[1] The following is based upon "Proposed Finding Against Federal Acknowledgment of the Webster/Dudley Band of Chaubunagungamaug Nipmuck Indians" (Oct. 2001)[5] and reiterated in the "Final Determination to Decline Federal Acknowledgment of The Nipmuck Nation" (June 2004)[6] and as such represents the views of the Department of the Interior and may differ from the views of Nipmuc Nation representatives.
As such, the Nipmuc Nation does not meet the Federal criterion which requires that it has been identified as an American Indian entity on a substantially continuous basis since 1900.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Zara Cisco Brough, then the owner of the Hassanamisco Reservation property, created a number of lists of Nipmuc Indians.
The evolving governing documents and membership lists of the period from 1961 through 1979 expanded the definition of the Nipmuck group beyond the Hassanamisco to include families.
The available evidence did not indicate to the government's satisfaction that the Nipmuc Nation maintained political influence over its members as an autonomous entity from historical times until the present.
Fifty-three percent of the members (277 of 526) descend from six families ('Jaha, Humphrey, Belden, Pegan/Wilson, Pegan, Sprague) that were identified as Dudley/Webster Indians in 1861.