The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) marked the thirtieth anniversary of its federal recognition this week, a notable achievement for the tiny tribe that might have earned positive notice were it not for a stunning development in federal court.

If allowed to stand, a ruling Monday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit would clear the way for casino gambling in the remote westernmost reaches of Martha’s Vineyard. That we earnestly hope that never happens does not lessen our respect for the tribe and our Wampanoag residents; it simply speaks to the belief that a gaming facility has no place on our cherished and still largely unspoiled Island.

The appellate decision was a shocking reversal for the town, state and community taxpayer group that up until this week had successfully argued that the agreement approved by Congress to settle land claims in Aquinnah following the tribe’s federal recognition specifically prohibited gambling on tribal lands.

The Aquinnah selectmen have already taken the first steps in seeking further judicial review. Meeting in executive session Thursday, selectmen instructed their attorney Ronald H. Rappaport to “pursue and research every aspect of an appeal.”

That is the right course to steer, and it is hoped that Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and the Aquinnah/Gay Head Community Association will join the effort.

The legal issues are intricate but the pivotal issue is whether the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act supersedes another federal law, the Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1987. Writing for a three-judge appeals panel, Judge

Juan R. Torruella found that it did. Any appeal would now need to go to either the full U.S. Court of Appeals or the U.S. Supreme Court.

What is particularly unfortunate about the case is that it has become for some tribal members a question of tribal sovereignty. We may not want a casino, they say, but we need to defend our right to decide that for ourselves. The town’s position, on the other hand, effectively says that the tribe knowingly negotiated away the right to build a casino in Aquinnah thirty years ago. Had the tribe not provoked the matter in recent years by taking steps to turn its community hall into a bingo parlor, the question of sovereignty might never have arisen.

It is too bad that the prospect of tourists descending on the Island to play bingo has cast a pall over a truly historic anniversary. In 1987, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head became the first native American tribe in Massachusetts to achieve full and formal recognition by the federal government. It was a cause for celebration not just by the Wampanoags, but the Vineyard as a whole.

“There has never been any doubt in our minds that we are a tribe,” the late Gladys Widdiss, one of the most respected and eloquent tribal elders of her time, told the Gazette in 1987 when the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the U.S. Interior Department reversed an earlier position and threw its support behind tribal recognition for the Wampanoags. “It’s never been front page,” Mrs. Widdiss said. “It has been a gut feeling but it’s been in everybody’s mind. There has always been a wish. It is more pronounced individually. Each person has his own reasons and there was always the desire.”

Federal recognition led quickly to the final steps to settle a bitterly divisive land claims lawsuit that had been hanging over the town for more than a decade. The land claims settlement had been signed by the town, the tribe and a taxpayer group four years earlier, but federal recognition for the tribe meant that the settlement could be ratified by both the state legislature and Congress. Rep. Gerry Studds and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy filed the legislation.

“It just seems like a big weight has been lifted from everyone in the community,” said David Vanderhoop, who was a selectman when federal recognition was announced. “And we’re just standing up and stretching out.”

Ironically, the anniversary of this remarkable achievement came on the very day the news came down that the U.S. Court of Appeals First Circuit had issued a ruling that would negate part of a historic compact — the part that contemplated a future on Martha’s Vineyard with no casino gambling.

Selectman Juli Vanderhoop, a tribal member who opposes a casino, summed up the bittersweet sentiment that surrounds the court ruling: “This land is our homeland . . . . I think it might be great for saying that the tribe is sovereign by itself, but what it says for the community is unfortunate.”