[Federal Register Volume 63, Number 205 (Friday, October 23, 1998)]
[Notices]
[Pages 56936-56938]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 98-28438]


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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Bureau of Indian Affairs


Final Determination to Acknowledge the Match-e-be-nash-she-wish 
Band of Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan

AGENCY: Bureau of Indian Affairs, Interior.

ACTION: Notice of Final Determination.

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SUMMARY: This notice is published in the exercise of authority 
delegated by the Secretary of the Interior to the Assistant Secretary--
Indian Affairs (Assistant Secretary) by 209 DM 8. Pursuant to 25 CFR 
83.10(m), notice is hereby given that the Assistant Secretary 
acknowledges that the Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi 
Indians (MBPI) of Michigan, c/o Mr. D.K. Sprague, P.O. Box 218, Dorr, 
Michigan 49323, exists as an Indian tribe within the meaning of Federal 
law. This notice is based on a determination that the group satisfies 
all seven criteria set forth in 25 CFR 83.7, as modified by 25 CFR 
83.8.

DATES: This determination is final and is effective 90 days from 
publication of the Final Determination, pursuant to 25 CFR 83.10(l)(4), 
unless a request for reconsideration is filed with the Interior Board 
of Indian Appeals pursuant to 25 CFR 83.11.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Office of the Assistant Secretary--
Indian Affairs, (202) 208-7163.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Assistant Secretary's proposed finding 
to acknowledge the MBPI was published in the Federal Register on July 
16, 1997, (62 FR 136, 38113-38115). The 180-day period provided for in 
the regulations for comment on the proposed finding closed January 12, 
1998. Third party comments were received on January 12, 1998, from 
Dennis J. Whittlesey, Esq., on behalf of the City of Detroit. The 60-
day period provided for in the regulations (25 CFR Part 83.10(k)) for 
the petitioner to respond to third-party comments ended March 13, 1998. 
The petitioner responded to the third-party comments, but did not 
submit a response to the proposed finding other than an updated 
membership list.
    This final determination is made following a review of the third 
party comments on the proposed finding to acknowledge the MBPI, of the 
MBPI's response to the third party comments, and of the 1998 membership 
MBPI list. MBPI is informally referred to by itself and by others as 
the Gun Lake Band or Gun Lake Tribe. All references in third party 
comments to that name have been taken as applying to MBPI.
    The 1994 regulations required an evaluation of whether MBPI was a 
previously acknowledged tribe within the meaning of the regulations. 
Because it has been determined that MBPI meets the definition of 
unambiguous Federal acknowledgment in section 83.1, it has been 
evaluated under modified requirements provided in section 83.8 of the 
regulations. Conclusions concerning previous acknowledgment are solely 
for the purposes of a determination of previous acknowledgment under 25 
CFR Part 83, and are not intended to reflect conclusions concerning 
successorship in interest to a particular treaty or other rights. The 
proposed finding determined that Shop-quo-ung was a signatory to the 
1855 Treaty of Detroit. Shop quo-ung's Band received annuity payments 
under that treaty until 1870. This band was antecedent to the MBPI 
petitioner. Therefore, the date of 1870 was used for purposes of the 
proposed finding for previous Federal acknowledgment. The third party 
comments challenged this determination, but did so based on a 
misidentification of the treaty signer in question as another man, 
Sagana, rather than Shop-quo-ung aka Moses Foster, who survived until 
after 1900 and whose subsequent career as chief of the band was well 
documented. This third party specifically noted also the descent of 
``most of the people who attended the Bradley and Salem churches'' from 
Shop-quo-ung's band. These comments do not require a change in the 
determination of previous unambiguous Federal acknowledgment as made in 
the proposed finding, which is affirmed.
    Criterion 83.7(a), as modified by the application of section 83.8 
(d)(1), requires external identification of the petitioner as an Indian 
entity from the date of last Federal acknowledgment. It also requires 
that these identifications make clear that the group being identified 
was the same as the entity which had been previously federally 
acknowledged, but does not require that such identifications 
specifically refer to the Indian entity as a ``tribe.'' The proposed 
finding concluded that MBPI clearly meets criterion 83.7(a), since such 
identifications had been made by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and 
other Federal records such as the special Indian Population schedules 
of the 1900 and 1910 census, by the Methodist Church, by a sequence of 
local and regional historians writing from the 1880's to the present, 
by the WPA guide to the state of Michigan, and by local newspapers. The 
Indian mission church at Bradley in Allegan County, Michigan, and its 
daughter church at Salem were clearly tied to a continuously existing 
Indian entity which predated the 1870 date of previous unambiguous 
Federal acknowledgment and which has continued to exist and be 
identified until the present. Therefore, the conclusion of the proposed 
finding that MBPI meets criterion 83.7(a) as modified by 83.8(d)(1) is 
affirmed.
    Under criterion 83.7(b) as modified by 83.8(d)(2), a demonstration 
of meeting the criterion for community (defined by the regulations as 
``any group of people which can demonstrate that consistent 
interactions and significant social relationships exist within its 
membership and that its members are differentiated from and identified 
as distinct from nonmembers'') is required only for the present day, or 
modern, community. However, the historical and anthropological survey 
of the MBPI provided sufficient evidence that it had constituted a 
historical community as well, which had been centered at Bradley in 
Allegan County, Michigan since the founding of the Griswold Mission in 
1838-1839. The existence of continuous community since the latest date 
of unambiguous previous Federal acknowledgment, 1870, was clearly 
documented by church, census, and other records. The proposed finding 
concluded that at least 50 per cent of the petitioner's members were 
Potawatomi speakers from historical times up through 1957, and that 
since then, the members have come together in significant numbers 
across all family lines, and have maintained a significant rate of 
informal social interaction. The proposed finding concluded that MBPI 
not only met the requirements of 83.7(b) as modified by 83.8(d) at the 
present time, but also that it met the requirements of the unmodified 
83.7(b) from 1870 to the present. This finding is affirmed by the final 
determination.
    The third party comments on the proposed finding argued that modern 
community did not exist in MBPI because of its alleged intention to 
seek trust land in the Detroit, Michigan, area; because of the pre-1992 
presence of MBPI names on the membership list of Huron Potawatomi, Inc. 
(HPI), which was federally acknowledged through the 25 CFR Part 83 
process in 1994; and because numerous MBPI members were allegedly 
dually enrolled with other Michigan tribes.

[[Page 56937]]

    Taking land into trust is a separate issue from Federal 
acknowledgment and does not impact the 25 CFR Part 83 criteria. 
Evidence of enrollment in other tribes may be pertinent to criterion 
83.7(b), but it is not dispositive. Community as defined by the 
regulations involves much more than a formal membership list. A 
substantial body of anthropological evidence clearly showed the 
existence of a distinct community that functioned in the Bradley/Salem 
area even during the years when many residents of that community had 
their names on the membership list of HPI. The relationship of the 
formal membership lists of the two groups was extensively analyzed by 
the HPI proposed finding and final determination as well as by the MBPI 
proposed finding.
    The third party comments alleged that ``scores'' of MBPI members 
carried on the 1994 membership list had disaffiliated from the 
petitioner in order to join another specified tribe, the Little River 
Band of Ottawa Indians. The BIA identified the names of all persons who 
had been included on the 1994 MBPI membership list who were not on the 
1998 MBPI membership list. Of the 49 individuals, there was one 
duplicate entry, three persons in one tribe, five persons not enrolled 
elsewhere, six persons in a second tribe, 11 persons in a third tribe, 
and 25 persons currently enrolled with Little River. The data did not 
indicate that persons formerly or currently enrolled with MBPI (see 
discussion under criterion 83.7(f)) were, as a group, choosing to join 
any other single tribe according to a pattern, or according to major 
family lines or political factions. Eliminating the duplicate entry, an 
analysis of the 48 who disenrolled indicated that their disaffiliation 
had minimal relevance for MBPI's modern community, since the 
disenrollments did not change the character of the group as a whole. 
Therefore, the conclusion of the proposed finding that MBPI meets 
criterion 83.7(b) as modified by 83.8(d)(2) is affirmed.
    Criterion 83.8(d)(5) provides that if a petitioner which has 
demonstrated previous Federal acknowledgment cannot meet the 
streamlined evidentiary requirements provided by 83.8, it may 
demonstrate that it meets the requirements of the criteria in 83.7(a) 
through (c) from last Federal acknowledgment to the present. The 
proposed finding concluded that MBPI met the provisions of 83.7( c) in 
the unmodified form, having maintained political influence or authority 
over its members from 1870 to the present. There as an identifiable 
sequence of leadership throughout this period. During the periods when 
the community did not have a formal governing structure, a significant 
level of bilateral political influence or authority was maintained by 
indigenous ordained and lay ministers through the Methodist Indian 
missions at Bradley and Salem, Michigan. This influence extended to the 
whole community. Additionally, under the provisions of interaction 
between criterion 83.7(b)(2) and 83.7(c)(3), the proposed finding also 
used the existence of sufficient evidence for criterion 83.7(b) for 
MBPI for the entire period since 1870 to provide sufficient evidence 
for criterion 83.7(c) until 1957, and evidence of community after 1957 
also was used as one form of evidence under 83.7(c)(1)(iv).
    The third party comments argued that, ``church activities do not 
constitute the type of ``political influence''' required under 83.7(c). 
However, in the case of several other petitions, the Assistant 
Secretary has accepted church activities as demonstrating the existence 
of political influence or authority within the petitioning group and 
providing a focus of leadership. The Assistant Secretary has also 
accepted informal leadership and forms of leadership other than 
council-type structures in prior acknowledgment decisions. In preparing 
the 1994 revised regulations, the Department specifically rejected more 
stringent requirements of formal political organization for 
petitioners. Therefore, we affirm the conclusion of the proposed 
finding that MBPI meets the requirements of 83.7(c) as modified by 
83.8(d)(3).
    MBPI met criterion 83.7(d) for the proposed finding. No comments or 
new evidence was submitted pertaining to this criterion. Therefore, 
this final determination affirms that MBPI meets criterion 83.7(d).
    The proposed finding concluded that MBPI met criterion 83.7(e), 
descent from the historical Indian tribe. Because this case was 
considered under 83.8(d), MBPI was required to demonstrate descent from 
the federally acknowledged entity as it existed in 1870. All persons on 
the 1994 MBPI membership list, and all persons on the 1998 MBPI 
membership list, descend from persons listed on the 1870 annuity 
payroll for Shop-quo-ung's Band and from persons listed on the 1904 
Taggart Roll, which was prepared by the BIA to determine eligibility 
for Potawatomi claims payments.
    One commenter argued that research in documents prior to a 1839 
payment list discussed in the genealogical technical report to the 
proposed finding might call into question, ``the entire Potawatomi 
identity of the historic bands who comprise the modern Indian entity.'' 
The Assistant Secretary was aware at the time of the proposed finding 
that individual families of the Bradley and Salem communities also have 
Ottawa ancestry. This fact is in accordance with a long-standing 
pattern of intertribal marriages in Michigan. The identity of the bands 
prior to the last date of previous unambiguous Federal acknowledgment 
is not an issue: the MBPI members have clearly established descent from 
the band as it existed as of 1870. Therefore, this final determination 
affirms the conclusion of the proposed finding that MBPI meets 
criterion 83.7(e). After an extensive analysis of the relationship of 
MBPI enrollment to that of HPI under criterion 83.7(f), the proposed 
finding concluded that the MBPI membership was composed principally of 
persons who were not members of any acknowledged North American Indian 
tribe. The adult MBPI members had provided written confirmation of 
their membership in MBPI, on behalf of themselves and on behalf of the 
minors for whom they had legal custody, prior to the issuance of the 
HPI proposed finding and prior to Federal acknowledgment of HPI.
    The BIA verified the 1998 MBPI membership list, concluding that 
only 17 per cent of the current MBPI membership is dually enrolled with 
other tribes. The 17 percent of dually enrolled MBPI members are 
divided among three other federally acknowledged tribes. The membership 
of MBPI is composed principally of persons who are not members of any 
acknowledged tribe. Therefore, this final determination affirms the 
conclusion of the proposed finding that MBPI meets criterion 83.7(f).
    MBPI met criterion 83.7(g) for the proposed finding. No comments or 
new evidence was submitted pertaining to this criterion. Consequently, 
this final determination confirms that MBPI meets criterion 83.7(g).
    This determination is final and will become effective 90 days from 
the date of publication, unless a request for reconsideration is filed 
pursuant to Sec. 83.11. The petitioner or any interested party may file 
a request for reconsideration of this determination with the Interior 
Board of Indian Appeals (Sec. 83.11(a)(1)). The petitioner's or 
interested party's request must be received no later than 90 days after 
publication of the Assistant Secretary's determination in the Federal 
Register (Sec. 83.11(a)(2)).


[[Page 56938]]


    Dated: October 14, 1998.
Kevin Gover,
Assistant Secretary--Indian Affairs.
[FR Doc. 98-28438 Filed 10-22-98; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4310-02-P