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Pignatelli expects 'no hiccups' when lawmakers consider returning tribal documents

Months after the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, voted to return historic documents to the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe, town officials have mailed the paperwork to get the legal process started.

The 18th century documents include an announcement of a meeting, signed by tribal leaders, to regain control of land distribution, which had been dominated by the English.

It took five months for Stockbridge to send a certified copy of the Town Meeting vote approving the return of all documents created by the tribe before 1870 to state Rep. Smitty Pignatelli.

Existing state law requires all towns to keep certain historic documents. Pignatelli said he thinks a bill giving the town permission to return the documents will pass with "no hiccups at all." Still, he wants to talk about it with Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin.

"He is in charge of our archives, these historical documents. And is it a good idea to give up such a historic documents?" Pignatelli said. "But right now, as a home rule state, and a home rule petition, I would not anticipate any issues at all with the Legislature." 

Pignatelli said he expects to file the bill by the middle of December.

Nancy Eve Cohen is a former NEPM senior reporter whose investigative reporting has been recognized with an Edward R. Murrow Regional Award for Hard News, along with awards for features and spot news from the Public Media Journalists Association (PMJA), American Women in Radio & Television and the Society of Professional Journalists.

She has reported on repatriation to Native nations, criminal justice for survivors of child sexual abuse, linguistic and digital barriers to employment, fatal police shootings and efforts to address climate change and protect the environment. She has done extensive reporting on the EPA's Superfund cleanup of the Housatonic River.

Previously, she served as an editor at NPR in Washington D.C., as well as the managing editor of the Northeast Environmental Hub, a collaboration of public radio stations in New York and New England.

Before working in radio, she produced environmental public television documentaries. As part of a camera crew, she also recorded sound for network television news with assignments in Russia, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba and in Sarajevo during the war in Bosnia.
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