The Passamaquoddy and Penobscot Tribes’ Struggle for Sovereignty
There is a general assumption across the country that there are no Native Americans on the East Coast. It is assumed that the Indians of New England were long ago wiped out or forced west. For many, they are no more than a romantic ideology. It is this frame of mind that encourages New Englanders’ resistance to acknowledging a continuous presence of Northeastern Indian tribes. After hundreds of years of extermination, eugenics, racism, and forced migration, it is easier to believe that the indigenous people have been killed off and evicted than it is to concede that these people are still here and are still struggling to regain the rights and recognition to which they are entitled. One of the current sovereignty issues in the Northeast is the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy tribes’ efforts to establish a casino as source of tribal revenue. The debate involves Maine residents, state officials, and Native Americans – each faction contains pro and anti-casino opinions. In the press, though, only some of the topics that are part of the issue are being raised. One of the least publicized elements is the tribes’ plans for the use of casino revenues. Looking at the recent debate through local news sources provides the perspective of Maine residents and how they are reacting to this casino proposal. To better understand the issues surrounding these Maine tribes, Connecticut’s tribal history brings into light the difficulties New England tribes have in dealing with state governments and the general non-Indian populace of the Northeast.
An early treaty between the delegates of Saint Johns in Boston in 1760 demonstrates the type of “Agreement” in which the Passamaquoddy Indians have engaged. This treaty sealed the tribe in a promise to obey guidelines lain down by the Europeans. This is a representation of the type of one-sided negotiating that was being held between the Indians and the encroaching Europeans. As a result, when the boundary line separating the US and Canada was established between Maine and New Brunswick, the traditional territory of the Passamaquoddy Indians was cut down the middle. The Indians were left with no recourse for contesting this decision. To this day, the Passamaquoddy tribes are fighting to regain control over these severed lands and access to sacred lands, burial grounds, and relations (Bulkeley “Treaty”).
In 1790, the Non-Intercourse Act was passed making it illegal for Americans to buy land from Natives without an approval from U.S. Congress. This Act was established to help Indigenous people retain rights to the land they held. Since the ratification of the Non-Intercourse Act, there have been countless transferals of land between natives and Americans. There is a common misconception that treaties made in past centuries are no longer valid, when in fact, treaties concluded two hundred years ago are still legally binding. The idea that laws and agreements made years ago between the government and Native Tribes – such as the Passamaquoddy – are obsolete is just one of the concepts that tribal activists are fighting in order to regain their rights. It was the re-discovery of the Non-Intercourse Act that won these Maine tribes money and land, but also put Maine residents on the defensive. The resurgence of the 1790 Act had the potential to nullify thousands of deeds to Maine real-estate. What the tribes’ were fighting for was not to evict Maine residents, though. They were using the Act as leverage to reestablish sovereignty. The Passamaquoddy did not necessarily want freedom to gaming either, as some assume. Though a casino proposal is one of the issues that is currently being debated, other issues include raising standards-of-living for natives, protecting water quality, gaining access to their own sacred land, and establishing and improving schools for native children. Each of these issues requires money to address and solve. One of the main reasons the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes are fighting to build a casino in Maine is to provide funding for those issues and to support and promote their own native sovereignty. Some citizens of Maine who have been protesting the establishment of a casino are not aware of the motivation behind such an endeavor.
In an interview, when asked how she felt about the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy tribes’ request to open a casino in Sanford, Sarah Joycen, a Maine resident, stated, “I live in Sanford – I just bought my first house. I don’t want to raise my kids in that sort of environment.” When asked if she was aware of the tribes’ plans to use a portion of casino profits to fund improvements to Maine’s environmental status and improve water quality Joycen responded, “No, I did not know that.” Residents of Maine and surrounding states have a wealth of information coming to them from sources such as Portland Press Herald, Bangor News, and Foster’s Daily Democrat. All of these sources have consistently covered the current casino debate focusing on the issues of crime rate, employment, property taxes, and Maine’s revenues. Issues that are not covered are those that apply to the benefit of gaming to the surrounding Native Tribes of Maine as well as non-indigenous Maine residents.
Opponents of the Sanford Casino include Maine Governor Baldacci, CasinosNo!, and 66% of Maine voters (Hait). Opposition to the casino proposal was based on issues such as increased crime, prostitution, gambling addiction, and poverty. There is also a myth that is prevalent in the United States that Native Americans are rich, get “free rides,” and have it easy. This idea is mainly proliferated by the publicity that surrounds the most successful high-stakes gambling establishments such as Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. According to Katherine A. Spilde of the American Indian Studies Center at UCLA, “roughly 190 of the more than 550 federally recognized tribes were running some type of high-stakes gambling operation.” She goes on to say that “the top twenty Indian casinos earn 50 percent of all Indian Gaming revenues” (Spilde, 88). It is a fact that, though some Indigenous people have managed to gain a foothold and be financially successful, the majority of indigenous Americans are not sitting on cash cows. The misconception of American Indians conditions is routed in generalization of Indians as a whole. It is also often overlooked that historically, European settlers and the U.S. Government have caused severe and permanent damage to Native Americans for hundreds of years. The government continues to abuse the power it wields over Indian nations by denying sovereign rights to tribes who wish to be federally recognized, arbitrarily overriding the power granted to federally recognized tribes. It is a relevant argument that “the tribes’ recent gains have not begun to offset their tremendous losses” (Pasquaretta 126). These losses continue to occur and there are still many tribes that remain impoverished including Maine’s Indian nations.
There is opposition to gaming from within the tribes, and not just from non-Native factions. Paul Pasquaretta, an assistant professor at Lyme Academy, College of Fine Arts, discusses the basis for tribal opposition to gambling. “Tribal gambling is viewed with the same suspicion that attends other forces that erode traditional culture and threaten Indian national sovereignty,” (127). The debate within tribes exists between two concepts of the long term result of a Native American casino. One argument is that the establishment of high-stakes gaming will provide Native Americans with the financial resources to increase sovereignty by increasing reservation employment rates, fund recovery of traditional practices, and to buy back tribal lands. An opposing argument is that by opening a casino as a way to increase tribal revenues, tribes are jeopardizing their sovereignty by engaging in a capitalist venture that is only another form of assimilation. Both arguments hold merit and there is no clear black and white answer. Gerald Vezinor, a professor of Native American Literature at the University of California in Berkeley, argues that the use of casinos to earn tribal revenues is degrading the traditional values of Native American tribes. He also states that the inevitable contention of the state and federal government surrounding casinos threatens sovereignty because, regardless of the sovereign rights of any tribe, the federal government has absolute power to discontinue tribal gaming rights or even tribal recognition altogether (Vezinor 412). This more traditionalist view of the impact of Indian casinos is not uncommon. According to Pasquaretta, “Among the Navajo, this traditionalist view helped to defeat a tribal referendum to establish a reservation gambling facility” (127). Vezinor proposes that the use of casino monies be reallocated to an international cause, “The liberation of Kurdish, Tibetan, Haitian, and other families, for instance, would sustain the moral traditions of tribal cultures” (413). Unfortunately, regardless of the purpose the Maine Indian tribes have for casino revenues, the debate currently raging between pro- and anti-gambling factions in the area is covering only the most immediate concerns – those of crime rate and congestion.
These issues are unquestionably legitimate concerns, but only focused on short-term consequences. Removing the blinders in this debate and looking at the larger picture is necessary in order to see the overall improvements that can be made with the income generated to the state and to the tribes. Vezinor’s concept of helping to realize international indigenous sovereignty is a grand, but not impossible notion. On a scale that applies to the lives of Maine residents and the long-term future of Maine, a tribal plan to revive the health of polluted waterways in the state has the potential to improve the health of every resident in the state. This plan can play a key role in widening the perspectives of voters.
Wenona Lola, a member of the Penobscot tribe who lives on Indian Island in Maine, stated in a letter to the Bangor Daily News that Maine’s resistance to an Indian casino is rooted in a fear of a change in power resulting from the tribe’s prospective income; “I cannot help but see that the prospect of Maine’s Indian tribes gaining their own economical control is outweighing any amount of money the state would receive from such a proposal.” Lola responded to a statement made by former Maine state governor King that a casino does not fit the Maine image by asking, “could someone please tell me how polluted lakes, rivers and streams fit with Maine’s image, way of life or values for that matter?”
The Penobscot River in Maine is central to the traditional lifestyle of the Penobscot Indian tribes. This river contains dangerous levels of mercury, dioxins, and PCBs which can cause birth defects and harm brain and nervous systems. An advisory issued by the Penobscot Nation Department of Natural Resources states that, “all children under the age of 8 and women who are nursing, pregnant, or could become pregnantâÂ?¦should eat NO FISH from Penobscot Nation Territory waters and other Maine inland waters”(“Penobscot Nation Fish Advisory” par 1). Those who do not fall into these categories are advised to consume no more than one meal of freshwater fish per week, and in some areas, no more than one meal per month. The PNDNR is currently working on plans to help improve the conditions of this waterway and have made substantial progress funded by grants and by partnering with groups such as Maine Audubon and American Rivers. In a recent victory for the Penobscot River Restoration Project, “PPL Corp. of Allentown, Pa., agreed to sell its Great Works Dam in Old Town and the Veazie and Howland dams to the coalition for $25 million, with a promise that the groups would not fight the company’s efforts to re-license its other dams”(Edgecomb par 7). The Restoration Project now has five years to raise the money for the agreement. In addition to the money needed to fund the purchase of these dams is, the cost of removing the three damns will be another $25 million. One of the most dammed rivers, the Penobscot has twenty hydropower dams located along its length. The removal of the Great Works, Veazie, and Howland dams will make the river more habitable for dozens of species of freshwater fish that would normally spawn upriver. Increased water flow will help cleanse the pollution from the waterway as well as reduce the water temperature making the river more hospitable for fish species (“Questions and Answers” par 10-11). There are more rivers in Maine that contain pollution that threaten the health of Maine residents, and in the long run, if they continue to degrade unchecked, recreation such as fishing, hiking, swimming, and boating will have to be severely regulated to protect public health. The seven paper mills situated along riverbanks release 100 million gallons of wastewater a day into the river (“Maine’s Dioxin Problem” par. 18). Issues such as dams and mill waste can be solved, but only with time, dedication, and funding. As an issue that affects all Maine residents, this is a point that is most often ignored in the casino debate. There is more at stake than just the impact a casinos would have on local communities. Residents need to consider how casino could help to rescue the Maine way of life.
Aside from the argument that casino money would improve the quality of life for Maine residents, it cannot be ignored that after hundreds of years of Euro-American suppression of Indigenous peoples, the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy’s request to establish a casino is a small one. Kim Isaac Eisler states in his book “Revenge of the Pequots” that “in the hundred years since their brutal forced relocation to reservations, American Indians had come to live in abject poverty.”(14) However, by the end of his book, after giving an extensive history and current events timeline of the Mashantucket Pequots, Eisler finishes by citing the monumental accomplishment of the Pequot Nation that used the United State’s own legal system against them after hundreds of years in which that same legal system had been used against Indian nations. His conclusion is conflicted, though. Eisler acknowledges the victory of the tribe, but finishes by saying, “[The Pequots] had created a new modern-day paradigm that changed the face of the country-not Native American, but Casino-American.”(242) It is this ambivalence that pulls at many people who are involved in the debate.
After the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot’s proposal to build a casino in Maine was vetoed by Maine citizens with a 2 to 1 margin, the tribes chose not to relent. It was evident that the residents could not be so vehemently apposed to gambling as they seemed, because while the casino was voted against, in the very same referendum, the request to allow slot machines at racetracks was passed. (“Citizen’s Guide to the Referendum” q. 2-3) This inconsistency in convictions of Maine residents has many different implications. In response to this ruling, the Maine Indian Nations are pursuing a different avenue. In a partnership with the Connecticut Pequot tribe, the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy tribes bid for Bangor Historic Track Inc. when it underwent a change of ownership. The Bangor track was the only establishment in Maine to gain a slot machine permit after the vote. When the tribes submitted their bid, according to an article in Indian Country Today, the tribes’ submission was barred by the Maine Harness Racing Commission on the grounds that their proposal was late, “Judge Mead said he rushed the judicial process to avoid disrupting the harness racing season”(Adams, “Roundup” par. 3). Later he said that it was clear that the tribes were responding to the competition the slot machines would pose to their own gambling operations: the Penobscot tribe runs a high-stakes-bingo hall. Tribal attorney Kaighn Smith said that the Maine Harness Racing Commission was “very abrupt. Very abrupt. They see the Indians as spoilers,” he said (Adams, “Fallout” par. 5).
In a correspondence, Nicholas Peroff acknowledges the conflict that exists for both pro and anti-gaming activists, “an undermining of traditions/tribal values is a significant concern of those opposed to gaming as well as many who support gaming. The latter may see/acknowledge a danger, but nonetheless also see gaming as worth the risk in terms of a trade off for economic development opportunities, income for tribal members etc.” Despite the ambivalence that many have over the issue, it seems imperative to point out that, though Native Americans may experience an alteration to traditional ways as a result of establishing gaming, without gaming, many tribes may continue to be plagued with problems such as poverty, lack of education, and alcoholism because there is no money available to start finding solutions to these issues. Regardless of whether a tribe runs a casino to fund their nation or sells baskets to tourists, they will continue to be affected by and changed by American influence.
As a group that is looking for a way to fund programs to improve the environment and the way of life in Maine, the state’s indigenous tribes are hardly acting with greed or self-indulgence. While providing revenues to improve the financial situations of Maine’s Indian Tribes, a casino would also double the state’s income by paying the state twenty-five percent of its profits in taxes. There is an argument that gambling will target low-income people and result in addiction and alcoholism. It seems the state of Maine does not have an issue with these problems when encouraging gambling in the form of the Maine Lottery. There are many different arguments that can be made for and against a casino in Maine, but ultimately it must be observed that the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy tribes have the right to exercise their nation’s sovereignty.
