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643 Introduction Trudie Lamb Richmond and Ruth Garby Torres We were very pleased to accept the request to be community coeditors of this anthology. We have both been active participants in Indian affairs and issues most of our adult lives, fighting for Indian rights and eliminating stereotypes and misconceptions. Located on the western banks of the Housatonic River in northwestern Connecticut, the Schaghticoke Reservation, established in 1736, is four hundred acres of primarily mountainous, rocky terrain. The Schaghticokes are one of five indigenous tribes in Connecticut (along with the Paucatuck Eastern Pequots, Mashantucket Pequots, Mohegans, and the Golden Hill Paugussetts) who survived the impact of colonialism, war, and disease.¹ As readers will see from the selections below, Schaghticoke leaders also played a pivotal role in establishing a state Indian Affairs Council to benefit all Native people in the state. Historically, the colony and then the state of Connecticut have held Indian lands in trust, often infringing on the tribes’ sovereignty by assuming extraordinary control over land use. Reservation management has been bounced among a variety of state entities, including the General Assembly, state-appointed overseers, the Parks and Forest Commission, the Welfare Department, and presently the Department of Environmental Protection. At the same time, the state has also encouraged Indians to leave the reservation, hoping that when no one was left on tribal homelands, the state could get out of the Indian business. Thus, in the early twentieth century Connecticut had a law stating that if Indians left the reservation for more than six months, they had to request permission to move back. Chief Howard Harris and his son, Irving, veterans of separate wars, likely felt the injustice of having volunteered to defend their country and now needing permission from the Connecticut government to use their own reservation for its intended purpose. In the 1960s Connecticut Native people, like those across the United States, experienced their own resurgence of Native pride and indigenous activism. The Schaghticokes 644 schaghticoke elected a new tribal council in 1968, broadened representation on the council in 1972, and began the process of disengaging Indian affairs from the Welfare Department. A failed attempt to establish a state Indian affairs commission in 1972 resulted in a new strategy of aggressive outreach and mobilization of the state’s tribes and individual Indians. With the political support of a major labor union and the Connecticut General Assembly’s influential Speaker of the House, William R. Ratchford (D-Danbury), the Connecticut Indian Affairs Council (ciac) was created in 1973. Irving Harris was appointed the first Schaghticoke representative to the ciac and acted as chair during its nascent years. With the new ciac came a new position of Indian affairs coordinator. This state employee acted in many capacities, one of which was liaison to Governor Ella T. Grasso’s administration. Brendan Keleher was working elsewhere in state government when he was tapped for this position. Keleher was tireless in his commitment to assist the members of the ciac in regaining Indian control of reservations and asserting tribal authority. He was an adept diplomat who gently worked the sidelines to support tribal leaders’ work. Today only a few families live on the reservation, with the majority of the tribe living throughout Connecticut. However, many tribal members continue to use the reservation for meetings as well as social gatherings or just to visit it. The people strongly believe that “our culture is in the land and the land is our culture.” The following are written expressions—most of them published here for the first time—by tribal members representing the three major families: Harris, Cogswell, and Kilson. ...

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