Recognition
The Ramapough and two other tribes were recognized as Indian tribes in 1980 by the state of New Jersey by Resolution 3031. The New Jersey citation read:
"Be it resolved by the General Assembly of the State of New Jersey (the Senate concurring): 1. That the Ramapough Mountain People of the Ramapough Mountains of Bergen and Passaic counties, descendants of the Iroquois and Algonquin nations, are hereby designated by the State of New Jersey as the Ramapough Indians."
They claim to have been recognized by the State of New York by Legislative Resolution 86 in 1979. But, according to Alexa Koenig and Jonathan Stein, who have reviewed state recognition processes and state-recognized, New York does not have a separate process of recognition of Indian tribes and never recognized the Ramapough. It recognized the Shinnecock and one other tribe under independent criteria.
In 2009 the New York legislature had a bill pending to recognize the Ramapough people as Native Americans.
The Ramapough Mountain Indians (RMI) filed a petition for federal recognition as a tribe in 1978. They did not submit a documented petition until April 23, 1990. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) on June 15, 1990 responded with a letter outlining the deficiencies in the petition. During the process, it repeatedly offered to have representatives meet with the tribe to review avenues of research, specifically court records and land deeds, for the period 1750-1820. The RMI submitted a partial response on January 28, 1991. A fully revised petition was determined to be ready for active consideration on March 5, 1992. The petition was placed on active consideration status on July 14, 1992. In December 1993, the BIA issued its proposed finding, rejecting the tribe's petition. It granted the tribe an opportunity to respond, including extensions, and issued its Final Determination rejecting its petition on December 11, 1995. This survived an internal BIA appeal in 1997 and a federal court appeal in 2001.
Read more about this topic: Ramapough Mountain Indians
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