Significant Court Cases

Attorney Thomas Tureen took over the case on behalf of the Passamaquoddy Tribe.  He argued that the 1794 treaty was illegal and that the Passamaquoddy Tribe, Penobscot Indian Nation, and Houlton Band of Maliseets were entitled to restoration of their hunting grounds, an area that encompassed 60% of the State of Maine.

In 1972, the Passamaquoddy Tribe filed suit in federal court seeking to force the federal government to get their lands back for them.  Passamaquoddy Tribe v. Morton, also sought to establish that the Passamaquoddy Tribe and Penobscot Indian Nation were entitled to the special services that the federal government makes available to Indians in other parts of the country, that they still possess their inherent sovereignty, and that the State of Maine had no power to interfere with their self-government.  For nearly 150 years the federal government had provided no services to Maine Indians.  The Maine Legislature and Maine courts had long taken the position that the Maine Tribes had lost their powers of self-government and could only exercise the powers the State of Maine specifically gave them.

The Passamaquoddy Tribe won this suit in U.S. District Court in February, 1975.  In December of that year, the decision was affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals.   Neither the federal government nor the State of Maine sought an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.  In a landmark decision in Indian law, the court held that the 1790 Act protected Maine Indians and the federal government had a legal duty to take appropriate action on the land claims of the Penobscot Indian Nation and Passamaquoddy Tribe. 

Within months, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it would sue the State of Maine and its largest land holders on behalf of the Tribes for the return of their land if an out of court settlement could not be reached.  The federal government also announced that from then on the Passamaquoddy Tribe and the Penobscot Indian Nation would be eligible for the special services, such as education and health care, that the federal government provides to other tribes. 

In a 1977 memorandum the Department of Justice described the case as "potentially the most complex litigation ever brought in the federal courts with social costs and economic impacts without precedent..."  This conclusion was based on the size of the claim (12.5 million acres or 60% of the State of Maine); the number of persons living within the disputed areas (350,000); and the fact that nearly 200 years had intervened between the time the first agreement was reached and the present day.
In 1979 the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided in Bottomly v. Passamaquoddy that the Passamaquoddy Tribe (and Penobscot Indian Nation) possessed inherent sovereignty to the same extent as other tribes in the United States and was immune from suit.  That same year the Maine Supreme Court, in State v. Dana Socabasin, followed the reasoning of the Passamaquoddy v. Morton decision, reversed its past rulings, and adopted the same view, holding that the inherent sovereignty of the Passamaquoddy (and Penobscot People) survives and the State of Maine has no power to interfere in their self-government.