We applaud the effort in Aquinnah to heal a longstanding rift between the town and the tribe.
No one seemed to remember precisely when the two sides stopped meeting, and few could offer a theory as to why. But what seemed very much front of mind now is that the Wampanoag Tribal Council of Gay Head (Aquinnah) gathered Saturday with the executive arm of the town of Aquinnah, the select board, for the first time in decades in what was as described as a “momentous” event.
We commend Kevin Devine, who is the relatively new chair of the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribal Council, elected in November, for extending an invitation to town officials and making this meeting happen. It was something that select board members, tribal and nontribal, have wanted for a while.
The two sides can now set out together and go forward in cooperation to meet the considerable challenges that lie ahead, challenges which we believe neither government can meet alone, such as the pressures caused by overdevelopment, the high cost of living, and threats posed by climate change.
While there’s been some level of coordination between the tribe and town before, Tom Murphy, current chairman of the Aquinnah Select Board, gave credit to Devine, who “opened a door” to have these conversations take on a more purposeful nature by bringing the two forms of government together to meet regularly.
“These are not problems that stop at the boundary between tribal land and town land … We envision an Aquinnah where the town government and the tribal government speak regularly, not only when there is conflict to resolve, but because ongoing communication is simply how neighbors who care for one another conduct themselves,” Murphy said.
While the tribal and town governments are in the same part of the Vineyard, their land abuts the other on nearly every corner. There has been some cooperation, such as intergovernmental agreements, but actually sitting down in an official capacity is rare.
Bolstered cooperation between the tribe and the town was a goal Devine said he had while he served on the tribal council, years before he became chair. He returned to the Island in 2017 after nearly 30 years of service in the U.S. Army, and strove to relearn the tribe’s traditions, in a way showing a bridging of cultures in his own story.
Aquinnah was once an area almost exclusively inhabited by members of the tribe, after the settlement of Europeans on other parts of the Island. But through the years, more and more nontribal residents settled in Aquinnah and shifted the demographics. Then in the late 1970s, voters began to elect nontribal members to the Aquinnah Select Board.
That reality may have been what started the rift, but most of the people our reporters spoke with were hazy on the details. What seemed to be forged as a clear consensus out of the meeting was a renewed commitment for residents to work together to solve shared problems, and particularly to start with three areas they can work on right away. They include: a need not only to dredge but to find a long-term solution to sand buildup at the West Basin, new purpose for the properties at Aquinnah Circle North near the Cliffs, and an assessment of current agreements between the town and the tribe so they can find new ways to work together.
If these problems are addressed through this new spirit of cooperation, then this meeting on Saturday will indeed be remembered for generations to come as a truly historic moment.