WASHINGTON – A legislative fix to the U.S. Supreme Court’s “very terrible and bad” Carcieri ruling should provide a clear and solid affirmation that all federally recognized tribes past and future have an inalienable right to trust land – and it should be enacted by the end of this year.

That was the message Cedric Cromwell, the chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, brought to a consultation session with Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Larry Echohawk in Arlington, Va. July 8.

The session was one of three consultation meetings the federal agency has held with Indian nations to get their input on potential legislation to repair the high court’s damaging February ruling that the Interior secretary does not have the authority to take land into trust for nations federally recognized after the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act.

Land into trust opponents are already taking advantage of the ruling to try to stop Indian nations from securing the land they need for economic development, housing, health care, education facilities and their citizens’ other social needs.

In Tulsa, for example, City Councilor Bill Christiansen began organizing a fight against efforts by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation to place two parcels of land into federal trust, arguing the city would lose more property and sales taxes if the BIA grants more land into trust for the tribe.

The Carcieri land into trust roadblock is particularly ironic for the Mashpees, given that their ancestors were the indigenous people who met and welcomed the first wave of English settler-colonists on the shores of Cape Cod in 1620, helping them survive the harsh northeastern woodlands winter.

“That’s one of the reasons why Americans are here today. The Supreme Court did something very terrible and bad in its Carcieri decision, and I can’t understand how they can sleep at night knowing what they did was so hurtful to our people,” Cromwell said. “All federally recognized tribes should be able to take land into trust via the secretary of the Interior Department, retrospectively and prospectively, now and hereafter, so that someone does not manipulate the Indian Reorganization Act again, because that’s exactly what the Supreme Court did.”

The Mashpees received federal recognition in 2007 after spending 32 years in the BIA queue.

When the first settler-colonists arrived in the “New World,” the Wampanoags’ dominated the southeastern part of what became Massachusetts and their territory extended from Narragansett Bay and the Pawtucket River to the Atlantic coast, including Nantucket and what became Martha’s Vineyard.

Today, the tribe is landless. But the inherent sovereignty of Indian nations is land-based, Cromwell said.

“You take land into trust so that you can be a sovereign and provide for your people. It shouldn’t ever be two classes of Native American peoples – nations with land in trust and those that don’t have land. The 1994 amendment to the Indian Reorganization Act said just that – that all tribes should be treated equally.”

In his written testimony, Cromwell asked Echohawk to support immediate legislative relief through Congress to ensure that all federally recognized tribes have full and equal access to the benefits of the IRA.

“Indian country needs the active support of the Interior Department and of the rest of the Obama administration. We ask that the administration formally request that Congress act on a legislative fix by this fall. We seek a commitment to work with the House and Senate to ensure that the legislative fix becomes law by the end of this year.”

Cromwell said all the nations are speaking with one voice on the issue, and the Interior Department appears to back them up.

“Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar said he wants a fix for the situation and before they do the fix, he asked the Assistant Secretary Echohawk and Interior Solicitor Hilary Tompkins to get out there and have these consultation sessions. So I’m hopeful, because before they make any decision they do have to hear from the tribes around what our concerns are.”

It was the first time Cromwell presented testimony to the federal agency. Elected in February, Cromwell replaced former Chairman Glenn Marshall, who was convicted on various charges of embezzlement and sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison after pleading guilty in February.

A week before the Washington area consultation session, Cromwell was decked out in a feathered headdress and ribbon shirt, drumming and dancing at the Mashpee Wampanoags’ 88th Annual Powwow, a three-day event over the July 4 weekend.

A former senior directing manager at Fidelity Investment where he handled a $100 million portfolio, Cromwell said the transition from tribal mode to Washington mode is nothing new. He said Indians have had to be successful navigating both worlds for a long time.

“I wore a suit in Washington; however, I wore a wampum bolo to represent who I am as a Mashpee Wampanoag. Growing up in Boston, I was always a Mashpee living in an Indian household in the middle of an urban environment. The theory is one foot in a moccasin and one foot in a shoe. Native Americans have to be able to interpret and understand the non-Native world to be successful in the non-Native world, which dominates our environment. It’s like speaking two languages.”

The pow wow was a huge success, drawing more than 7,000 people from all over the northeast and beyond.

A high point of the event is the unique Mashpee fireball game, a traditional medicine game played on Saturday night after dark in which two teams of players throw, grab and kick a flaming ball of fire made of kerosene-soaked deer skin and other materials by a tribal member. Teams score by getting the ball past a goal post.

Cromwell said he played the game this year for his father, who passed away.

The pow wow theme of “honoring tribal medicine” was particularly appropriate for the tribe, which is trying to heal the wounds and divisions left in the wake of Marshall’s criminal activities.

“Honoring tribal medicine was really understood and received well by folks,” Cromwell said. “It’s important for people to walk away with good feelings about the tribe.”