Despite casino cash, many tribes face issues

Susan Haigh

HARTFORD, Conn. — When people think of American Indians living in Connecticut, the glitzy and financially successful casinos owned by the Mashantucket Pequots and Mohegans typically come to mind.

But state lawmakers were told last Wednesday that most American Indians in the state don’t belong to those two prosperous, federally recognized tribes. Many face serious issues, ranging from a lack of sewers and drinking water on some state reservations to difficulties in retrieving tribal remains and artifacts.

“In effect, Connecticut’s Native Americans, who are actually the very first citizens of the state and the colony, have no voice in government to meet their many needs that are specific to Native Americans,” said Lucianne Lavin, director of research and collections at the Institute for American Studies in Washington, Conn.

Lavin testified before the legislature’s Environment Committee, supporting a bill to create a new legislative commission that would advocate for American Indians in Connecticut. It would also help promote communication and cooperation between the tribes, and between the tribes and the state.

Proponents said it would operate similar to the existing, state-funded African American Affairs Commission, Permanent Commission on the Status of Women and other entities.

Under the bill, the new commission for American Indians would replace the existing Indian Affairs Council, which has not met in years.

Proponents also said an autonomous commission would be more useful to American Indians living in Connecticut than the state Indian affairs coordinator, who works for the Department of Environmental Protection and handles matters concerning the five Indian reservations.

That employee, Ed Sarabia, works at the behest of state government, not the tribes, lawmakers were told.

“He has to swim against a mighty stream to help the Indians in Connecticut. He has to watch what he says,” said Mark Sebastian, vice chairman of the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation in North Stonington.

Sebastian credited Sarabia with helping his tribe install a water pump recently that helped provide water to about five families.

Rep. Brendan Sharkey, D-Hamden, author of the bill, said Connecticut’s legal challenge of some tribes’ federal recognition petitions has soured relations between the state and many American Indians living here. He said the commission would be a way to repair that relationship and ensure that American Indians receive the help they need.

According to the 2003 census, about 17,200 people in the state identified themselves solely as American Indians. There were roughly 33,000 people who identified themselves as part-American Indian in Connecticut.

The state has historically recognized five tribes: the Eastern Pequots, the Golden Hill Paugusetts in Trumbull and Colchester, the Schaghticokes in Kent, the Mashantucket Pequots in Ledyard and the Mohegans in Montville.

Bruce Miller of Hamden is a member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians. He told lawmakers that three years ago, authorities in Hamden kicked out a sacred fire and pushed over a sacred altar during a ceremony.

Federal law, he said, protects such American Indian ceremonial rights.

“They said, ‘What’s that you’re smoking in your pipe? Is that wacky tobaccy?’ People in this state have no idea of our spirituality,” Miller said. “Where do we go? Where do we go as native people?”

(Associated Press)