Revenge of the Pequots (eBook)

How a Small Native-American Tribe Created the World's Most Profitable Casino

Kim Isaac Eisler (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2001 | 1. Auflage
272 Seiten
Simon & Schuster (Verlag)
978-0-7432-1488-9 (ISBN)

Infos

In the mid-1970s, the Mashantucket Pequot tribe had only one member -- an elderly woman who pleaded with her grandson to come live on the impoverished reservation and save it from falling into government hands upon her death. In Revenge of the Pequots, journalist Kim Isaac Eisler tells the remarkable story of how Richard 'Skip' Hayward, then an unemployed ship-worker, granted his grandmother's dying wish, revived the moribund clan, and transformed the Pequots into the richest and most influential band of Native Americans in history.
Established in 1992, Foxwoods Resort and Casino is the world's most profitable gambling establishment, grossing over $1 billion a year at its sprawling complex in the backwoods of Ledyard, Connecticut. Making use of arcane laws and court decisions never intended to benefit Native Americans as they have, Hayward brilliantly laid the groundwork for this staggering economic empire. In a story rife with drama, he challenged a succession of Connecticut governors and such worthy adversaries as casino moguls Steve Wynn and Donald Trump, while forming alliances with Malaysian industrialist Lim Goh Tong, renegade Seminole chief James Billie, and President Bill Clinton. As a result of Hayward's strategizing, for one of the few times in history -- and in a truly ironic reversal -- the bizarre legal structure governing Native Americans actually worked to their advantage in a mainstream enterprise. But the Pequots' meteoric rise to fortune has left many wondering: Is this turnabout fair play?
In this riveting rags-to-riches tale, Eisler deftly explores the wide-ranging issues that have framed the great Native American casino debate and the ramifications of the Native American casino boom in a nation still uneasy about its roots.

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In the mid-1970s, the Mashantucket Pequot tribe had only one member -- an elderly woman who pleaded with her grandson to come live on the impoverished reservation and save it from falling into government hands upon her death. In Revenge of the Pequots, journalist Kim Isaac Eisler tells the remarkable story of how Richard "e;Skip"e; Hayward, then an unemployed ship-worker, granted his grandmother's dying wish, revived the moribund clan, and transformed the Pequots into the richest and most influential band of Native Americans in history. Established in 1992, Foxwoods Resort and Casino is the world's most profitable gambling establishment, grossing over $1 billion a year at its sprawling complex in the backwoods of Ledyard, Connecticut. Making use of arcane laws and court decisions never intended to benefit Native Americans as they have, Hayward brilliantly laid the groundwork for this staggering economic empire. In a story rife with drama, he challenged a succession of Connecticut governors and such worthy adversaries as casino moguls Steve Wynn and Donald Trump, while forming alliances with Malaysian industrialist Lim Goh Tong, renegade Seminole chief James Billie, and President Bill Clinton. As a result of Hayward's strategizing, for one of the few times in history -- and in a truly ironic reversal -- the bizarre legal structure governing Native Americans actually worked to their advantage in a mainstream enterprise. But the Pequots' meteoric rise to fortune has left many wondering: Is this turnabout fair play? In this riveting rags-to-riches tale, Eisler deftly explores the wide-ranging issues that have framed the great Native American casino debate and the ramifications of the Native American casino boom in a nation still uneasy about its roots.

Textauszug

Introduction: The Call from the President On October 18, 1994, in the small town of Ledyard, Connecticut, the chief of the richest and most powerful Native American tribe in the United States strode purposefully into the white construction trailer that served as his temporary office and waited while an operator connected him to the White House. At 10:00 A.M., the call went through and an official-sounding voice told Mashantucket Pequot tribal chairman Richard 'Skip' Hayward to 'stand by, for the president.' A moment of American history as significant as this, Hayward figured, was certainly worth waiting for. At 10:18 A.M., the familiar sound of Bill Clinton's voice came over the line. Their conversation lasted just about thirteen minutes. Clinton began by thanking Hayward for his past generosity, for the chief had recently contributed nearly $500,000 to the Democratic Party to support candidates in the 1994 congressional elections. Hayward told the president how much he had supported his and his wife Hillary's health-care initiatives, and volunteered a little bit of information about the federally designed tribal health-insurance plan. He expressed his hope that the president would support the tribe's request to the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Indian Affairs for help in building a health clinic for members of his fast-growing Pequot tribe. 'We're going to do everything we can to help you,' Clinton promised, emphasizing the word 'you,' in his distinctive Arkansas accent. Hayward also expressed his concern that the president be sensitive about issues of Indian sovereignty and not support any efforts to tax the giant gambling casino that his tribe had recently begun operating. The conversation ended amiably with Clinton's assurances on that score, and the president took the next in his line of calls. Hayward leaned back in exultation. It was a singular moment for Hayward and his tribe, a moment ripe with historical significance. Direct contacts between American presidents and Indian leaders had been rare and controversial going back to the momentous first visit of Oglala Sioux chief Red Cloud and Brul chief Spotted Tail to Washington during the administration of Ulysses S. Grant on June 6, 1870. Seven years later, Red Cloud came to Washington again, this time to negotiate with President Rutherford B. Hayes over the establishment of the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations in South Dakota. In the hundred years since their brutal forced relocation to reservations, American Indians had come to live in abject poverty. Forced into a fenced existence that as historically free-roaming people they did not understand, they watched settlers take more and more of their ancestral lands while they signed treaties they could not read and sold thousands of acres of property for bottles of whiskey that they could not tolerate. Alcoholism, discrimination, and woefully inadequate education steadily stripped American Indians of their dignity, pride, and economic status. The land they were left with was no good for farming, mineral rights were taken away from them, and federal agencies that were supposed to be managing their accounts were stealing from them. The businesses they had tried to start over the years -- smoke shops, museum stores, basket-making companies -- had largely failed, and over time they had become what the government considered impoverished wards of the state. No wonder that since that meeting in 1870, Indian leaders and American presidents had met on various occasions, almost always to discuss what aid the U.S. government could give the tribes. But in 1994, for the first time in the history of Native American...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 25.3.2001
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Freizeit / Hobby ► Spielen / Raten
• Themenwelt: Recht / Steuern ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Recht / Steuern ► EU / Internationales Recht
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Volkswirtschaftslehre ► Mikroökonomie
• ISBN-10: 0-7432-1488-9 / 0743214889
• ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-1488-9 / 9780743214889