The MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians has struggled to get federal sovereignty designation for four decades. The recognition will help them get millions of dollars in economic development gains, education, and health care. Still, it would allow it to expand gambling in Alabama.
Richard Shelby, a popular American lawyer, is the senior U.S. senator from Alabama. He began advocating for the federal government to recognize the Alabama Tribe in 1980. But, his forthcoming retirement is worrying the Tribe as they might stop enjoying their rights.
Shelby’s Role in the Tribe’s Expansion of Gambling
Shelby is a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, one of the most powerful committees that authorize the government’s spending priorities. AL.com reports that hundreds of recognized Native American tribes believe that Shelby has one more political trick.
They fear that he might overturn tribes’ long tradition of the federal government recognizing them through a detailed process that the U.S. Department of the Interior oversees. The senator’s role is likely to be the major reason why the MOWA tribe can be Alabama’s second federally recognized tribe, after the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.
Even so, the recognition will kick off Indian gaming’s prospects in Washington counties and Mobile such as those on the federal trust land that the Poarch Creeks possess in Montgomery, Atmore, and Wetumpka.
Shelby referred to the Alabama tribe’s effort as a long shot when Al.com interviewed him. He added that it might happen just before Christmas.
The senior senator stated that the Mowa Band of Choctaw Indians ought to be recognized since they have proved that they are a tribe. Unfortunately, politics are hindering this move as some people who the government has recognized don’t want to share various privileges with others. So, they are blocking other communities from being recognized.
141 Tribes Resist the Move
Shelby is supporting legislation to allow the Mowa Band of Choctaw Indian’s federal recognition based on their 300 acres of land near Mount Vernon. About 5,000 people claiming to be members of the tribe stay in Alabama according to Lebaron Byrd, the tribal chief’s statement. He estimates that the tribe comprises 6,000 to 7,000 members in total.
Still, 141 tribes like the Poarch Band of Creek Indians aren’t supporting the move as they fear that federal lawmakers can bypass the Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) traditional recognition process and add it to a federal spending package.
Gaming Is Part of Federal Recognition
Richard French, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Tribal Council’s chairman is one of the tribal chiefs who took part in a video that the United Indian Nations of Oklahoma (UNIO) released. He stated that key bills that Congress is discussing are the tribe’s main concern now.
Besides the MOWA tribe’s recognition, UNIO is also concerned about Richard Burr, a retiring Republican U.S. Senator’s addition of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. French stated that senators are attaching some measures to key bills that finance government operations and the military since they know that such bills cannot pass in regular order.
Congressional approval of federal recognition might be the last effort that the MOWA tribe will rely on. French added that no group has illustrated that its members are of native ancestry.
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