Quarter-Acre of Heartache

America will celebrate its 250th birthday in 2026; that year will also mark the fiftieth anniversary of what the late Chief Big Eagle of Connecticut's Golden Hill Paugussett Indians called "the war for the quarter-acre," a battle for one of the oldest (1659) and smallest Indian reservation in America. In July of 1976, at the height of the Bicentennial, while the Chief was tracing the Delaware language in Wisconsin, he learned of a lawsuit challenging the very existence of his tribe. Violence-from arson to bloodshed-soon erupted in sedate Trumbull, Connecticut, testing the limits of local, state, and federal authorities. Noted civil rights lawyer William Kunstler advanced the tribe's legal case, while Clyde Bellecourt and Russell Means, of the American Indian Movement, joined the Chief in the reservation's armed defense. Ultimately, the tribe was victorious, securing the status of the Golden Hill Paugussett Reservation in perpetuity. Quarter-Acre of Heartache uses the voice of Chief Big Eagle to recount the story of his tribe's survival.