Word: landed
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...events reached a crescendo in November when lawyers refused to certify $27 million in Maine municipal bonds because the lands the cities offered as collateral might not even belong to them. Several state and federal agencies ceased financial transactions in the area claimed by the tribes. The size of the settlement, and prospects for recapture of the land itself, drew thousands of Penobscots and Passamaquoddies out of anonymity. Letters deluged the Bureau of Indian Affairs from people requesting certification of genealogical ties to the tribes. Even the Department of State received inquiries from overseas...
...precedents spread with the speed of earthquake tremors. The validating of the Nonintercourse Act cracked open a floodgate that had bottled up dozens of similar Indian land suits. Last month, descendants of the 90 Wampanoag Indians who provided five deer for the first Thanksgiving feast in Plymouth contested the ownership of the entire town of Mashpee, Mass., a total of 16,000 acres of developed and undeveloped land. Within days, real estate sales stopped, building came to a halt, and supermarket sales plummeted as buyers wondered whether the courts would allow them to keep items purchased within city limits. Officials...
Thomas Tureen, lawyer for the Penobscots and the Passamaquoddies, said last month that the Indians had more in mind when they filed the suit than to recover overdue rent. The Indians own the land outright, he contended, and he plans to sue for the acreage itself--perhaps in the form of forested land and land held by out-of-state corporations--if his clients give him the go-ahead. He estimated that the 12 million acres the Indians farmed, fished and hunted 200 years ago is worth $25 billion today...
...have been the magnitude of this sum that jolted Maine Governor James Longley into action. (Maine's annual budget averages about half a billion dollars.) Or it may have been the realization that the contested land splits the state into two distinct regions--areas that, if separated, could communicate only through the Indian territory, Canada, or the sea. Whatever the reason, Longley became scared enough to contact members of the state's Congressional delegation, to see what could be done. In response, several legislators introduced a resolution that would have limited the Indian's potential award to a cash settlement...
...Together these agreements encompass 135 million acres which the leaders say should be in Indian hands. In the next decade, Americans will square with an unavoidable decision: whether to cede an appendage of the country and return it to those who cared for it long ago. For restoring this land to the Indian could do more than simply assuage the liberal guilt that many Americans feel towards Indians. It may return to the Indians what they justly--and perhaps legally--deserve...