Indian tribes strive for self-reliance
Aug. 9, 1999

By LARRY BIVINS
Gannett News Service

For most of Clint Hill’s life, sovereignty and self-determination were vague concepts passed down by elders in his tribal clan.

Today, Hill, 45, understands clearly what those terms mean. As a member of the Oneida Indian Nation’s tribal council since 1991, he has helped forge policies that sparked a gambling-led economic revival for a tribe that once was as poor as any in Indian country.

Now, from New York to California, tribes such as the Oneidas are at the forefront of a turnaround for American Indians — fueled by gambling revenues that have brought new wealth, improved education and health care for thousands.

Fighting for what is essentially an “American dream,” resurgent tribes are taking on a federal government whose agencies for years have mismanaged tribal affairs. They’re challenging Congress on valuable land-and-mineral claims and pressing the courts on sovereignty issues. Several have opened Washington offices to lobby Congress on matters that affect Indians.

“We didn’t get a whole lot of responses when we were making baskets,” said Carol Shanks, a member of the Saginaw Chippewa tribal council in Michigan, during a recent Washington visit.
“We’re not making baskets anymore. We’re making money.”

The successes are far from widespread. American Indians for the most part remain America’s most poverty-stricken minority. Fewer than one in 20 have college degrees, compared to a national average of one out of five. And while economic statistics remain scarce, the 1990 census reported average per capita income in Indian country of $4,478, compared to a national average of $14,420.

But the few tribes that have hit the economic jackpot clearly are leading the way for the rest as they use newfound wealth to benefit other tribes.

In one controversial move, the Oneidas and an equally flush Connecticut tribe have turned down federal subsidies — a first for a group that for decades has depended on financial assistance.

“Even our own people need to be educated about what self-determination is, what sovereignty is,” Hill said as he scanned the lobby of the tribe’s Turning Stone Casino Resort, the only gambling casino in New York state. “I never understood until I started going to council meetings.”

In the mid-1980s, Oneida Nation leaders decided to bet the tribe’s economic future on casino gaming. In the six years since it opened Turning Stone, the tribe has leveraged gambling profits to develop new businesses and improve infrastructure on its 32-acre territory in Upstate New York.

A popular misconception
“Instead of trying to make money just for ourselves, we’re trying to make money for the whole region,” said Hill, a carpenter who spent most of his life in Syracuse before moving to the reservation in 1986.

That’s the kind of self-determination effort most of the country’s 557 tribes can only dream about. Belying a popular misconception, less than a third of tribes run gaming operations. Just eight gaming enterprises accounted for 40 percent of the $4.5 billion in revenue in 1995, according to a federal report.

For most tribes on the country’s 275 Indian reservations, today’s needs are much more urgent than tomorrow’s goals. Many reservations are in rural areas and lack even basic infrastructure.

With a 70 percent unemployment rate, gaming has done little to breathe life into the Pine Ridge Reservation of the Oglala Sioux in South Dakota.

The tribe’s Prairie Winds Casino employs just 100 people and ranks 121st out of 140 gaming tribes in terms of accessible market population, according to a 1998 report by the Economics Resource Group, Inc. in Cambridge, Mass.

“Pine Ridge is more demonstrative of the larger portion of Indian country,” said JoAnn Chase, executive director of the National Congress of Native Americans.

The Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma, for instance, operates bingo halls but pins its hopes for financial stability on an array of businesses, including a radio station and a computer company that provides Internet services.

Chase and others say the abject poverty and poor conditions in Indian country stem from a 150-year period of federal policies that trampled tribal sovereignty and divested tribes of much of their land and culture.

American Indians fought simply to survive. Not until the late 1960s did tribes begin to re-assert their rights. Finally, in 1975, Congress approved the Indian Self-Determination and Education Act, which paved the way for Indian tribes to take over the administration of government-provided services.

For the first time, tribes could contract with the government to run social service programs, law enforcement, road maintenance, hospitals and clinics. In 1988, Congress went a step further, creating a self-governance program allowing tribes to set their own priorities for spending federal subsidies.

But tribal leaders consistently complain such steps are not enough. A federal report released in June agreed, saying Congress underfunded tribes’ administrative costs by $95 million.

Casinos bring independence
Among a host of complaints, tribes say the shortfall has forced them at times to cut salaries, leave critical vacancies unfilled and postpone equipment purchases or repairs.

For a few tribes, such concerns have faded as flourishing casinos bring independence and economic well being.

Tribes turned to gaming after a 1987 Supreme Court decision affirmed their right to run such businesses on Indian trust lands without having to pay state taxes. Since that landmark decision, tribes like the Mississippi Band of Choctaws have matured into savvy entrepreneurs.

The Choctaws have spun off a variety of businesses from gambling, including an auto-parts factory in Mexico. Average annual household income for the 8,300-member tribe jumped to $24,100 from $2,500 over the past 20 years. Unemployment plummeted to 2 percent from 75 percent.

For the Oneida Nation, gaming was an unappealing but wildly successful option.

“We didn’t really want to get into gaming, but it was the only opportunity we had for economic development,” said Ray Halbritter, head of the tribe and chief executive of its enterprises.

Starting with a small bingo hall in the late 1980s, the Oneidas opened its resort in 1993. Besides the casino, it houses a $50 million 285-room luxury hotel, six retail shops and five restaurants. Last year, Turning Stone attracted 3.4 million visitors.

A better life for seventh generation
The tribe now owns six gas stations and convenience stores, a 63-room economy hotel, a recreational vehicle park, a screen-printing shop, a marina and the company that publishes Indian Country Today, a respected national newspaper. Last month, the Oneidas opened a nine-hole golf course and expect to open an 18-hole course next spring.

Employment has swollen to 3,000 people from a handful 10 years ago, spreading jobs to many non-Indians in this economically struggling part of New York. The tribe’s annual payroll exceeds $55 million.

With its new wealth, the tribe operates more than 60 programs to improve life for its members, including early childhood education, meals for the elderly, and a college incentive that has increased enrollment to 120 from just four six years ago. In 1998, the Oneidas spent $1.2 million to build 10 townhomes and have plans to build an additional 20 single-family homes.

In a radical move last December, the Oneidas turned away $2.6 million in annual federal assistance — telling the U.S. government to allocate the money to needier tribes. In June, the Mohegan Indian Tribe in Connecticut did the same.

“What the Mohegans and Oneidas are saying is that they no longer fear the withdrawal of federal support because they feel they have the resources to take care of themselves and they want to put that money where it’s most urgently needed,” said Kevin Gover, a Pawnee Indian who heads the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in the Interior Department.