Brothertown Indians
The Brothertown Indians (also Brotherton), located in Wisconsin, are a Native American tribe formed in the late 18th century from communities descended from Pequot, Narragansett, Montauk, Tunxis, Niantic, and Mohegan (Algonquian-speaking) tribes of southern New England and eastern Long Island, New York.[2][3] In the 1780s after the American Revolutionary War, they migrated from New England into New York state, where they accepted land from the Iroquois Oneida Nation in Oneida County.
Under pressure from the United States government, the Brothertown Indians, together with the Stockbridge-Munsee and some Oneida, removed to Wisconsin in the 1830s, mainly walking from New York State, some took ships through the Great Lakes. In 1839 they were the first tribe of Native Americans in the United States to accept United States citizenship and allotment of their communal land to individual households, in order to prevent another removal further west. Most of the neighboring Oneida and many of the Lenape (Delaware) were removed to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) in this period.
Seeking to regain federal recognition, the Brothertown Indians filed a documented petition in 2005. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) notified the tribe in 2009 that the 1839 act granting the Brothertown United States citizenship and dissolving their communal reservation land, had effectively terminated the people as a sovereign tribe. In September 2012, in the final determination on the Brothertown petition, the acting Assistant Secretary determined that the group previously had a relationship with the United States, but had its tribal status terminated by the 1839 act which could only be restored by a new act of Congress. Because Brothertown could not satisfy mandatory criteria for federal acknowledgment, the Department did not look to the other criteria in making its final determination.
[4][5] The Brothertown Indians are continuing to pursue federal recognition.
The Brothertown Indians are one of twelve[6] tribes residing in Wisconsin and the only one that does not have federal recognition.[1] The tribe is estimated to have more than 4,000 members as of 2013.
Federal recognition status[edit]
Termination policy[edit]
As part of the Indian termination policy that the US government adopted in the late 1940s and applied into the 1960s, it identified several former New York tribes for termination, with the thought they no longer needed a special relationship with the federal government. A January 21, 1954 memo by the Department of the Interior advised that a bill for termination was being prepared including "about 3,600 members of the Oneida Tribe residing in Wisconsin.[15] Another memo of the Department of the Interior memo, entitled "Indian Claims Commission Awards Over $38.5 Million to Indian Tribes in 1964," states that the so-called Emigrant Indians of New York are "now known as the Oneidas, Stockbridge-Munsee, and Brotherton Indians of Wisconsin".[16][17]
In an effort to fight termination and force the government into recognizing their outstanding land claims from New York, the three tribes began filing litigation in the 1950s.[18] As a result of a claim filed with the Indian Claims Commission, the group was awarded a settlement of $1,313,472.65 on August 11, 1964.[16] To distribute the funds, Congress passed Public Law 90-93 81 Stat. 229 Emigrant New York Indians of Wisconsin Judgment Act, and prepared separate rolls of persons in each of the three groups to determine which tribal members had at least one-quarter "Emigrant New York Indian blood." It directed tribal governing bodies of the Oneida and Stockbridge-Munsee to apply to the Secretary of the Interior for approval of fund distributions, thereby ending termination efforts for these tribes. With regard to the Brothertown Indians, however, though the law did not specifically state they were terminated, it authorized all payments to be made directly to each enrollee, with special provisions for minors to be handled by the Secretary, though the payments were not subject to state or federal taxes.[19] Part of the settlement required each of the tribes to update their membership rolls.[20]
Governance[edit]
Enrolled members of the Brothertown Indian Nation elect tribal officers, and its tribal council meets monthly. They have bought back a small portion of their former reservation in Wisconsin and function with some degree of self-government in the state of Wisconsin. As individual Native Americans, members who satisfy federal blood quantum rules have certain rights and may gain some federal assistance, such as scholarships available to some Native Americans. The lack of federal recognition reduces their access to certain programs.[1]