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Should Maine be doing more to acknowledge the sovereignty of its indigenous tribes?
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Sponsored by: GoNetspeed, a fiber internet provider

Since long before the state was a state or even part of one, Maine has been home to nations of indigenous people. Today, that relationship continues to make news.

On Nov. 17, Gov. Janet Mills met with representatives of the Wabanaki tribes to discuss how the Legislature might expand their rights to self-governance. Under an $82 million legal settlement reached in 1980, Maine tribes do not have the sovereign status that hundreds of federally recognized tribes across the U.S. enjoy.

The meeting came days after the state's legalized sports betting market opened for business, an enterprise granted almost exclusively to the Maine tribes — the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, the Mi’kmaq Nation, the Penobscot Nation, and the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township and at Sipayik. 

Also in November, a national conservation group announced plans to turn over nearly 30,000 acres of northern Maine woodland to the Penobscot Nation.