Ivy League University Gives Property to Native American Tribe

After years of negotiations, Brown University gave a portion of its property in Rhode Island to a Native American tribe. The Ivy League school transferred approximately 255 acres of “traditional cultural property” to the Pokanoket Indian Tribe.

The Tribe claimed ownership of the land after the school commissioned a “cultural sensitivity assessment” of the site, according to a released announcement on November 15. The Daily Caller News Foundation reports that the land was transferred at no cost to the Native American group as part of an agreement reached in 2017 by Brown and the tribe after several Pokanoket people set up a month-long encampment on the university’s property.

“Brown University has transferred ownership of a portion of its land in Bristol, Rhode Island, to a preservation trust established by the Pokanoket Indian Tribe, ensuring that access to the land and waters extends to tribes and Native peoples of the region for whom the land has significance,” Brown wrote in a statement announcing the transfer. “As the ancestral home of Metacom, known also as King Philip — the leader of the Pokanoket people — and the site of his 1676 death during King Philip’s War, the land holds great historical and cultural significance to members of many Native and Indigenous communities.”

“The 1955 letter from the Haffenreffer Family upon the donation of the Mount Hope property to the University noted that the family felt ‘sure that the Trustees of an institution like Brown will not be unmindful of the property’s great natural beauty, its historical background or the best interests of the Bristol community,’” Russell Carey, executive vice president for planning and policy at Brown, said in the announcement. “Those words remain as true and relevant today as when they were written nearly 70 years ago, and the steps we are taking to preserve the land in perpetuity are, we believe, fully consistent with that vision.”

As part of negotiations, the agreement concludes that the Pokanoket Tribe is responsible for any negotiations with any other Native American tribe that may have had, or claim, historical ownership of the land.