What is Federal Recognition? Federal recognition describes the political relationship that exists between the United States and many American Indian tribes.  When the federal government recognizes a tribe, it acknowledges a government-to-government relationship with that tribe --  a relationship very much like that which exists between the United States government and foreign states.  Federally recognized tribes are actually sovereign nations within the borders of the United States.  This concept of Indian sovereignty is centuries old: first the colonial powers and later the young United States government acknowledged that Indian tribes were sovereign entities entitled to self-government and other rights.  What does federal recognition mean, in practical terms? It means that, by and large, federally recognized tribes have the right to govern themselves, subject to the control of Congress.  They have the right to determine their own laws, provided these laws do not violate federal laws.  Federal recognition also allows tribes to benefit from government programs that provide funds for health, education, and housing.  One of the most significant benefits of federal recognition is that it enables tribes to sue in federal court for lands taken illegally by states and individuals. The Indian Trade and Intercourse Act of 1790 This act, signed into law by President George Washington, regulated commerce with Indians and prohibited the sale of Indian land without the approval of the United States Government.  The 13 original states on the East Coast regarded themselves as immune to the law, however, and over the course of nearly two centuries, they purchased or took outright thousands of acres of Indian land without the approval of Congress.  In 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the Indian Trade and Intercourse Act did indeed apply to the 13 original states, and this decision allowed the Mashantucket Pequots and other East Coast tribes to sue for the return of lands that had been illegally taken from them in the intervening 200 years. While many American Indian tribes are federally recognized, many others are not.  Sometimes this difference is simply an accident of history.  For instance, many western tribes attained official recognition as a result of treaties with the United States government.  But a number of tribes on the eastern seaboard never signed such treaties with the United States because they had relationships with the individual British colonies long before the United States came into being.  In the 1970s, several of these tribes, including the Passamaquoddy tribe in Maine, the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe on Cape Cod and, of course, the Mashantucket Pequot tribe of Connecticut, decided to seek federal recognition by filing land-claim lawsuits in federal court -- suits that would force a judge and jury to decide whether these tribes were entitled to the same legal status as tribes already recognized by the United States Government.  Though not all of these efforts were successful, together they paved the way for the establishment of a formal process by which an Indian tribe can apply for federal recognition through the Bureau of Indian Affairs rather than through the courts.