Mashpee Tribe v. Secretary of the Interior

BREYER, Circuit Judge.

The appellants in this case are Indians who seek declaratory judgments confirming recognition of their tribes and acknowledging the tribes’ “Indian title” to certain land in southeastern Massachusetts. “Indian title,” also known as “aboriginal title,” is the right of Indian tribes to use and *482occupy “lands they had inhabited from time immemorial.” County of Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation, 470 U.S. 226, 234, 105 S.Ct. 1245, 1251, 84 L.Ed.2d 169 (1985) (Oneida II). Termination of this title requires consent of the sovereign. See id.; Oneida Indian Nation v. County of…