Martha’s Vineyard’s Indian tribe rejected a $1 million inducement to drop its objections to the proposed Cape Wind development in Nantucket Sound, in the interest of preserving a cultural tradition which some tribal members deny even exists.
The offer from Cape Wind was made during a series of meetings convened by U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in Washington in January this year. Both the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), and the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe were offered $1 million each, to be paid in installments over 20 years.
In addition, the Vineyard tribe was offered assistance in proceeding with its own planned construction of a wind turbine.
The Island tribe’s historic preservation officer, Bettina Washington, confirmed yesterday that the offer of money had been made, although she said she was not present at the time.
“But it’s never been about the money. We would never consider selling our cultural landscapes at any price,” Ms. Washington said.
A spokesman for Cape Wind, Mark Rodgers, also confirmed Cape Wind had offered “financial mitigation” to the tribes, but declined to talk amounts. He also said the offer of pro bono help with the tribe’s turbine had been made as part of an attempt to reach agreement on the proposed wind power development.
The tribes’ objections to Cape Wind were made on the basis that the turbines would interfere with traditional custom relating to the greeting of the rising sun and cause potential archeological damage, because the 130-turbine project would be built on what was dry land 5,000 years ago, where their forebears lived.
The claims emerged as the final hurdle in the eight-year approval process for the development. Secretary Salazar was prompted to hold the Washington summit of interested parties after the federal National Parks Service determined that Nantucket Sound was eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, upholding a previous finding by the state historic preservation officer, Brona Simon.
After the meeting, Mr. Salazar called on the parties to strive for compromise, and said that if they failed to find it, he would make a determination on the project by the end of April.
Earlier this week, Mr. Salazar ended that consultation process, which had failed to find any common ground. He called on the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation to conduct a 45-day review, at the end of which he is expected to make his final call on Cape Wind.
The argument is considered likely to continue in the courts. And also apparently within the Vineyard tribe.
Last week it was revealed that tribal member, Jeffrey Madison, had written to Secretary Salazar disputing the claim that Nantucket Sound is sacred ground traditionally used by the tribe for sunrise ceremonies.
“I never participated in, witnessed or even heard of a sacred spot on the horizon that is relevant to any Aquinnah Wampanoag culture, history or ceremony,” Mr. Madsion said in a Feb. 9 letter.
“The notion that locating wind turbines in Nantucket Sound will impose on, impact or harm any cultural tradition is just plain false . . . I believe it to be a fabrication, invented by a small number of tribal members, who happen to be involved in tribal government and who happen to be opponents of Cape Wind who wish to derail the project.”
Mr. Madison has a clear appearance of conflict; he is an attorney with Wynn and Wynn, a Cape Cod law firm with an office on the Vineyard. He helped recruit Cape Wind as a client for his law firm.
But he also has a long history with both the tribe and the town; he is the son of Luther Madison and grandson of Napoleon Madison, both medicine men for the tribe, and was a Gay Head selectman for 15 years. And his letter included a petition signed by eight members of the tribe, including former chairman Beverly Wright, stating that they believe the Cape Wind project will pose no interference with the tribe’s cultural traditions.
In his letter Mr. Madison also disputed a claim that the tribal council had voted in July 2004 to oppose Cape Wind.
Tribal archives, he said, showed instead that that meeting had been unable to reach a consensus on the project, the vote being three in favor with four abstentions.
Yesterday, Ms. Washington responded, questioning the knowledge of Mr. Madison and the petition signatories about tribal culture.
“We need to understand that some people have a lesser cultural knowledge and some a greater cultural knowledge,” she said.
She suggested white suppression of traditional aspects of Indian culture had resulted in the reality that practitioners of cultural rites were “few and far between.”
“Some of these things have not been much practiced, but that does not mean that (a) they did not exist and (b) that some people don’t still practice them,” she said.
“My issue was not with the individual and whether he knew of the ceremony or not; every tribal member has the right to speak for themselves.
“My issue was with the suggestion that other people were fabricating,” she said, adding:
“We are trying to reclaim our culture, as we are now reclaiming our language. That’s why we’re fighting this. So our culture survives.”
This article appears in March 5, 2010.
Boozhoo. Many prayers are going up for you, Wampanoag Nation, as you reclaim your rightful cultural and spiritual heritage. You are the People of the First Light, born of the Creator to this place
— to remain, protect, and nurture through your spirit and presence. Miigwetch.
Under a Rhode Island State law passed last summer, the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission will determine if a proposed commercial wind project is commercially reasonable and affordable with expert testimony and legal arguments, March 9-12. It’s possible Rhode Island electric rate could more than triple under the current offshore wind turbine proposal.
The RIPUC will consider all aspects of the project that include transmission lines and transmission loss including electric grid protection intervention.
The results of this hearing are expected at the end of March. The hearing could pave the way for Massachusetts electric rate increases.
The Wampanoags, Gay Head or Chappaquiddick, have never seen eye to eye. Their disagreements have been only occasionally on issues, more often on personalities, and sometimes reaching to physical confrontation.
The fact is that the Wampanoag Tribe Gay Head (Aquinnah) has enjoyed years of health care, college expenses paid, affordable housing provided, tribal center built by Army Corps of Engineers, while many Vineyard workers, largely self-employed, have paid for health and educational and housing expenses on their own.
During the first casino venture there was a rush of “Indian” folks to ally themselves to anyone living in Gay Head in 1870, a rush to get on that Casino Cruise gravy boat bunch of junkets, not to mention in that lovely little tribal parade of red Volvos.
Now we have casino redux, plus a tribal member who is “recruiting” for his law firm for Cape Wind. Don’t remember tribal ceremonies: Blame it on “supression!”
Those of us whose ancestors got a quick heave-ho from the Highland clearances or from the funeral pyres of Huguenot France and who have supported our families and their health and their education costs for a lot longer than that 1870 cut-off, are left wondering exactly who in Gay Head, and New Bedford and Fall River, etc., is getting what. Oh right, it’s a sovereign Wampanoag nation: capable of taking federal funds but not willing to report! Or talk to a newspaper. And able to run perfectly wonderful businesses like Tomahawk Oysters into the ground, to the point that tax abatements have to be granted for the trash left. (Have they cleaned that up yet?)
Perhaps Mr. Madison should stop “recruiting” and start cleaning up. Besides that, that $50,000 a year pay-off is worth what, one college year for a worthy student? Health insurance for two familie a year? The Wamps get that already, without promising anything…..
Congratulations to the stand-up Wampanoag folks who know the true value of values.
In addition to the cost comparison between energy conservation and energy production there are a few other issues especially with regards to renewable energy production. It appears as though the public commitment in terms of tax breaks and publicly financed portions of the Cape Wind project amount to around 25 percent of the total costs. The projected profit from the Cape Wind project is also estimated to be just under 25 percent. There is an issue here of socializing profits while protecting the company from losses and the use of public land. If the case is that this project is so heavily socialized on the profit side then why not eliminate the funding and simply require that the use of federal lands will be available only to non-profit entities, and that the principals involved will be fairly compensated but that the compensation should be regulated.
Secondly, on the other side of the equation if there were a major stimulus to foster energy conservation and specifically LED technology then we have to ask ourselves; where will the money go? Well, as it stands now, the money will go to China. China is awash in money. It is floating in it. We are fortunate that at present the United States is one of the places where China parks its money. If that were to change, our country would be in serious peril. If we were to actually purchase LEDs or other technology using public money the product should be made in the USA. This in itself, could be regarded as a form of socialism. If the capitalist system is to buy where it is cheapest, and if American made is not the cheapest, then perhaps this is a form of socialism. But we have socialism already. We have socialized the profit end of banking with the stimulus packages. We have socialized a part of health care by offering gold plated insurance policies to all public employees thus pushing up the cost of insurance for everyone outside of the public sector while taxing everyone in the country to pay for this subsidy. These are socialist polices. If we are going in that direction, then let’s subsidize the cost of manufacturing and bring jobs back into this country. It would be less expensive than subsidizing the huge companies that we borrow from and it would be sounder policy by ensuring that people earn money through jobs. And you can not tell me that American ingenuity will bring the cost of manufacturing in line with that made overseas if we put our energy behind it.