Members of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission met with Wampanoag tribal leaders at a private summit in Aquinnah this week to discuss fallout from the recent start of construction on a long-planned bingo hall.
Aquinnah selectmen voted Wednesday to send a letter to the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), requesting a public meeting to discuss the bingo hall now under construction.
The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) has officially broken ground on a long-promised gambling facility in the small up-Island town, unleashing a flurry of concern.
The Wampanoag Tribal Council, the Gay Head Taxpayers Association, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the town of Gay Head signed formal settlement papers in the Indian land claim suit last weekend.
The signings represent a major step toward final accord in the suit that has divided the town for nine years.
The Wampanoag Tribal Council of Gay Head approved a plan last night that could lead to settlement of the seven-year-old suit claiming Indian ownership of Gay Head town lands.
The 115 to 60 margin in favor of settlement of the suit is being contested by a party within the tribe that favors suing for the entire town. But tribe leaders say they will move toward settlement.
By one vote short of a two-thirds majority, Gay Head voters last night ordered their selectmen to move forward toward turning the town Common Lands over to the Tribal Council.
The matter is far from an end, still. Ahead lie negotiation, General Court legislation, more town meeting votes, and possibly, countersuits.
But once the common land is transferred, the pending suit by the Wampanoag Tribal Council of Gay Head against the Town of Gay Head will be mooted.
The first powwow to be held on Gay Head since the days of King Philip took place in that town last night, and the flavor and spirit of those ancient days was revived so far as possible when Lorenzo Jeffers was made chief of the tribe. Dressed in full Indian regalia, with a war bonnet on his head, but unaccompanied by the sound of the war drums or the spectacle of Indians dancing in the flickering flames of a bonfire, Rev. Leonard C.
We are members of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah). Wampanoag means “People of the First Light.” Aquinnah means “Land under the Hill.” We have survived on Noepe, “land amid the waters,” members of the Algonquin Nation and Eastern Woodland Indians.
As Gay Head entered the 1900s, it was one of the newest towns in the commonwealth. The English settlers at first considered it part of Chilmark, then decreed it an Indian district from 1855 to 1870, and finally granted it legal independence as the town of Gay Head in 1870. In creating the town, the legislature permitted tribal members of the place they called Aquinnah to divide their land severally and establish a town meeting form of government. To start its life as an incorporated town in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, the state gave Gay Head a treasury of $2.68.
To assure that the identity of the Vineyard’s Indians, their history, culture and tribal lands will be preserved, a Wampanoag Tribal Council of Gay Head was organized on Saturday, and Mrs. James R. Gentry elected its president.