Southern Cherokee’s remove casino boat, seek tribal gambling

Tuesday, July 4, 2000 | 10:52 a.m.

During the weekend, the group sailed a gambling boat, 40 feet by 120 feet, up to Lake Marion. The boat was loaded with slot machines, gambling tables, roulette and other types of Las Vegas-style equipment.

State Department of Natural Resources officers boarded the Magic Mermaid and then called the State Law Enforcement Division to investigate.

After a meeting Sunday that lasted more than five hours with SLED and the state attorney general's office, the boat was headed back to Jacksonville, Fla. Officers who inspected the vessel found no violations of state watercraft laws.

Robb McBurney, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said he suspected the tribe had ulterior motives when it brought the boat to South Carolina waters.

"We imagine (the tribal leaders) were looking to initiate some kind of legal action," McBurney said.

Tribal Chief Gary Ridge said he doesn't want a lawsuit, he just wants South Carolina to grant the tribe the recognition it needs to operate the casino boat and build an amusement park. Gov. Jim Hodges has not responded to last month's request, he said.

The boat's owners have paid $7 million for 120 acres near Santee on Interstate 95 to establish a reservation for the tribe and for the theme park. Ridge won't identify the investors other than to say they "have nothing to do with any of the gaming industry in South Carolina."

The Southern Cherokee Nation has applied for federal recognition because it can't run gambling operations without it, Bureau of Indian Affairs spokesman Gary Garrison said.

Without the recognition, the tribe also cannot put its lands into a trust, Garrison said.

"They are gambling on the fact that they will be federally recognized," Garrison said. "Buying the land doesn't mean anything. All they are is a group of individuals who have bought land. They may or may not ever be federally recognized."

Tribal recognition can take years, Garrison said. It took the Little Shell, a Chippewa group in Montana, 109 years to gain that recognition, he said.

"We could care less about the BIA," Ridge said. "What are they going to do for us?"

Ridge said the 4,000-member tribe, which fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War, never lost its federal recognition since it signed a cease fire with the federal government at the end of the war.

Garrison said that doesn't hold any weight with the group's recognition by the government.

"I don't think anybody recognizes anything about the Confederacy. They lost the war," Garrison said.

The Magic Mermaid is one of two gambling boats that the tribe plans to use to raise money. A second 3,000-passenger casino boat was en route Saturday to the Arkansas River in Oklahoma. Ridge said two U.S. Supreme Court decisions have said the river belongs to the Southern Cherokee Nation.

The Cherokee Nation, one of three federally recognized Cherokee tribes, is worried the Southern Cherokee Nation will bring them trouble in Oklahoma.

"If (the casino boat) shows up, I don't know what's going to happen. It's going to be in violation of all sorts of laws," said Mike Miller, spokesman for the 200,000 Cherokee Nation.

Miller said he could imagine headlines in the news '"Cherokee group arrested for running illegal operation.' It's not us, but everyone in Oklahoma will think about us."

On the Net:

Southern Cherokee Nation: http://www.southern-cherokee.com

Cherokee Nation views on Southern Cherokee: http://www.cherokee.org/press-release/2000/jun/28.htm

Bureau of Indian Affairs: http://www.doi.gov/bureau-indian-affairs.html