Editing Mashantucket Pequot Tribe (section)

===Present day===
The Mashantucket Pequot reservation was created by the Connecticut Colony in 1666, but only 13 people lived on the reservation by the time of the [[1910 United States census]].<ref>"Thirteenth Census of the United States taken in the year 1910", ''United States Bureau of the Census'', (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1912–1914).</ref> Elizabeth George (1894–1973) was one of the last Pequot living on the reservation and, when she died in 1973, the federal government started planning to reclaim the land which they presumed would be vacated upon the deaths of the last remaining Pequot residents.

[[Richard Arthur Hayward|Richard "Skip" Hayward]], a grandson of Elizabeth George, led the Tribe's efforts in filing a federal land claims suit against the state of Connecticut which challenged the state's sale of {{convert|800|acres}} of reservation lands—an event which had occurred more than 100 years earlier in 1855.<ref name=WithoutReservation>{{Citation |url=https://archive.org/details/withoutreservati0000bene |author=Jeff Benedict |title=Without Reservation: How a Controversial Indian Tribe Rose to Power and Built the World's Largest Casino |access-date=2007-02-14 |isbn=978-0-06-093196-4 |year=2001 |publisher=Perennial |location=New York |url-access=registration }}</ref> The State of Connecticut agreed with the Tribe, and the US Department of Justice entered the suit, as it dealt with Federal issues and the legality of the state action.

On October 18, 1983, President [[Ronald Reagan]] signed the [[Connecticut Indian Land Claims Settlement|Connecticut Indian Land Claims Settlement Act]] which included Federal recognition of the Mashantucket Pequot tribe. They were the eighth American Indian tribe to gain Federal recognition through an act of Congress rather than through the administrative process of the [[Bureau of Indian Affairs]] (BIA) and Department of Interior.<ref>''Mashantucket Pequot Indian Claims Settlement Act'' (1983), S. 366.</ref> The Mashantucket Pequots have since added to their land holdings by purchase and placed the additional lands into trust with the BIA on behalf of the tribe. As of the [[2000 United States census|2000 census]], their total land area was {{convert|2.17|sqmi|km2}}.<ref>[http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=04000US09&-_box_head_nbr=GCT-PH1&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U&-mt_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U_GCTPH1_ST8&-format=ST-8 Connecticut – American Indian Area, Population, Housing Units, Area, and Density: 2000] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20200210224004/http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=04000US09&-_box_head_nbr=GCT-PH1&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U&-mt_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U_GCTPH1_ST8&-format=ST-8 |date=2020-02-10 }}, U.S. Census Bureau</ref>

In 1994 it purchased, and later developed further, what is now known as [[The Spa at Norwich Inn]] in Norwich, Connecticut.