MASHANTUCKET, Conn. -- Hundreds of years ago, the Narragansett Indians scoured Narragansett Bay for fish, quahogs and clams. Yesterday, the tribe launched a new business based on that coastal tie.
The wholesale company, Narragansett Tribal Seafood Co-op, will sell lobster, flounder and other seafood to tribes, restaurants and businesses. Several private investors and a Narragansett seafood company will work with the tribal-owned company.
"Seafood and the Narragansetts. This is a natural for us," said Tribal Councilwoman Paulla Dove Jennings.
The tribe announced the new business -- one of several it plans to launch in the next few months, members say -- at the annual meeting of the United Southern and Eastern Tribes at the Foxwoods Resort Casino.
"Years ago, lobsters and crabs and quahogs were so plentiful," said Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas. "We survived on a seafood diet. It's been a part of our history."
Thomas, who addressed the conference yesterday morning, talked about sovereignty and the July 14 raid on the tribe's tax-free smoke shop in Charlestown. But before his talk, he introduced Mike Murphy, a salesman for the new company.
Murphy held up a large purple logo showing an Indian with a spear, superimposed over a map of Rhode Island. "The finest seafood products in the nation," he said.
The tribe's economic development commission worked on the business for more than half a year, Jennings said. During that time, members also worked on other business plans, including the Narragansett smoke shop.
"There are a few more ventures planned," said Scott Perry, vice chairman of the commission. "The state needs to understand we're not just about gaming and tobacco."
Although Governor Carcieri earlier offered to help the tribe launch nongaming companies, Perry said the state wasn't involved with the seafood venture.
In addition to selling local seafood, the tribe will also sell sole and flounder from the Netherlands along with farm-raised shrimp from Vietnam and Indonesia, Perry said. He would not name the tribe's investors. "We know it will be a viable business."
Perry, Jennings and other tribal members pitched the business from a booth in a Foxwoods ballroom, part of the annual meeting and business expo. A plate heaped with lobsters, shrimp, ice and lemon wedges crowded a small table. Tribal members collected business cards from attendees and handed out a list of seafood items, including scallops and swordfish steaks. The tribe plans to take orders through a Web site.
"We need to make as much money as possible, to help pay for all these suits brought against us by Charlestown and the state," Jennings said. "It's economic development. Unfortunately, it's going for legal expenses" rather than to help tribal members with health, housing and other needs, she said.
Over the past few decades, the tribe has considered a number of businesses, including bottling spring water on the tribe's land. On July 13, the tribe opened a tax-free tobacco shop on Route 2. But Carcieri said the tribe could not sell cigarettes without collecting state taxes, and ordered the state police to close the store. Tribal leaders -- who said they would only recognize federal papers -- resisted state troopers who tried to serve a state warrant, and the raid quickly escalated into a melee in the store's parking lot.
Dave Nicholas, a special law enforcement agent with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, told convention goers that the issue of sovereignty is "too important" to be resolved in a parking lot. The raid pitted state police officers against federally recognized tribal police, placing both "in a tenuous situation," he said.
The day after the raid, a newspaper referred to the tribe as "defiant" in a headline, Thomas said.
"We were not being defiant. We were simply doing what we have an inherent right to do. The state ignored our status as a sovereign nation and threw our leaders to the ground. That was an awful thing to feel," said Thomas, who said the raid recalled the tribe's early history, when Colonial soldiers "quartered our sachems and stuck their heads on poles."
Thomas urged leaders at the conference to form a committee to help tribes protect their sovereignty. At the tribe's request, the conference will sponsor a sovereignty and civil-rights rally at the casino today from 3 to 5 p.m., in the Grand Pequot Tower. "If they did it to us, they're going to do it to you," Thomas said.
In fact, state and federal officials are chipping away at tribal sovereignty everywhere, said U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., of New Jersey.
Pallone, a member of the Native American Caucus, said Oklahoma, Maine and New York are trying to impose taxes on tribal businesses "in an effort to increase revenue." Connecticut is trying to prevent some tribes from being federally recognized, he said.
Lawmakers have made some progress in recognizing the needs of Native Americans, and may increase the money tribes receive for health care, he said.
But "the threat to Indian sovereignty . . . is the greatest threat to Indian country," Pallone said.
During a break in yesterday's program, Thomas said he has asked Carcieri to meet with him, in part to quash a rumor that the tribe wants to build a casino on 32 acres in Charlestown. The land, in federal trust, is earmarked for housing, he said.
"We need to discuss this mythical casino, which has produced unwarranted attacks" on the tribe, Thomas said. "We're going after West Warwick for a casino. We've been trying to get into West Warwick for years."
The Charlestown casino rumor, Thomas said, is being used "to beat us up and chip away at our sovereignty."
DIGITAL EXTRA: Find out more about the Narragansett Indian tribe, the state's raid on its tribal smokeshop and its aftermath, at:
http://projo.com/extra/2003/smokeshop/
