One nation two worlds

News that the Narragansetts had entered into a land deal with a Texas banker who financed high-stakes bingo for Indians rocked Rhode Island in 1985.

Charlestown officials mobilized, asking then-Gov. Edward DiPrete to investigate the tribe and prevent a "horror story." The governor set up a review committee.

A Providence Journal editorial appealed to the tribe's "good sense and good citizenship" and called for any tribal land-use plan to include a ban on gambling.

Within the tribe, meanwhile, the land deal fueled a long-running conflict between two factions.

Some say the bitter feud was rooted in the tribe's ages-old clan structure. Others say it was about maintaining the tribe's cultural identity versus working more closely with the non-Indian establishment. Some insist it was about gambling.

The conflict exploded with the news of the bingo talks, which tribal leaders who called themselves traditionalists had conducted without the full tribe's consent. A dissident faction, headed by David Mars, son of the tribe's Christian preacher, replaced most of the traditionalists on the tribal council in early 1986.

Hiawatha Brown, a member of the old council, kept his seat, but his brother John Brown and their uncle, medicine man Lloyd Wilcox, were ousted.

The Brown faction immediately challenged the election results. Throughout that year and beyond, through several disputed elections, both groups claimed leadership. They operated twin governments, elected separate chiefs and held meetings just down the street from each other. Each accused the other of mismanagement, harassment and stealing documents. The federal government and courts were asked to weigh in.

The traditionalists eventually acknowledged working with the bingo promoter, but any potential deal collapsed under the new tribal leadership.

The tribe remained torn through the 1980s. In 1990, the traditionalists resumed power, and the sparring ended -- at least publicly.

"It was a civil war," says Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas, who was not a tribal official at the time but who sided with the traditionalists. "We did what we thought was right, but at the end of the day it was all wrong. Both sides had good points. We should have worked it out."

WHILE THE NARRAGANSETTS feuded, gaming was becoming the "new buffalo" for tribes.

Indian bingo parlors sprouted from Florida to the West Coast. The Seminoles opened one, as did the Oneidas, and the Mashantucket Pequots -- just over the Connecticut line.

Gamblers nationwide flocked for a chance to win jackpots as high as $1 million. Annual revenue was estimated at $100,000 million and climbing, and tribes were eager to expand beyond bingo to card games and slot machines.

More federally recognized tribes began seeking to exercise their sovereignty with gaming.

"Tribes are governments; governments have the right to regulate themselves, unless Congress takes it away," explains Jonathan Taylor, a research fellow with the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.

But as Indian gaming grew, so did opposition. Opponents charged that it would invite organized crime, and other criminal activities. State officials worried that such enterprises, which often did not pay state taxes, would gouge lottery ticket sales and other taxable entertainment.

The Supreme Court sealed tribes' gaming rights in 1987, ruling that states had no authority to regulate gaming on Indian land if such gaming was permitted outside the reservation for any purpose.

In response to the ruling and under pressure from states, Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988. The law was meant to be a compromise between the rights of tribes and the interests of the states. It permitted tribes to operate casinos on their land in states where similar gambling was already allowed. But it required states and tribes to work out the specifics of how the gaming would be conducted.

Unlike casinos, tribes were free to operate bingo in states where it was permitted elsewhere.

JUST 11 MILES from Rhode Island's border, the Mashantucket Pequots were using their bingo profits to provide housing, health care and education to their people. By the early 1990s, they had broken ground on a Las Vegas-style casino that would soon rank among the most profitable in the world.

The Narragansetts were ready to follow suit. In 1991, they unveiled plans for a high-stakes bingo hall on their 1,800 acres in Charlestown under a partnership with Bass PLC, brewers of Bass Ale.

"Our reason for wanting bingo is very simple: We have a tribal government, recognized and acknowledged by the United States, and we have to do the things governments do for their people -- provide such services as health care, housing, social services, child welfare, adult education, employment assistance," explained George H. Hopkins, chief sachem of the Narragansetts, in a letter to The Journal.

A year later, the tribe cast aside the bingo plans for a Las Vegas-style casino proposal.

The news stunned state and local officials and intensified the debate over what -- if any -- authority the state had over gaming on the Narragansetts' land.

"I think it's a bad idea," Gov. Bruce Sundlun told The Journal. "I want gambling limited to the two sites that have been authorized -- Lincoln Greyhound Park and the jai lai fronton in Newport."

Within the month, the state and Charlestown asked U.S. District Court to stop the Narragansetts from building a casino, citing the 1978 agreement that gave the tribe its land. The settlement, which became federal law, placed the 1,800 acres under the state's civil and criminal jurisdiction.

U.S. District Court Judge Raymond J. Pettine ruled in 1993 that IGRA superseded the settlement -- the tribe had the go-ahead to build its casino.

The state appealed, but the General Assembly wasn't taking any chances.

Under IGRA, Indians could have any kind of gambling on tribal land that the state permitted elsewhere. So, after lengthy debate, the Assembly outlawed "Las Vegas nights."

Churches and civic groups could no longer run games of chance, such as blackjack and roulette, for charity fundraisers. An exception was made for bingo and raffles.

A federal appeals court upheld Pettine's decision in 1994 and ordered the state to work with the tribe on gaming.

Sundlun began quietly negotiating with the tribe. The Narragansetts scrapped their Charlestown casino plan and aimed larger. If the state was going in on "a piece of the action," it wanted a bigger moneymaker, Thomas said later.

Sundlun and tribal leaders signed a compact to allow the Narragansetts to build a casino in West Greenwich, subject to statewide voter approval.

The ballot was crowded with four other casino plans, in four other communities, including a riverboat casino in Pawtucket. Voters rejected them all.

THE TRIBE TURNED its attention back to Charlestown. The compact allowed a casino on tribal land if the West Greenwich proposal were defeated -- a provision that would be invalidated the following year by the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

With its casino plans mired in legal challenges brought by Sundlun's successor, Gov. Lincoln C. Almond, and Attorney General Jeffrey B. Pine, the tribe decided to go with a bingo hall, which didn't require state approval.

But Sen. John Chafee dealt the tribe a crushing blow in 1996.

The senior senator sponsored a federal budget amendment that required the tribe to seek statewide voter approval for any high-stakes gambling on tribal land. For the purposes of IGRA, the amendment said, the Narragansetts' 1,800 acres "shall not be treated as Indian lands."

Chafee insisted it merely closed a loophole.

"This is nothing to do with sovereignty," the senator said. "In 1978, the state and the tribe entered into a deal -- the tribe received 1,800 acres of land and in return it agreed to live under the laws and regulations of the state of Rhode Island. A deal is a deal."

To the Narragansetts, it was discrimination: the tribe had been singled out by Congress not to reap the benefits of IGRA.

They held a protest rally at the State House, called "Massacre Revisited."

"That will never heal, never," Chief Thomas says. "If you want to play, play fair."

THE NARRAGANSETTS and Capital Gaming International (which had bought the tribe's early partner, Bass) focused on gaming ventures elsewhere. In February 1998, the tribe began pushing for a casino along the Providence-Cranston waterfront.

Tribal leaders pleaded with the state and city officials to support the plan.

"We are not just any corporation that comes along. We are the Narragansett Indian tribe," Chief Thomas told the Providence City Council. The casino would "break the cycle of poverty that plagues the Narragansett people."

To get on the statewide ballot, the proposal needed only the approval of the two city councils -- until that June, when the General Assembly passed a bill requiring legislative approval as well.

The tribe dropped its proposal, saying the new requirement was impossible to surmount before the November election.

The following spring, the tribe found support in West Warwick. Voters approved a nonbinding referendum, by a 2-to-1 margin, that would allow the tribe to build a casino in their town.

But the House killed a bill to place the casino question on the November 2000 ballot.

House Republican leader Robert Watson, of East Greenwich, told The Journal: "It's based on a false premise that it is economic development. In fact, casino gambling is an economic cancer on an area where it sits, and unfortunately . . . the location is, literally right next door, right against my district."

DURING THE 2002 legislative session, an incensed Thomas accused key lawmakers of pressuring the tribe to drop Boyd Gaming Corp., which had replaced Capital Gaming as its partner, for Harrah's Entertainment.

"We were approached," he told The Journal, "myself and the first councilman . . . by individuals who are very influential within the state, basically letting us know who we should choose as our backer."

The following week, while standing by his earlier statements, Thomas said he would say no more because his tribal council wanted to get the focus back on casino hearings.

But the General Assembly was about to deal the tribe another setback. Lawmakers put the tribe's proposal on hold by launching a study into the "desirability of further gambling" in Rhode Island.

Soon after, Boyd's pulled out of the partnership, noting that the study had effectively killed the casino proposal for at least a year.

The tribe joined forces with Harrah's that December.

The legislative commission recommended in April 2003 that voters decide whether to grant a single casino license. If they voted yes, the state would establish a special "gaming control board" to determine who would build a casino and where.

"This is ludicrous," Thomas said. "If anything, this process will allow the opponents of a Rhode Island casino, like Foxwoods and Mohegan, to spend freely on the referendum question as a protection against their potential loss of Rhode Island dollars."

Lawmakers on both sides of the casino issue had problems with some aspects of the recommendations, and in the end, the General Assembly adjourned without passing any gambling legislation.

This time, the tribe had an alternate plan.

THE TAX-FREE Narragansett Smoke Shop, on tribal land in Charlestown, opened July 12, to a booming business. Customers came from as far as New York for the discounted cigarettes, supplied by the Mohawk Tribe.

Governor Carcieri insisted the tribe was breaking state law by not collecting taxes, and pleaded with Thomas to close the shop.

"You are putting us in a situation where we are going to possibly have a confrontation," Carcieri said. "I don't want this."

Thomas responded that the shop would remain open, but implored the governor to show restraint.

"I said, 'Governor, if you are going to close this, please do it in the courts, I ask you this because emotions are running really high right now . . . because of the way the state has been dealing with us, especially on the casino issue. Let's battle this like gentlemen in the courtroom.' "

Two days later, the shop opened with a bevy of reporters and tribal members expecting a day in court. Anticipation was in the air.

Just up the road, the state police were preparing to serve a search warrant. On the advice of Attorney General Patrick Lynch, the governor ordered troopers to raid the shop.

The confrontation quickly turned violent, ending with eight people hurt and eight tribal members arrested, including Chief Thomas. Televised images of the clash played nationwide, drawing criticism from civil rights groups.

"Finally the racism and the bigotry in this state has been fully exposed," Wilcox, the medicine man, told a gathering of more than 1,000 supporters three days later.

U.S. District Judge William E. Smith ruled in December that the raid was justified. Under Rhode Island law, the cigarette tax falls on the smoke-shop customers, not the tribe, he wrote.

"If this leaves the waters in a turbid state, that cannot be avoided," Smith wrote. Questions of the state's jurisdiction over tribal lands and the tribe's sovereign rights "will be tested in their own time."

NINETEEN YEARS after the tribe's first bingo plans surfaced, it appears Rhode Islanders will play a deciding hand in shaping the Narragansetts' destiny. The House last week joined the Senate in overriding Governor Carcieri's veto of legislation that would put a casino referendum before voters in November.

The quest for a casino is reduced to a simple question with mammoth implications: "Shall there be a casino in the town of West Warwick operated by an affiliate of Harrah's Entertainment in association with the Narragansett Indian Tribe?"