#StandWithMashpee
Revolutionary Spaces Stands With Mashpee
On behalf of Revolutionary Spaces, we hereby express our organization’s undivided support for the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe in their struggle to preserve in federal trust the ancestral lands of the Mashpee people.
Revolutionary Spaces cares for Boston’s Old State House and Old South Meeting House and is dedicated to bringing people together at these nationally significant historic sites to explore the American struggle to create and sustain a free society. We recognize that these colonial-era structures stand on Native ground, and we are committed to working with our Native American partners to interpret the historical experiences of New England’s Native communities and tell the story of their important and unique contributions to our region and nation. We also acknowledge that actions taken and words spoken within our sites played a key role in the history of conquest and resulted in lasting damage to Native societies, including the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe.
While we cannot undo this history, we unequivocally support the sovereignty of Native nations and affirm their right to control their land and protect it from infringement and loss. We call on the Department of the Interior to reverse its order, announced on March 27, taking the lands of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe out of federal trust and disestablishing its reservation. We urge the federal courts to enjoin enforcement of this order while litigation concerning the Tribe’s eligibility for the benefits of the Indian Reorganization Act is still pending. And we encourage Congress to pass the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Reservation Reaffirmation Act (H.R. 312), which would reaffirm the Mashpee reservation as trust land and clarify the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s sovereign right to control their ancestral lands.
We stand with Mashpee.
Martha McNamara
Co-Chairperson, Board of Directors
Carl Sciortino
Co-Chairperson, Board of Directors
Nathaniel Sheidley
President & CEO
To view or download this statement as a PDF, click here.