The Brain that Wouldn't Die

That Brian Giovannoni. You can't keep him down. Just when you thought he'd faded forever from the casino celebrity pantheon, there he is.

This time he's quoted in the Enterprise (naturally) disputing some of the information in the James Lynch report recently presented by the town of Halifax.

Giovanoni said one point is in direct contradiction to the tribe’s federal recognition, which found continuous tribal ties dating to first contact with European settlers.

Brian, I don't know if you realize this, but the idea that the Mashpee Wampanoag's Federal recognition might not exactly be the paragon of truth and accuracy has been bandied about for quite some time now.

In fact, Lynch's report is dismantling, brick by brick, the information in that very report provided by the Mashpee's during the federal recognition process.

Lynch is also “saying this tribe has never asserted political authority over any residents within the town of Middleboro, which is untrue,” Giovanoni said. “There are voting members of the tribe living here today.”

Now look, I don't have as big a brain as Brian, and it's certainly not like I'm some sort of water engineer, but aren't the Mashpee supposed to exhibit "continuous" political authority? Not just modern day political authority. Middleboro area Indians may have moved out and down to Mashpee - but they didn't appear, according to Lynch, to move in the other direction.

Lynch also says this about political authority (emphasis mine):

The Mashpee tribe has never asserted political authority over any residents within the town of Middleboro who are of Indian ancestry.

He then gives us an exhaustive run-down and a who's-who of centuries past, leaving us with this tender link to what might have constituted a Mashpee-Middleboro alliance:

This research has also argued that a single marriage between a purported Mashpee Indian, who previous to this marriage removed from Mashpee, ceased his tribal relations with Mashpee and had settled at Middleboro with a fourth generation descendant of the then defunct (c.1791) Massasoit/Tispaquin Pokanoket leadership lineage does not constitute a meaningful or significant historical or cultural event. If, on the other hand, this purported expatriate Mashpee, Silas Ross (Rosier) was the son of a politically viable, living Mashpee sachem, and Phebe Squin was the daughter of a politically viable, living, Pokanoket sachem or sunksqua, a definite political significance could be attributed to such an event. But this was clearly not the case. As was noted earlier, the center of gravity of political leadership of the remnant of the Pokanoket had shifted years before to the reserve at Fall River. Even then the extent of that political authority was, like Mashpee, restricted to those who were living in tribal relations on the reserve. It did not extend to Middleboro.

And furthermore,

It was in essence a marriage between two individuals, both residents of Middleboro, a marriage that left no descent progeny. An active descent line would be through Phebe’s second marriage to Brister Gould and through their seven children. We know nothing of Gould’s ancestry other than he was a Revolutionary War veteran and his occupation was a teamster. The family resided at East Weymouth, Massachusetts where Brister Gould died in 1823. She was still residing there in 1878.

So there you go. But perhaps Brian knows something we don't.

Still, rest assured, the Tribe has apparently cut a another check to Christine Grabowski, author of the report Lynch is disputing, to dig up some 'new' historical information which, I have no doubt, will attempt to help the Tribe conform to the Federal definition required to get that land in Middleboro. Land which they're still not going to get anyway, because of the Carcieri and Hawaii decisions. It's just a good year to be an ethno-historian, I guess.

But in other news, the Enterprise (always with their finger right on the pulse) may have finally started to see the light on the dead casino issue - as it has actually printed another article which reads

Now, two years since the deal of July 28, 2007, was struck, the chances of a casino coming to Middleboro appear increasingly slim.

Hey, ya think?