Native American tribes rejoindre fight over Long Island 

Native American tribes join fight over Long Island

The Long Island Bridge connected Long Island in Boston Harbor to the Squantum neighborhood on Quincy before it was demolished in 2015. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger)

Erin Tiernan Erin Tiernan The Patriot Ledger @ErinTiernan

As Quincy and Boston battle over the proposal to rebuild the Long Island Bridge, Native Americans hope to preserve their past.

BOSTON — Perhaps best known for its controversial bridge to Quincy, Long Island in Boston Harbor also has a painful chapter in its history that Native Americans say needs to be acknowledged after going untold for too long.

For three years beginning in 1675, when a war erupted between Native Americans and the English colonists, Long Island and a handful of other Boston Harbor Islands were used as internment camps for natives. Many died of starvation and exposure in what historians have described as "concentration camps."

Local Native American tribes have been trying, and failing, for decades to bring recognition to this part of the history of the Boston Harbor Islands as well as protection for the Indian burial grounds on those islands.

"The tribal governments have worked for quite some time on addressing these issues," Gary McCann, a policy adviser for both the Muhheconneuk Intertribal Committee on Deer Island and the Muhheconnew National Confederacy Bureau of Political Affairs. "What\'s new is this conflict between Quincy and Boston and what that\'s going to mean."

The dispute between the cities stems from Boston Mayor Marty Walsh\'s plans for a drug-treatment facility and other social service programs on Long Island that Boston city councilors said could help curb the opioid epidemic in the region. But to build the facility, Boston would also need to rebuild the 3,400-foot bridge that until recently connected Moon Island in Quincy to Long Island in Boston Harbor.

Quincy officials are fighting the proposal, saying it would burden residents with even more traffic in already-crowded residential neighborhoods because the only roads leading to the bridge go through Quincy\'s Squantum neighborhood.

The fight between Quincy and its bigger neighbor to the north has grabbed headlines, and that\'s something McCann said he hopes can help tribal leaders preserve sacred burial grounds on the island.

McCann said he reopened a dialogue with Walsh\'s office in June but was never told about an Oct. 2 Boston City Council hearing on the bridge proposal. He said he only heard about it when he switched on the radio. By the time McCann made it to Boston City Hall, the hearing had ended.

"Information has not been forthcoming and it doesn\'t help anyone if the tribes are left out of a public forum and not allowed to tell their side of the story and why this history is important to everyone in the city," McCann said. "Hopefully it\'s a mistake that will not repeated in the future."

Boston City Councilor-at-large Annissa Esabi-George, the chairwoman of the council\'s committee on homelessness, mental health and recovery, said Monday that last week\'s joint hearing was advertised, open to the public and widely reported in the media.

"Many of the folks we contact about hearings are folks who have reached out to us," she said. "We\'d be very happy to include them had they done that."

She said her office operates independently of the mayor\'s office.

"I don\'t work for the mayor, I work with the mayor," she said, noting she is interested in hearing more about the tribes\' concerns.

McCann said the tribes are eager to work with the city. But he said Boston officials have already taken several steps that ignored Native American history on Long Island.

For one, he said the state Historical Commission recommended an intensive archaeological survey of the land prior to any construction because the island is on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Boston Harbor Island Archaeological District. The state issued the environmental certificate on Sept. 21 without this requirement.

There are few options available to the tribal governments that McCann represents. There are only two federally recognized Native American tribes in Massachusetts — the Mashpee on Cape Cod and the Aquinnah on Martha\'s Vineyard — and tribes like the ones McCann represents can\'t claim a stake in the land without the designation. At one time, there were 16 individual tribes in the Bay State, but anti-indigenous policies gradually pushed many apart.

That has left many questions unanswered for indigenous people in Massachusetts.

Using written records, historians have estimated that between 500 and 1,000 Native Americans were relocated in the three years following 1675. Some historians believe the actual number was much higher because only Christian Native Americans were counted.

Records indicate that as many as one-half of the Indians died of starvation, exposure and a lack of medicine in what historians and McCann have referred to as "concentration camps" on the islands. The dead were likely buried there.

McCann said the top priority for the tribal governments is protecting the evidence of genocide and Native American burial sites, but it\'s unclear where Native American remains lie or if they\'re even there at all. There have been few studies of the land and the information is largely incomplete, especially in places like Long and Deer islands, where development continued  unhindered by concern for Native American remains and sacred sites.

Indian tribes have been fighting to bring recognition to the genocide of Native Americans at the hands of colonists since 1991 when the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority began construction on a wastewater treatment plant on Deer Island. An agreement between the two sides to build a memorial and allow the tribes to conduct their own archaeological survey never materialized.

When the Boston Harbor Islands became a national park in the mid-1990s, Congress formally recognized the painful history of Native Americans during King Philip\'s War and asked the National Parks Service to set up programs and policies for the protection and preservation of Indian burial grounds on the islands. McCann said those too were blocked.

"It has been the experience of tribal governments to date that initial positive responses have not been maintained," McCann said.

McCann said tribes hope the public spat over the future of Long Island can help shine a light on a people and a history that have often been cast aside.

"Now that the controversy has erupted between these two cities, this is going to be harder to ignore now," he said.

Reach Erin Tiernan at etiernan@patriotledger.com or 617-786-7320. Follow her on Twitter @ErinTiernan.

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