Opinion ID: 202227
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Relationship Between the Tribe and the State.

Text: 5 The Narragansett Indians, aboriginal inhabitants of what is now Rhode Island, enjoyed cordial relations with the early English settlers on Roger Williams's Providence Plantations. This peaceful coexistence ended in 1675, when the Tribe was drawn into King Philip's War against Puritan colonists. The war decimated the Tribe, and its surviving members settled in the vicinity of what is now Charlestown, Rhode Island. In 1880, after nearly a century of resistance to the State's assimilation efforts, the Tribe agreed to surrender its tribal authority and to sell all but two acres of its lands for the sum of $5,000. Almost immediately, the Tribe regretted the sale. In an effort to recoup the lands, it launched a protracted legal and political battle. See generally Narragansett Indian Tribe v. Nat'l Indian Gaming Comm'n, 158 F.3d 1335, 1336 (D.C.Cir. 1998). 6 This endeavor reached a fever pitch in 1975, when the Tribe filed a pair of complaints in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island. In these complaints, the Tribe alleged that it possessed approximately 3,200 acres of land as part of its aboriginal territory; that the 1880 conveyance of that land mass was void under the Indian Nonintercourse Act, 25 U.S.C. § 177, because the State failed to secure federal approval; and that, inasmuch as its aboriginal title had never been extinguished, the Tribe held a claim of title superior to that of any landowner whose chain of title depended upon the 1880 sale. See id. at 1336-37. 7 The pending litigation clouded the titles of hundreds of Rhode Island landowners. To dissipate this cloud, the State, the town of Charlestown, and the affected landowners, as parties of the first part, and the Tribe, as party of the second part, executed a joint memorandum of understanding (the J-Mem) on February 28, 1978. The J-Mem created a carefully calibrated relationship between the Tribe and the State centering on 1,800 acres of land in and around Charlestown (the settlement lands). The J-Mem provided that the settlement lands would be formed out of two parcels, one donated by the State and the other purchased from private landowners with funds furnished by the federal government. The Tribe gained effective control of the settlement lands in exchange for the relinquishment of its claims, the voluntary dismissal of its lawsuits, and its agreement that, with the exception of state hunting and fishing regulations, all laws of the State of Rhode Island shall be in full force and effect on the settlement lands. In addition to donating half the settlement lands, the State agreed to create an Indian-controlled corporation to hold the settlement lands in trust for the Tribe, to exempt the settlement lands from local taxation, and to work toward securing passage of the federal legislation necessary to implement the agreement. See generally Narragansett Indian Tribe v. Rhode Island, 296 F.Supp.2d at 161. 8 Both the Rhode Island General Assembly and Congress subsequently passed the necessary enabling legislation. See R.I. Gen. Laws §§ 37-18-1 to 37-18-15; 25 U.S.C. §§ 1701-1716. Dovetailing with the counterpart provision of the J-Mem, the federal piece of this legislative mosaic—the Settlement Act—declared that the settlement lands shall be subject to the civil and criminal laws and jurisdiction of the State of Rhode Island. 25 U.S.C. § 1708(a). 2 9 The conveyances to the holding company followed apace. The Secretary of the Interior thereafter granted the Tribe official federal recognition. See 48 Fed.Reg. 6,177-6,178 (Feb. 2, 1983). On the heels of this recognition, the settlement lands changed hands twice more. In 1985, the Rhode Island General Assembly amended the pertinent state statute to permit the conveyance of the settlement lands directly to the Tribe; the amendments included a provision that preserved the State's jurisdiction over the settlement lands in terms substantially identical to those memorialized in section 1708(a). See R.I. Gen. Laws 37-18-13(b). The holding company later made the authorized conveyance. 10 Three years thereafter, the Tribe deeded the settlement lands to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (the BIA) as trustee. The trust deed explicitly confirmed the applicability of state law on the settlement lands as provided by section 1708(a). The BIA continues to hold the settlement lands in trust for the Tribe. See Rhode Island v. Narragansett Indian Tribe, 19 F.3d 685, 689, 695 & n. 8 (1st Cir.1994). 11 During the next quarter-century, the relationship between the Tribe and the State was fraught with tension. See, e.g., id. at 690-91 (chronicling a long-running dispute anent the Tribe's desire to conduct gambling operations on the settlement lands). Having failed in its persistent efforts to launch a gaming facility, the Tribe eventually turned to tobacco as a potential source of revenue. This case represents the culmination of that endeavor.