“They Also Have a Responsibility to Us”: The Exclusion of New England in the Development of the Federal Acknowledgment Process

Title: “They also have a responsibility to us”: The Exclusion of New England in The Development of the Federal Acknowledgment Process

Abstract: The difficulty New England tribes face in securing federal recognition via the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ (BIA) administrative procedures (25 CFR § 83.7 (a-g)) has long been a point of critique. Scholars, such as Jean O’Brien, Amy Den Ouden, and Brian Klopotek, have illustrated how the seven mandatory criteria often prove insurmountable for petitioners of the eastern and southern United States, who must contend with centuries of colonial displacement and “archival silences.” While critics often label this as a western tribal bias, less has been said regarding how the federal government’s systemic exclusion of these communities from its fiduciary duty shaped the development of the Federal Acknowledgement Process (FAP). This paper argues that the prohibitive burden of proof for tribes in New England was not an accidental oversight, but a deliberate act of gatekeeping rooted in a century of administrative neglect. By analyzing correspondence between representatives for the Narragansett and Wampanoag and the BIA immediately following the ratification of the Wheeler-Howard Act (1934), transcripts from the American Indian Policy Review Commission’s (AIPRC) Task Force Ten Hearings in Boston, MA (1976), their subsequent “Report on Terminated and Nonfederally Recognized Indians” (1976), and the 1978 the United States Senate Select Committee Hearings on administrative procedures for acknowledgment, I trace the evolution of this exclusion. Specifically, I examine why the federal government’s refusal to extend “federal jurisdiction” as defined in the WheelerHoward Act to southern New England tribes and other unrecognized bodies, was codified into the 1978 FAP regulations. Ultimately, this paper demonstrates that the inaccessibility of the FAP is a product of design—a modern manifestation of the federal government’s determination to exculpate itself of its fiduciary duty to Indigenous peoples.