Earlier this month, a federal judge granted the Shinnecock Indians one of their biggest victories since English settlers arrived in Southampton four centuries ago -- in a rare decision, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Platt decided the Shinnecocks were a bona fide Indian tribe. In the weeks since Platt's ruling, Newsday magazine has examined the hundreds of documents that make up the tribe's application for federal recognition to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is pending. The documents include a 19th-century pastor's handwritten history of his Shinnecock parish; a genealogical tree tracing tribe members' births, deaths and marriages back to 1800.
New York Newsday now has now published a story of the tribe from the 1600s to the present. Future articles will document the changing role of women in the tribe, the history of the Shinnecock Presbyterian Church and the tribe's ongoing struggle to define its identity.
You can read the first article now on Newsday's web site.