Narragansett Indians

The Narragansett people are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Today, Narragansett people are enrolled in the federally recognized Narragansett Indian Tribe, headquartered in Rhode Island. Their Narragansett language belongs to the Algonquian language family. The tribe was nearly landless for most of the 20th century but acquired land in 1991 and petitioned the Department of the Interior to take the land into trust on their behalf. This would have made the newly acquired land officially recognized as part of the Narragansett Indian reservation, taking it out from under Rhode Island's legal authority. In 2009, the United States Supreme Court ruled against the request in their lawsuit Carcieri v. Salazar, declaring that tribes which had achieved federal recognition since the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act did not have standing to have newly acquired lands taken into federal trust and removed from state control.