Issue 001 · May 10, 2026
Wisconsin's tribal nations and commercial gambling interests are at odds over a state legislative proposal to legalize online sports betting, with tribes arguing the bill would undercut the exclusivity provisions in their gaming compacts. WPR has been tracking this story, which sits at the intersection of sovereignty, economic development, and the state's long-standing compact relationships with tribal governments. The compacts were hard-won; any erosion of exclusivity has real fiscal consequences for nations whose governmental programs depend on gaming revenue.
Background
· 2024
· stockbridge-updates
Shannon Holsey has served multiple terms as Tribal President of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. Her tenure has spanned a long compact dispute with the State of Wisconsin over revenue payments and the Ho-Chunk Beloit casino proposal, a 2019 federal court loss on the rival casino challenge, and ongoing leadership at the National Congress of American Indians, where she has served as a vice president.
Background
· 2023
· heather-bruegl
Heather Bruegl, Oneida Nation citizen and first-line descendant of Stockbridge-Munsee, serves as Director of Cultural Affairs for the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. She curated the touring exhibit Muh-he-con-ne-ok: The People of the Waters That Are Never Still and speaks widely on Indigenous history, policy, and truth-telling in museums. Her doctoral research at UW-Green Bay centers the responsibility of cultural institutions to tell Indigenous history truthfully, and she sits on the boards of the Wisconsin Federation of Museums and AASLH.
Background
· 2023
· new-england-public-media
In January 2023 a new Massachusetts law authorized the town of Stockbridge to transfer eighteenth-century documents to the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohicans of Wisconsin, including a 1780 document signed by tribal leaders describing the tribe's efforts to regain control of land distribution. The transfer joined an ongoing repatriation of objects from the Berkshire Museum and other Massachusetts institutions and built on Rose Miron's scholarship of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation Historical Committee's decades of archival activism.
Background
· 2022
· teach-lang-wisconsin
The Stockbridge-Munsee Community now runs language revitalization programs in both of its recognized languages, Mohican and Munsee. The Cultural Affairs Department has produced an extensive Mohican video series using Total Physical Response, in which words attach to physical movement to aid retention. The programs sit alongside the archives of the Arvid E. Miller Memorial Library and Museum, the largest collection of Mohican documents and artifacts in the world.
Background
· 2020
· north-star-mohican-casino-resort
Since opening in May 1992 in Bowler, the North Star Mohican Casino Resort has grown into the economic engine of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community, with more than 1,000 slot machines, table games, weekly bingo, a hotel, and tournament golf. The casino sits at the heart of a decades-long compact-and-revenue dispute with the State of Wisconsin, including Stockbridge-Munsee's call on Governor Walker to enforce compact terms after Ho-Chunk's Beloit expansion.
Background
· 2018
· uw-milwaukee-eqi
Named for Electa Quinney, the first public schoolteacher in Wisconsin and a Stockbridge-Munsee citizen, the Electa Quinney Institute at UW-Milwaukee is a teacher training and Indigenous education research center. Its work partners directly with Indian Community School, Milwaukee Public Schools, and tribal-level education programs across the state. The institute closes a gap the 2013 chapter could not have known would matter so much: how to prepare teachers — Native and non-Native — to serve the urban Native classrooms that Wisconsin's relocation history created.
Background
· 2014
· wisconsin-academy
Patty followed Indian Nations of Wisconsin with Native People of Wisconsin (2003), a social studies text for younger readers, and Seventh Generation Earth Ethics (2014), profiles of twelve Indigenous Wisconsin stewards including Joe Rose, Dot Davids, and Walter Bresette, which won the Midwest Book Award for Culture. Her PBS documentary Way of the Warrior aired nationally in 2007 and 2011, drawing on her grandfather Edward DeNomie's WWI service with the 32nd Red Arrow Division. The decade between INW editions produced the body of work the third edition now sits alongside.
Background
· 2010
· Native American Rights Fund
In 2010 the State of New York and the Stockbridge-Munsee Community settled the tribe's land claim by transferring 330 acres in Sullivan County in the Catskills plus 2 acres in Madison County, in exchange for the tribe's release of its larger 23,000-acre claim near Syracuse. New York granted the tribe rights to develop a Catskills casino, which the tribe withdrew in June 2014 amid competition from Orange County developers. The Sullivan County land remains in the tribe's ancestral Munsee homeland.