BANGOR DAILY NEWS • December 14, 2022
The four federally recognized tribes in Maine are deprived of the same opportunities for economic growth their counterparts everywhere else have because of a 42-year-old legal arrangement that applies only to them and limits their self-governance. Not only do the tribes lose out as a result of the arrangement, but the areas around Maine’s tribal communities do as well. That’s the conclusion of a new report from researchers at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government that focuses on the terms of the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980, which applies to the four Wabanaki nations in Maine — the Maliseet, Mi’kmaq, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot.