A New Landscape of Reconciliation: U.S. State Policies and the Maine-Wabanaki TRC

• In Event: Law and Settler Colonialism: Indigenous Sovereignty, Resistance, and Jurisdiction

Abstract

This paper examines the politics of reconciliation as a distinct and rapidly growing area of state activity in the United States. Building on Glen Sean Coulthard’s distinction between the politics of recognition and the politics of reconciliation, I ask what reconciliation is, what goals and motives animate it, and how it manifests empirically. While scholars have analyzed truth commissions in Canada and elsewhere, sociologists have paid little attention to reconciliation efforts within the United States. To begin addressing this gap, I identify reconciliation policies across sixteen U.S. states, including acknowledgements, apologies, commemorations, and truth‑telling initiatives. These policies reveal an emerging landscape of state actions that aim to acknowledge “past” eras of racial and colonial violence while attempting to improve relationships between Indigenous nations and state governments.

The second part of the paper examines the Maine-Wabanaki Truth and Reconciliation Commission (MWTRC), the first state‑mandated truth and reconciliation process between a U.S. state and Indigenous nations. Drawing on archival research and interviews, I analyze how and why the MWTRC emerged and what shaped its structure, goals, and mandate. While other accounts emphasize Wabanaki motivations for mobilizing the commission, the broader context of tribal-state-federal relations has not been fully considered. I show that Maine’s endorsement of the MWTRC was hesitant and capricious, shaped by the unique political and legal landscape produced by the 1980 Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act and the state’s repeated failures to recognize tribal sovereignty. Against this backdrop, tribal leaders pursued the MWTRC as part of a broader effort to increase public awareness and understanding of Indigenous history and presence in Maine.

Taken together, the findings demonstrate that reconciliation is both constrained by longstanding structures of colonial governance and strategically mobilized by Indigenous nations. The paper argues for a case‑specific, critical approach to understanding reconciliation and its role in contemporary tribal‑state relations.

Author

• Katelyn Brook Taylor, Northwestern University