Excitement, Uncertainty, and Political Pressure

This was a time of excitement and tension for the Wabanaki People of Maine.  They were winning in court.  Yet the ultimate outcome of their claims was far from certain.  The 1790 Act had been written 185 years earlier, and no one could say with certainty whether the authors of that law had intended that land should be returned to a tribe that proved a claim so many years later, if the tribe should be paid only money, or if they should get neither one.  The U.S. Supreme Court had not yet decided whether the 1790 Act applied to Maine Indians.

Maine's political leaders put pressure on the tribes.  The decisions that the Indians had won in court were starting to make it hard to transfer land in Maine because land titles could not be guaranteed.  Nor could municipalities issue bonds to finance their own survival.  The Governor of Maine persuaded the Congressional Delegation to ask Congress to pass legislation that would bar the Passamaquoddy Tribe and Penobscot Indian Nation from continuing in court by retroactively approving the treaties that their claims were based on.  The tribes thought this was unfair and maintained that such a move would be illegal.