tried to do things the state’s way and it is obvious there is no interest in equitable and fair treatment.

By reclaiming our complete sovereignty we are doing no egregious harm to the state of Maine. We need to wrest full control of our future – economically, socially, culturally and politically – whether the state likes it or not. After all, the Penobscot Indian Nation wouldn’t be doing anything unprecedented in terms of not abiding past agreements. Maine and the U.S. government have utilized the same method toward us for a couple of centuries.

Wayne T. Mitchell

Penobscot Nation Tribal Member

Indian Island