New Jersey stripped the Lenni-Lenape tribe of recognition in the state. They’re suing to get it back.
In the millennia before Europeans arrived in North America, the town now called Bridgeton, New Jersey was a hub for the Lenni-Lenape people who inhabited an area stretching from Delaware to Connecticut. Today, a building that serves as a trading post and tribal headquarters stands on Commerce Street. Its display windows are lined with traditional goods like drums, axes, and a buckskin dress.
A sign in the window informs would-be shoppers that the building is closed indefinitely. The tribe has no money to staff the office following a decision by the New Jersey government to disavow recognition of Native American groups in the state, resulting in the loss of contracts, grants, scholarships, and even the ability to label crafts as “American Indian made.”
“I weave wampum belts and bracelets, an old tradition in our tribe, but I can no more label my belt American Indian made than a kindergartener making a macaroni necklace,” says Rev. John Norwood, a member of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Council and principal justice of the Tribal Supreme Court. “This has been devastating for our people.”
The group is currently embroiled in dual state and federal lawsuits with the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, seeking to force the state to honor a 1982 resolution passed by the legislature which granted recognition to the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape, so-named after a merger with another local tribe, with the explicit purpose of qualification for federal funds.
For decades, the status of the tribe was unquestioned, referenced in numerous communications, statutes, and official actions, according to records compiled by the lawsuit. However, in 2011 the New Jersey Commission on Indian Affairs casually mentioned on a federal survey that the state lacked any state recognized tribes. Then the Lenape began to lose the benefits they had received for 30 years.
The state has sought dismissal of the lawsuits, claiming that the tribe had never been officially recognized in the first place because there was no specific statutory authorization and therefore the status could not have been unlawfully rescinded. Nevertheless, the suits have been given a green light to proceed in both state and federal court. The Attorney General’s Office did not respond to request for comment. In the past, the office has declined to comment on the ongoing litigation.
The real motivation for the state’s action, says Greg Werkheiser, founding partner at Cultural Heritage Partners, the DC-based firm representing the Lenape pro bono, is an unfounded fear that the tribe will pursue gaming venues that could compete with existing casinos in New Jersey.
“This is a civil rights lawsuit,” Werkheiser says. “Due process was violated because there was no process for taking away the benefits they came to rely on for 30 years and there are equal protection claims because we’re alleging that the only reason they’re in this situation is racial stereotypes, that ‘Indian’ equals ‘casino.’”
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