Editing Penobscot (section)

===Land claims===
[[File:Penobscot Indian Island Reservation, Penobscot County, Maine (1919).jpg|thumb|right|Indian Island, 1919]]
In 1790, the young United States government enacted the [[Nonintercourse Act]], which stated that the transfer of reservation lands to non-tribal members had to be approved by the [[United States Congress]]. Between the years of 1794 and 1833, the Penobscot and [[Passamaquoddy]] tribes ceded the majority of their lands to Massachusetts (then to Maine after it became a state in 1820) through treaties that were never ratified by the US Senate and that were illegal under the constitution, as only the federal government had the power to make such treaties. They were left only the [[Penobscot Indian Island Reservation]].

In the 1970s, at a time of increasing assertions of sovereignty by Native Americans, the Penobscot Nation sued the state of Maine for [[Aboriginal title in the United States|land claims]], calling for some sort of compensation in the form of land, money, and autonomy for the state's violation of the Nonintercourse Act in the 19th century. The disputed land accounted for 60% of all of the land in Maine, and 35,000 people (the vast majority of whom were not tribal members) lived in the disputed territory.

The Penobscot and the state reached a settlement, [[Joint Tribal Council of the Passamaquoddy Tribe v. Morton#Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act|Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act]] (MICSA), in 1980, resulting in an $81.5-million-dollar settlement that the Penobscot could use to acquire more tribal land. The terms of the settlement provided for such acquisition, after which the federal government would hold some of this land in trust for the tribe, as is done for reservation land. The tribe could also purchase other lands in the regular manner. The act established the Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission, whose function was to oversee the effectiveness of the Act and to intervene in certain areas such as fishing rights, etc. in order to settle disputes between the state and the Penobscot or Passamaquoddy.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Scully |first1=Diana |title=Maine Indian Claims Settlement: Concepts, Context, and Perspectives |journal=Indian Tribal-State Commission Documents |publisher=The Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission |date=14 February 1995 |url=https://digitalmaine.com/mitsc_docs/5/ }}</ref>

Because it is a federally recognized sovereign nation with direct relations with the federal government, the Penobscot have disagreed with state assertions that it has the power to regulate hunting and fishing by tribal members. The Nation filed suit against the state in August 2012, contending in ''Penobscot Nation v. State of Maine,'' that the 1980 MICSA settlement gave the Nation jurisdiction and regulatory authority over hunting and fishing in the "Main Stem" of the Penobscot River as well as on its reservation.<ref name="ict">[http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/05/05/congress-members-support-penobscot-v-maine-unprecedented-court-filing-160253 Gale Courey Toensing, "Congress Members Support 'Penobscot v. Maine' in Unprecedented Court Filing."], ''Indian Country Today'', 5 May 2015, accessed 5 May 2015</ref>

At the request of the Nation, the US Department of Justice has joined the suit on behalf of the tribe. In addition, in an unprecedented step, five members of the Congressional Native American Caucus representing other jurisdictions filed an ''[[Amicus curiae|amici curiae]]'' brief in support of the Penobscot in this case. In addition to its reservation, the Nation owns islands in the river extending {{Convert|60|mi|abbr=on}} upriver; it also acquired hundreds of thousands of acres of land elsewhere in the state, as a result of the 1980 settlement of its land claim. Some analysts predict that this case will be as significant to [[Native American civil rights|Indian law and sovereignty]] as the fishing rights cases of Native American tribes in the [[Pacific Northwest]] in the 1970s, which resulted in the [[United States v. Washington|1974 Boldt decision]] affirming their rights to fishing and hunting in their former territories.<ref name="ict"/> The five members of the Congressional Native American Caucus who filed are [[Betty McCollum]] (D-MN), co-chair of the Congressional Native American Caucus with [[Tom Cole]] (R-OK) ([[Chickasaw]]); [[Raúl Grijalva]], (D-AZ), vice chair of the Congressional Native American Caucus; [[Ron Kind]] (D-WI), vice chair of the Congressional Native American Caucus; and [[Ben Ray Luján]] (D-NM), vice chair of the Congressional Native American Caucus.