Narragansett land claim
"[3] The Narragansett received federal recognition in 1983 and have unsuccessfully attempted to establish a Native American gaming enterprise.
[8]Next, the court reviewed the power of a sachem to conclude a land conveyance, remarking that they exercised "absolute monarchie over the people.
"[12] Only out of a desire to avoid conflicts with neighboring colonies, the court proceeds, did Williams obtain a royal charter for Rhode Island in 1643 or 1644.
[13] The court next reviews a 1644 document by which the Naragansett's purported to "submit, subject, and give over ourselves, peoples, lands, rights, inheritances, and possessions whatsoever, in ourselves and our heires successively forever, unto the protection, care and government" of the King of England.
"[16] The court details the opposition of Williams and Rhode Island to the 1659 Atherton purchase from the Narragansett (through the sachem Coginaquand) by settlers from Connecticut.
[19] Due to the expenses of this dispute, the opinion claims, the Rhode Island legislature in 1707 authorized a survey to identify vacant Naraggansett lands.
[20] The opinion next reviews the Rhode Island statutes which prohibited the acquisition of Indian lands without the consent of the colony.
[28] According to the court: The hold of the Narragansetts, even in civil matters, grew more and more feeble, and they gradually became more and more dependent upon the state, until their moribund condition as a tribe became apparent even to themselves.
[31] The act called for the purchase of all remaining tribal lands and reservations, dissolved the tribe, and ended all law's conferring special legal status on Narragansetts.
[32] The opinion briefly considers the mentions of Indians in the Articles of Confederation and United States Constitution and finds no obstacle to the 1880 act in those texts of the U.S. Supreme Court's jurisprudence up to that time.
[38] The court rejected all the defendant's affirmative defenses: laches, statute of limitations/adverse possession, estoppel by sale, operation of state law, and public policy.
[41] The court also rejected the defendant's attempts to rebut the elements of the tribe's prima facie case.
[43] Finally, the court held that the proviso of the Nonintercourse Acts between 1793 and 1802—relating to "Indians living on lands surrounded by settlements"—holding that the proviso was only "addressed to transactions by individual Indians living in 'white' settlements and has no application to land to which a tribal right of occupancy is claimed.
"[47] The defendants also filed a motion to dismiss, claiming the suit was a nonjusticiable political question, which the court denied.
[48] Citing Baker v. Carr (1962), the court found that the action did not meet the elements of a political question.
[49] In a second opinion for the consolidated cases, Judge Pettine rejected the defendant's motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction on the basis of the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution.
[50] Pettine found that the tribe's claims fell with the Ex parte Young (1908) exception to state sovereign immunity, citing Supreme Court precedents involving suits over possession of land.
[58] The Act also required the Governor to negotiate for the tribe an option to purchase additional privately held lands, exercisable by the Secretary for the tribe, with the option payment not to exceed 5% of the fair market value of the lands and the total price not to exceed the amount of the settlement fund.
[4][63] After the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (1988), the RICSA was amended to render the lands non-gaming eligible in 1996.
