In Massachusetts, the federally-recognized Wampanoag Tribe Of Gay Head (Aquinnah) was in federal court earlier this week pressing its case for the rights to operate a Class II gaming facility on its Martha’s Vineyard reservation.
According to a report from the Vineyard Gazette newspaper, the small tribe is fighting the state, a local community group and the town of Aquinnah in its effort to bring electronic bingo terminals to its unfinished 6,500 sq ft community center on the island and put its arguments to a three-judge panel of the United States Court Of Appeals For The First Circuit in Boston on Tuesday.
Elements of the tribe’s struggle date back to the 1970s when it filed a lawsuit against Aquinnah in order to obtain certain rights to aboriginal lands located within …