#county longisland newyork state montaukpoint

[erik-powery-for-america]

A week before Thanksgiving, ironically, Governor Hochul chose to veto a bill unanimously passed by the New York State Legislature to grant the Montaukett Indian Nation recognition of its existence. It was not asking for land, or gambling rights; it was asking for a long-overdue correction of the immoral 1910 decision made by Judge Abel Blackmar in favor of a white family, the Bensons, who were attempting a takeover of a huge swath of land at the end of Long Island from the Montaukett Nation, in the process forcing them into a diaspora. 

It was the fifth time that this legislation came up to Hochul’s desk, and the fifth time it was vetoed. The argument espoused by Gov. Andrew Cuomo before her and Houchul is that the tribe had to have an unbroken history of existence, the requisite for state recognition.

The editors of one of our local papers, 27East.com, wrote a succinct and chilling op-ed on Hochul’s decision, saying that “… in 1910, and in an appeal two years later, the state decided that the Montaukett Nation had “disintegrated” into a mix of “shiftless” men and women who were ’impaired by miscegenation, particularly with the Negro race.’ They were no longer Indians, you see, because they had now become part of a ’civilized community.’ "

They went on: "That disgusting paragraph above — hard to write, hard to read, saturated with poisonous racism and carrying strong whiffs of eugenics, the discredited pseudoscience that drove policies regarding Native Americans in the early 1900s — is standing law in New York State. And Governor Kathy Hochul, with her signature, endorsed it with her veto, even though a judge nearly 50 years ago described the Benson decision as being of ’questionable propriety.’ 

So here we are, left with a lineage of racism that Governor Hochul has chosen to stick to by her veto. 

The nefarious ruling came from Judge Abel Blackmar after a long land dispute involving white families and the Montaukett. Justice Joseph Burr added the appalling ’miscegenation’ language in the 1912 appeal. The case gave 4,200 acres of tribal lands to the Long Island Rail Road and the heirs of Arthur W. Benson, who went on to make a fortune. It’s a decision that should make state officials hide their faces — ’one of the most racist decisions’ in New York history, as State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele aptly described it.

Today, we know better. We know that race is a social construct, and that the treatment of Native American tribes, especially at key moments in our nation’s development, was rooted in greed, untapped power and prejudice. It is a shameful legacy we are, and should be, actively working to repair.

State recognition — which, the latest legislation noted, the Montaukett Nation had at one point — is, ironically, mostly a ceremonial gesture toward reparation of this damage. There isn’t much benefit to it for the 1,500 or so Montaukett alive in 2023. It won’t overturn that ruling and return land to them, nor provide much in the way of assistance. It won’t automatically grant any gaming rights — though, of course, those rights are the key strategy that America has deemed appropriate to try to repay debts to Indigenous people and to provide a financial engine beyond federal grants.

So even a gesture is too dangerous for Hochul to support, despite the fact that her fellow legislators from both parties are united in support of righting this wrong. Instead, the last word goes to the pre-Depression era judges who denied the Montaukett their very existence, drowning them in a putrid stew of racism.

Hochul could have had the last word instead, with plenty of political cover. She could have put to rest a tragic and painful chapter of New York State’s history, and given the Montaukett Nation its proper respect.

’An error doesn’t become a mistake until you refuse to correct it,’ Thiele said of the veto. ’Instead of rejecting the noxious rationale of Benson, [Hochul’s] veto affirmed it. I am ashamed of our state government.’

The State Legislature has one last chance to fix this, by going back into session before the term ends on December 31 and overriding the veto, something that should be easy to do considering the unanimous support the legislation received. But that’s not likely to happen.

Across the generations, the noxious words of a pair of forgettable judges echo still. It would have been so easy to drown them out. Instead, Governor Kathy Hochul has underscored them — to our state’s enduring shame."

First NY State Assemblyman Fred Thiele has been patiently and persistently working on a correction of this injustice for much of his time in office, and it’s time that we, the people, speak up loudly for this wrong to be righted.