Geography
The Mashantucket Pequot Indian Reservation is a land base held in trust by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in Ledyard, Connecticut, in New London County, in the Norwich-New London metro area, and on the Pequot River, now known as the Thames River. The Tribe also has about 3.47 acres (14,000 m2) of off-reservation trust land in the town of Preston. The Pequot reservation was created by Connecticut Colony in 1666. Over time it had been reduced to less than an acre (4,000 m²), and the Pequot population reached a nadir of 20 or 30 in population in the early 20th century.
In 1976 the Mashantucket Pequot brought a successful lawsuit that contested the illegal appropriation of reservation lands by the state of Connecticut. They went on to expand their reservation by purchase. They placed repurchased lands into trust on behalf of the tribe with the BIA.
Their total land area as of the 2000 census was 2.17 square miles (5.6 km2).
Read more about this topic: Mashantucket Pequot Tribe
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