Tuesday, July 20, 2004 | 9 a.m.
CHARLESTOWN, R.I. -- Myra Brown-Perry remembers listening as a young woman to tribal elders who went to their graves without seeing the revival of the Narragansett Indian Tribe.
"I haven't seen much prosperity" either, said Brown-Perry, 72, as she fiddled with a puzzle while waiting to serve lunch at a tribal meals center.
It's been 26 years since the state turned over settlement land to the tribe's 2,600 members. They expected self-sufficiency and cultural rebirth. Instead, they've been frustrated by high unemployment and an inability to develop housing or businesses on their 1,800 acres.
A year ago this month, state police shut down a tax-free smoke shop in a violent raid captured by television cameras and seen across the state. Ironically, the humiliating defeat, which the tribe is appealing in court, may have boosted the Narragansetts' chances of realizing a bigger dream: to reap some of the billions of dollars raked in each year by tribal casinos.
The tribe's long pursuit of a casino has led to an uneasy coexistence with neighbors and state leaders, who have fought to ensure the tribe remains bound by state law.
"It is a detante, like the U.S. and Soviets used to have," said Joe Larisa, assistant solicitor for Charlestown in charge of Indian affairs, of the town's relationship with the tribe. "I wouldn't call it friendly or at war."
Unlike other federally recognized tribes, the Narragansetts can't build a casino on their own lands without voter approval because they agreed to be subject to state law.
The agreement was part of the 1978 Rhode Island Settlement Act that gave the tribe its land near Charlestown. The tribe has argued that federal recognition in 1983 made it a sovereign nation, superseding the terms of the settlement law.
The pursuit of gambling riches began in the mid-1980s, when a bingo hall was proposed on its ancestral lands. Those plans were scrapped in 1992, when the tribe decided to go for a casino.
In 1994 voters turned down the tribe's proposal to build a casino in West Greenwich. For the last five years, West Warwick has been the tribe's preferred location.
Charlestown officials worry the tribe will someday try to build a casino near its settlement land, on 31 acres where a tribal housing project has stalled. The state and town are appealing a court order placing the land in federal trust.
The last two governors, including current Gov. Don Carcieri, have strongly opposed any casino in the state.
But the raid, which resulted in the arrest of at least seven tribal members, "generated sympathy and awareness for (the tribe's) cause," University of Rhode Island political science professor Maureen Moakley said.
The tribe traces its decline back to a 17th century attack by a Colonial militia on an Indian winter camp. The attack, known as the Great Swamp Massacre, scattered remaining tribal members across the region. In the 1880s the state stripped the Narragansetts of their status as a tribe.
Dark-skinned tribal members such as Hiawatha Brown, among those arrested in the raid, say they grew up being treated like they were not the equals of their white neighbors.
"There were racial slurs, many people have never accepted" the tribe, he said last year.
But last week the tribal councilman said negative public reaction to the raid "has opened some political doors." Brown cited state lawmakers' support last month, after years of opposition, to put the casino question on the statewide ballot in November.
"The driver of this issue is that the people of Rhode Island should have the right to vote," said House Finance Chairman Steven Costantino, D-Providence, after his committee approved the bill.
Opponents won't go quietly. The governor has vetoed the casino bill. And while lawmakers are expected to override that veto, Carcieri has asked the state Supreme Court to weigh in on the constitutionality of a referendum.
Carcieri believes the casino is a bad deal for the state and tribe. Harrah's Entertainment Inc., with whom the tribe's partnered, would own it. The tribe would be paid an annual fee estimated in the first year at $15 million to $20 million.
"They are being taken down the garden path by Harrah's," Carcieri said. "If Harrah's came in without the Narragansetts, this would not be where it is today."
A month before last year's raid, Carcieri visited the tribe's settlement land to discuss economic development.
The talks were quickly forgotten after the raid. Carcieri said the tribe hasn't shown interest in anything but a casino since.
Moakley said if the tribe is again thwarted in its efforts to develop a casino, "it would be a devastating blow ... because it is unlikely they'll achieve any economic development that could come close to the revenues that come with gaming."
Yet tribal leaders say a casino is merely a means to an end -- providing jobs for its members and money to pursue other business opportunities.
And they'll continue to fight, should they fall short again, Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas said.
"We've been dealing with the state for hundreds of years," Thomas said. "That's not going to stop."
Brown-Perry has long dreamed to see the housing project completed. Twelve unfinished houses and six concrete foundations sit boarded up and surrounded by overgrown brush.
"I was hoping to move in" to one of them, she said wistfully. "But we're still battling just to have something."
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