Oldest Living Hassanamisco Chief Charges Nipmuc Nation with Attempted Genocide
The Bureau of Indian Affairs has announced that the Nipmuc Nation of Sutton, Massachusetts will have its Federal Recognition decision by May 1, 2004. The hereditary Chief and Tribal Trustees have severed ties with the Nipmuc group.
Grafton, Massachusetts (PRWEB) April 11, 2004--The Hassanamisco Indian Tribal
government has withdrawn from the Nipmuc Nation Tribal Petition for Federal
recognition. The hereditary Chief and Trustees have notified the Bureau of
Indian Affairs (BIA) that the Nipmuc Nation and their deep-pocketed financial
backers have violated age-old traditions of the Hassanamisco Indians in their
"at all costs" effort to get Federal recognition. "In their pursuit to build a
casino they have violated a sacred trust" stated Chief Silver Arrow “because
their investors realized that by claiming the Hassanamisco Indian Reservation
they would not only protect their investments but also obtain access to economic
development rights reserved for historic American Indians lands.”
In
effect, the Nipmuc Nation created themselves in 1996, and committed genocide on
the Hassanamisco traditional government. They secretly removed Chief Silver
Arrow and his family from the tribal roll, re engineered the petition and called
it Petition #69A. The Nipmuc Nation submitted its petition to the BIA, but it
lacked a clearly demonstrated historic relationship to a tribal community as
well as a land base, “so they grabbed Hassanamisco and attempted to use the
proprietary family which linked all of the Blackstone Valley’s Nipmuck country.”
according to the Chief “The Nipmuc Nation has never held a land trust, so they
decided to steal ours.”
The Hassanamisco Chief became aware that the
Nipmuc Nation created the new petition in 2002 and had not included him.
Believing that joining the Nipmuc Nation would help to build the Indian nation
as well as strengthen the Federal petition, he lobbied for inclusion on the
petition and won. "We had hoped to bring legitimacy to the Nipmuc Nation"
comments Tribal Trustee Darlene Morningstar Silva, "but instead realized that we
were the victims of identity theft when they staged a raid on sacred lands and
called a Trustee non Nipmuc.”
Chief Silver Arrow has removed himself and
the hereditary family from the Nipmuc Nation Petition #69A. He has asked the BIA
to consider the historic Petition #69 and to review the Nipmuc Nation Petition
based on its own history. He charged that without his knowledge or consent the
original petition, which has been pending for more than two decades, simply
disappeared from BIA consideration. “It is our time to safeguard those things
that our ancestors left to our protection” states the Chief “the Nipmuc Nation
is a civic organization playing Indian to get a casino.”
The Bureau of
Indian Affairs is expected to make a decision for Federal Recognition and
Acknowledgement for the Nipmucs by May 1, 2004.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/4/prweb117833.htm