A standoff between the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) and a Delaware bank that had raised questions of tribal sovereignty has apparently ended with the tribe’s purchase last week of the property at the center of the dispute.

Wilmington Savings Fund Society filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts Land Court last summer, seeking to enforce an easement across tribal land so it could access the property it had acquired by foreclosure at 17 Old South road in Aquinnah.

The two-acre property and single-family home was previously owned by tribal member Matthew Vanderhoop, who had obtained an easement from the tribe to build a driveway in 2003. But after he defaulted on a mortgage, auctioneers who went to the site in 2019 found their access blocked by Mr. Vanderhoop and other tribal members.

In court documents, the tribe said it had granted the easement to Mr. Vanderhoop because he was a tribal member and that as a sovereign nation it had the sole right to decide who could access its land.

The bank countered that the easement, a formal document filed with the Dukes County Registry of Deeds, remained valid even after the Mr. Vanderhoop’s ownership of the property ended.

On Tuesday, March 1, the bank and the tribe agreed to dismiss the case, a day after the tribe purchased the property from the bank for $650,000. The property is currently assessed at about $1.1 million.