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With Indigenous Peoples’ Day fast approaching, I wish to comment on Gov. Janet Mills’ seemingly implacable resistance to meaningfully redressing the many harms associated with the 1980 Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act. While exploring and digesting the impressive succession of lawyerly paragraphs that make up her most recent veto letter (LD 2004 on June 30), I repeatedly sensed the same implicit message lying just beneath the ever-so-reasonable and carefully crafted prose: After centuries of treating these people like garbage, would it not be more prudent to just continue, rather than risk any unforeseen consequences?
In response, I feel prompted to counter with a question of my own: Have not the long-suffering Wabanaki tribes been dealing with horrendous unforeseen consequences ever since the first white Europeans ever arrived on their shores?
Admittedly, all of this is my own personal interpretation of the governor’s words and actions. Am I misjudging her? It would delight me if during next year’s legislative session she were to prove me wrong.
Given my last name, I should perhaps make clear that I am white, from away, and have no specific connections to any tribal members.
Lorenzo Mitchell
Blue Hill
