N. STONINGTON, Conn. — While the Eastern Pequot tribe awaits the BIA’s
reconsidered decision on federal recognition, the seasons continue. One of
this summer’s tasks is the care of the Lantern Hill reservation.

Established as the tribe’s land base by the colonial government in 1683, it
is the oldest reservation in the country that has been continuously
occupied by the descendants of the original indigenous people who populated
the area prior to European contact.

The reservation is precisely 224.6 acres, tribal council member Agnes Cunha
said.

On a June day, Bobby Sebastian, a member of one of the tribe’s six core
families and a year-round reservation resident, cleared brush in the
camping and parking areas of the reservation in preparation for the tribe’s
Fourth Sunday annual meeting and pow wow a month later.

Juxtaposed against the neat and tidy small towns surrounding the
reservation, Sebastian’s life there is an anomaly: land steward and hunter,
he lives largely off the land, providing venison and other game for his
family and some of the tribal elders.

“This is home, home, home!” Sebastian said, laughing. “When I had the
chance to move up here I asked my wife, I said, ‘Honey, we’re going to live
on the rez,’ and she said, ‘The rez? Up in the woods?’ We’ve been here 20
years now and she won’t give it up,” Sebastian said.

Around 15 people live on the reservation in “the usual reservation
trailers,” like Sebastian and his wife, but many tribal members will likely
move to the reservation if the tribe’s acknowledgement is confirmed,
council member Wolf Jackson said. Married to a Mashuntucket Pequot member,
Jackson and his wife live on the Mashuntucket reservation but maintain a
trailer on the Lantern Hill land.

“More members would live here now, especially the elders on fixed incomes,
because it’s tax-free; but it’s very difficult to acquire housing, because
you can’t get a bank loan. As soon as you say it’s sovereign land and the
bank can’t secure the property, they won’t give you a loan,” Jackson said.
Federal acknowledgement would make the tribe eligible for federal funds for
housing, health, education and economic development.

The reservation has an upper and lower level, a division that once marked a
split between two tribal factions — the Eastern Pequots with around 1,000
members, and the Paucatuck Eastern Pequots with around 150 members. The BIA
declared the two groups to be one historic tribe three years ago, and ever
since the tribe has been reunited in fact as well as on paper.

“We fought over the usual things — power, control over resources, control
of the reservation. We’re all related to each other; it was the classic
family feud. It ended when we picked up the phone and said, ‘This is really
silly,’” Chairman Marcia Flowers said.

There is no road connecting the two parts of the reservation, and the roads
into the land are owned by the state or town.

The tribe’s annual meeting and pow wow takes place on grounds on the upper
level of the reservation. The fire circle of stones has been there longer
than anyone alive can remember.

The pow wow is a traditional affair — a free, non-commercial event where
families and friends gather for an afternoon of picnicking, celebration,
prayer and non-competitive dancing and singing. Close to 1,000 people
attended this year’s event.

Beyond the pow wow grounds in a clearing in the woods is an ancient burial
ground with a triangular gravestone surrounded by four smaller stones. The
gravestone dates back to pre-contact days and is weathered smooth by
hundreds of years of exposure.

“Our traditions talk about a chief buried in this grave,” Jackson said,
sprinkling tobacco onto the stone.

The tribe hopes to restore the burial grounds for contemporary use, Jackson
said. Although no new burials have taken place there, the ashes of several
tribal members have been scattered on the site.

Only one gravestone is marked with a person’s name.

“He wasn’t a member of the tribe; he was an overseer, but he had such a
great relationship with the tribe that he was allowed to be buried here. He
was well-loved by the tribe, but the town hated him so much they buried him
with the Indians,” Jackson said.

Much of the surrounding land was once part of the reservation and the tribe
is now faced with having to buy back its ancestral lands at hugely inflated
prices. The tribe has already had a positive impact on the local economy.

“People are buying up land around the reservation just to resell it in case
we get federally acknowledged. There was a time you could get this land for
almost nothing. It’s rocky and out in the middle of nowhere like most
reservations, but we could live off of it if we had to,” Jackson said.

The descendants of some of the tribe’s overseers now own a lot of it,
Jackson said. The tribe has not filed land claims, but that remains an
option.

“We always have that at our disposal, but for the most part we’ve taken the
high road because we believe we can make it on the high road and on the
facts of our history despite all the obstacles. What we can’t win against
— and what we fear — is politics, because politics is not based upon
fact. It’s based upon unwarranted power, people’s feelings and mood. You
can never fight that,” Jackson said.