From Last Week’s MPBN Story:

For members of the Penobscot Indian Nation, few provisions of the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980 are as sacred as the sections of the document that acknowledge the tribe’s inherent sovereignty as a nation within a nation. So when members of the Maine State Police crossed the bridge from Old Town onto the Indian Island reservation last Saturday, tribal chief Kirk Francis expected that the visit involved something more important than a traffic check.

And Today’s MPBN Story:

There was some significant communicating going on this week among senior members of the LePage administration and the Penobscot tribe in the aftermath of an incident earlier this month that reopened some old wounds on Indian Island. That’s when 15 buses traveled to the island carrying more than 1,000 people who had signed up to play in the tribe’s High-Stakes Beano Game. State troopers from the department’s traffic safety unit crossed onto the island to check the buses and their drivers to determine if they were operating legally. But the troopers did not consult with tribal officials before crossing the bridge from Old Town onto the island and refused to leave when first requested to do so by tribal police. Francis said tribal members couldn’t understand why the safety checks couldn’t have been done before the buses crossed onto Indian Island and were upset that their sovereign rights were not respected. In addition the tribe was forced to explain to the anxious beano players on the buses that nothing involvling the tribe was involved in the traffic stop. Ultimately, Francis said the entire incident was the result of a mid-level state police supervisor who was not familiar with tribal protocols and who was making decisions that had not been approved by his superiors.

Link to the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980 is here.