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Last week, the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation began efforts to reestablish the only federal Indian reservation in Illinois, formally confirming the tribe’s governance over its land. The move could have wide-ranging impacts on matters ranging from criminal justice to climate and environmental jurisdiction.
The Prairie Band Potawatomi have spent years purchasing land in northern Illinois where the Shab-eh-nay Reservation once existed, and last week, the nation turned 130 acres of those lands over to the Department of Interior, or DOI, to hold in trust — a bureaucratic process that legally establishes tribal governance and opens tribes up to a range of benefits including tax credits, federal contract preferences, and land use exemptions.
“Now those lands are subject to our laws, our jurisdiction, and the nation determi... Read more
