KENT, Conn.—Even as the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation (STN) seeks the right to petition again for federal recognition, the rival Schaghticoke Indian Tribe (SIT) has already received a proposed positive finding from the Office of Federal Acknowledgement (OFA) on Phase I of its separate petition.
The SIT received notification in late January that it had met all four of the mandatory Phase I criteria and had received a proposed positive finding.
The Schaghticoke Tribal Nation’s (STN) application for a re-petition is now in the comment phase, which ends Tuesday, April 28. The SIT petition will now go through a Phase II review, which requires it to prove compliance with three of the most challenging of the seven mandatory criteria, specifically political authority, community and identification as an Indian entity.
Community and political influence were the two criteria that the STN failed to satisfy when it received its negative final determination in 2005.
“We look forward as we now move to Phase II where the BIA will review the remaining three criteria,” said SIT spokesman William Buchanan.
In the Phase I favorable proposed finding, the OFA found that the SIT—which consists of only 45 members—had successfully met the standards for governance by providing a copy of the entity’s present governing document, in this case the Constitution of the Schaghticoke Indian Tribe.
The tribe presented membership lists and successfully defended the lineage of its members by submitting genealogical documents and a copy of an 1876 petition to the State of Connecticut naming members of the historical Indian tribe. The petitioner demonstrated that 40 of its 45 (89 percent) current members descend from the historical tribe. “Therefore, the petitioner meets the requirements of criterion 83.11(e),” the OFA report concluded.
SIT also had to prove that its members are not enrolled in any other federally recognized tribe, and that its leadership and members are not the subject of congressional legislation that expressly terminated or forbid the federal relationship.
There are deep divisions among the various Schaghticokes groups. The tribe fractured in 1986 into the STN and the SIT, with Goggswell family members being a third group.
The SIT petition has been challenged by both the STN and the Goggswell Group. STN Chief Richard Velky argued that the OFA could not consider the SIT petition without first resolving the STN’s recognition status.
“As acknowledged previously by the Department, STN is the successor-in-interest to the Historical Schaghticoke Tribe, while SIT is not a Tribe, but rather a minority faction of individuals eligible for STN membership,” he wrote.
The “Coggswell Group” called into question the accuracy and completeness of the current membership of the SIT petitioner, stating, “If the current list of Schaghticoke Tribal members contain[ed] in the SIT Petition before [OFA] does not include ALL members of the descendants of the Cotsure/Cocksure Cogswell bloodline then the Petitioner fails to meet the Descent criteria.”
The State of Connecticut, the Town of Kent, and the Kent School Corporation made a similar argument, stating, “[T]he SIT does not represent all of those persons who descen[d] from the historic Schaghticoke.”
But the OFA concluded a petitioner can satisfy the descent criterion by demonstrating its members’ descent from a historical Indian tribe. “There is no requirement that all descendants of a specific historical ancestor or lineage associated with the historical Indian tribe be members of the present-day petitioning group,” it stated in its proposed favorable finding.
The third-party commenters are given a second chance to contest the SIT’s documentation on governance and community during Phase II deliberations.
According to Buchanan, it is possible for two Indian tribes descended from a single historical entity to achieve federal recognition. He said two tribes have done this, “but it is extremely rare and very difficult.” As to the possibility of the STN and SIT joining forces, he replied, “No, we will never join STN and SIT.”
Previously, a tribe that had been denied federal recognition could not submit a new petition, but there is currently a limited opportunity for tribes to do so, giving the STN an opportunity to do so.
Federal recognition brings with its significant economic benefits for tribes, including assurance that they can conduct gambling on their reservations. The STN was backed in its former bid for recognition by Fred Luca, co-founder of the Subway sandwich chain, who wanted to bring a casino to Bridgeport.
The story of the Schaghticoke tribe is long and tortured. It originally welcomed members of other tribes that had been broken up by war and the incursion of non-Native settlers into traditional tribal lands. The fragments of these other tribes were invited to Kent in the 1730s by Gideon Mauwee, who was the first recorded chief of the Schaghticoke Tribe in Connecticut. Mauwee signed a land deed for a large parcel of land in Kent in 1729.
In 1736 that land deed was converted to a reservation of more than 2,000 acres on the western side of the Housatonic by the Connecticut General Assembly. In 1740, shortly after the reservation was granted, approximately 500 to 600 Schaghticoke lived on it but, at the turn of the 19th century, a government-appointed overseer for the tribe sold off the northern portion of the reservation, reportedly using the money to provide the remaining Indians with medicine and wigwams.
Subsequent land sales whittled away the reservation until today it consists of 400 acres, less than a fifth of the original reserve. The land is held in trust by the state for the Schaghticokes.
During the 20th century, Connecticut adopted a policy of removing tribal members from the reservation and as a result few currently live there, with the majority of those who claim Schaghticoke descent living in Fairfield, New Haven and Litchfield counties.
From 1925 to 1972, Connecticut intensified its policy of detribalization, making it difficult for tribal members to live or gather on the reservation. Except for farming, no business could be transacted, and no buildings or improvements could be added without the written consent of the state.
This systematic dispersal interrupted tribal community and is a factor in the Indians’ difficulty in proving a continuing community and political influence. A tribal history notes that this anti-Indian policy is demonstrated by the fact that there were no public powwows on the reservation between 1941 and 1972.
Over the decades since 1975 the Schaghticokes have attempted to either reclaim their land or get recompense for it. These federal cases were consolidated and eventually dismissed in 2010 after the Bureau of Indian Affairs revoked the tribe’s federal recognition.
In 2016, the STN filed a lawsuit in Connecticut Superior Court seeking $610 million in damages, alleging that the state’s sale of tribal land, starting in 1801, was an unconstitutional taking without just compensation. The suit was dismissed by a in 2019 ruling and upheld in 2022 by the Connecticut Apellate Court, which cited historical resolutions granting the tribe “use” of the land rather than explicit property rights.
Originally, STN had hoped to leverage its land claims in Kent to get the state to allow it to build a casino in a more populous area.
Was on the reverse when I was a little girl with the Cogswell clan, my father’s family. We stayed at Frank Cogswell’s house, my father uncle. A lots of memories there. My mother did not like the rattlesnakes. My name is Jeanne Cogswell Brown.