http://www.cleanupwashington.org/hos/page.cfm?pageid=30

1. Richard Pombo: He may not have been a staunch proponent of environmental causes but he was widely respected by the Indian tribes as Chairman of the House Resources Committee as a fair supporter of tribal rights and issues.

2. Richard Pombo was never disgraced or formally accused of any wrong doing whilst in Congress. You present no factual basis for his accusations. It was simply Washington politics as usual.

3. The Mashpee were never “Wampanoag.” The term in the Algonquian language simply means a people who live to the east of another. Historically there never existed a Wampanoag tribe. The term Wampanoag was historically applied to those Indian tribes and bands who joined King Philip in his 1676 war against the colonists. The Mashpee Indian community never joined King Philips forces and therefore were not “Wampanoag.

4. Mashpee came into existence as a Christian Indian community around 1661. It was never a tribe but was a group of Christian Indian converts under the care of the Reverend Richard Bourne who with the consent of two Cape Cod Indian sachems and with the consent of the Plymouth Colony Court allowed for the settlement of these Christian Indians who removed themselves from their former non-Indian communities and settle together to form their own community apart from any tribe. The Mashpee tribe did not exist at the time when the Pilgims first arrived.

5. The lands of the current town of Taunton were those historically belonging to Massasoits Pokanoket tribe. Massasoit himself conveyed these lands to the Plymouth Colony in 1641, ten years before the founding of the Christian convert Mashpee community on Cape Cod. There was no established Indian village within the present day town of Taunton when Massasoit conveyed these lands to Plymouth Colony.

6. Massasoit’s Pokanoket tribe asserted tribal authority over all the lands east of Cape Cod (roughly the present-day Bourne Canal) to the eastern shores of Narragansett Bay. There were no Mashpee villages or settlements within Pokanoket tribal territory.

Your characterization regarding Weetamoe’s head being displayed in Taunton, equates to how the English handled these matters in those times, where heads were hanged from the Tower of London, both indian and white man. There is no significance to this act.

As such, your criticism of Congressman Pombo’s interpretation of history is misplaced.

We are hopeful that southeastern Massachusetts wakes up to the reality that they will be left in the dust unless they come up with a realistic plan for casino development.

Congressman Pombo is not being paid, nor is he working for the Pocassets. He has expressed his thoughts based upon his years of experience working with many tribes throughout the country in the Indian community. The Pocassets do not have the gigantic funding of the Mashpee and Aquinnah, but they do have the strength of their heritage and their tribal members.

Thank you.

We have freedom of speech, but you are not protected from the consequences of why you say. So no matter if you right an article in favor of Gay marriage or burn a Koran, you can expect to get folks pissed-off at you.

Ric is wrong about the constitution however, “separation of church and state” is not in the constitution, it’s a misinterpretation that the liberal have used to promote there goal of “Freedom from Religion”

The ACLU has become an extremist organization, following their liberal base as it moves to the left.

Now, it seems they only want to protect those with which they argee.