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Was The “S” For Silent?: The Maine Indian Land Claims And Senator Edmund S. Muskie, Joseph Hall
Was The “S” For Silent?: The Maine Indian Land Claims And Senator Edmund S. Muskie, Joseph Hall
Maine History
This article explores the work of one of Maine’s most powerful politicians, U.S. Senator Edmund Muskie, during one of Maine’s most difficult political crises, the Maine Indian Land Claims of the 1970s. In 1972, when Penobscots and Passamaquoddies challenged the legality of land sales conducted from 1794 to 1833, they called into question the legal title of the northern two-thirds of the State of Maine. Tom Tureen, the lawyer for the tribes, and Governor James Longley and State Attorney General Joseph Brennan, the state officials leading the case for Maine, played central roles in the case. Muskie played a crucial, …
The Maine Indian Land Claim Settlement: A Personal Recollection, John M.R. Paterson
The Maine Indian Land Claim Settlement: A Personal Recollection, John M.R. Paterson
Maine History
From 1971 to 1980, the state of Maine grappled with one of the greatest legal challenges ever before it. That challenge had its origin in a suit brought by the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy tribes against the U.S. Department of the Interior seeking the seemingly simple declaration that the department owed a fiduciary duty to the tribes based on a federal law adopted in 1790. That suit was eventually to lead to a suit by the U.S. Department of Justice against the state of Maine, and potentially 350,000 residents in the eastern two-thirds of the state, seeking return of land taken …