Narragansetts, in casino battle, say they carry on ancestors’ fight

Michael Mello

Monday, Aug. 21, 2000 | 3:55 a.m.

CHARLESTOWN, R.I. - Just across the state border from the Narragansett Indian reservation, two Indian-run casinos took in almost $1.8 billion last year.

Connecticut's Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos pay for programs to help Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribal members attend college, buy homes and preserve their culture.

The Rhode Island tribe has the same casino dreams, but lives a different existence from its Indian neighbors. The Narragansetts say one-quarter of their people are in poverty and nearly half the able work force is jobless.

Frustrated by a decade of failed efforts to build a gambling hall in Rhode Island, the tribe is vowing to push forward, despite some state leaders' public opposition to their plan.

The Narragansetts have started a longshot petition drive to try to put their $500 million West Warwick casino plan before voters. Tribal leaders, meanwhile, continue working to unite their 2,400 members behind the idea that they, like their ancestors, are victims of government oppression and racism.

"We need economic development. We're adamant to do gaming because of what has happened to us. We're scarred," Matthew Thomas, the tribe's chief, said, walking where 17th-century Narragansetts fled after a bloody attack by a Colonial militia on an Indian winter camp.

The allegations of racism grew even more pointed during this year's House Finance Committee debate, which ended with the panel voting against putting the casino proposal on the November ballot. Tribal members compared the attitude of some lawmakers to that of Southern segregationists.

House Finance Committee Chairman Antonio Pires, D-Pawtucket, bristles at the suggestion.

"It hurt me to be compared to George Wallace," he said.

But the Narragansetts see a direct connection between their past and present struggles.

The Colonial attack known in tribal lore as the Great Swamp Massacre began a three-century descent to near oblivion, including a period in the 1880's when the state detribalized the Narragansetts.

Surviving members thought the tribe's fortunes would improve with the establishment of a reservation in 1978. Federal recognition in 1983 spurred further hope but the years since have not brought the prosperity they envisioned.

Tribal infighting and battles with government officials over casino plans and land-use issues, including a tribal housing project in Charlestown, have stalled efforts to help the poorest Narragansetts. In need of jobs, dozens of Narragansetts work at neighboring Connecticut casinos and the businesses around them.

The tribe's reservation has business offices, a health clinic and a community center, but no taxable business or residents. Thomas says there is no money for needs ranging from day care and housing to jobs and social services. The tribe says it can't even afford electricity for a church that serves as a spiritual center of the 1,800-acre reservation.

A rusting fire hydrant surrounded by overgrown grass on the unoccupied Charlestown housing project symbolizes another chapter in the Narragansetts' history of dashed dreams.

The tribe won a multimillion-dollar federal grant in 1988 to build the first 50 homes on tribal land. The tribe used up most of the money building only a dozen homes and a federal audit found the structures unlivable. The tribe wants to finish the project but doesn't have financing.

Gov. Lincoln Almond, a gambling foe, is trying to stop the tribe from adding the parcel where the homes are to the reservation, fearing the tribe might put a casino there.

The Narragansetts had another disappointment in court in a years-long effort to win the same rights to build a casino as other federally-recognized tribes nationwide.

The 1978 settlement allowing the Narragansetts to regain reservation land in Rhode Island required the tribe to follow state gaming regulations, which restricts the Indians' ability to build a casino on its land. Voters must approve any casino plan.

A court reims of poverty and high unemployment. The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs has no recent employment statistics for the tribe. The Narragansetts, meanwhile, think town officials want to control them.

"There is virtually no communication," said Charles Beck, president of the Charlestown Town Council. "I don't know how to make it better."

The tribe, and its Las Vegas financial backer, tried to speak to Rhode Islanders this year through an aggressive public relations campaign explaining what the Narragansetts felt was discrimination against them.

The approach drew mixed reactions from state lawmakers.

Pires doesn't accept the argument that a casino opportunity would help right past wrongs. "They are owed the same courtesy and respect we would have for any citizen," he said.

The Finance Committee vote was about money, not racism, Pires said.

The state is a 50 percent partner in the operation of video lottery terminals in Rhode Island, but would have received only about 25 percent of the projected annual casino revenues, he said.

State Sen. Charles Walton, D-Providence, has a different view.

"I am ashamed we did not allow them to get their issue before voters," said Walton, who is black. "We have thwarted their basic rights. It almost takes a page out of slavery."

How most tribal members feel about the casino and their leaders' ongoing fight with state and local officiao you are."