BOOK REVIEWS: Revenge of the Pequots

         A new book sheds light on the inner workings and political influence of the Mashantucket Pequots, the tiny Connecticut American Indian tribe which has grown into the nation's richest.

The book, ''Revenge of the Pequots,'' discusses how racial strife has reworked the leadership of the tribe, which runs the enormously profitable Foxwoods Resort Casino in eastern Connecticut.

It also talks about how Lim Goh Tong, the Malaysian casino mogul who is one of the world's richest men, came to finance the start-up of the casino.

Author Kim Isaac Eisler, the national editor of Washingtonian magazine, said he was not trying to stir up controversy with the book, but wanted to tell the story of how the tribe came to be flush with casino cash.

In the book, he coins the term ''Casino American'' to describe the Pequots.

A Casino American is ''a member of an Indian tribe that was created only to own a casino, and without which there would be no tribe,'' Eisler said in an interview about the book.

Tribal leaders have not seen or read the book and would not comment on it, a tribal spokesman said.

The book, published by Simon & Schuster, is scheduled to go on sale Feb. 16 for $25.

''Revenge of the Pequots'' relates the familiar story of how Skip Hayward the grandson of the last Pequot to live on the reservation was able to pull the tribe together, then use the court system, Congress and the state government to become a casino mogul.

Unlike another recent book on the tribe, ''Without Reservation'' by Jeff Benedict, Eisler's book does not assert that the Pequots are illegitimate, or that Congress was duped into giving the tribe a lucrative land deal.

''Skeptics could and would argue endlessly about whether the new Pequots were or were not authentic Indians, although no one had questioned their right to declare themselves Pequots when they were poor,'' the book states.

The book discusses, however, how factions of Pequots with strong ties to the Narragansett Indians of Rhode Island, led by tribal chairman Kenny Reels, have pumped up the Pequots' membership rolls and taken over leadership of the tribe.

Reels and his family are of mixed African and American Indian blood, leading to racial strife with Hayward and some of his supporters, who have white and Indian forebears, and the white Atlantic City, N.J. experts that managed the casino when it began.

The book questions the way the Pequots decide who is or is not a member of the tribe. Federal law allows each tribe to decide that issue on its own.

''It's indisputable that there wasn't really a tribe,'' Eisler said. ''The story here is the resurrection and creation of a tribe.''

The casino's original financier, Lim, is revealed in the book to have given the Pequots a $60 million loan to build Foxwoods. In return, Lim got interest on the loan and 9.99 percent of the casino's net profit until 2018.

Lim and the tribe also created the Two Trees Partnership to co-own a hotel just off the reservation, but within the shadow of the casino. The deal got around federal law that forbids foreign entities from owning businesses on American Indian reservations.

The book presents a more historical look at the tribe, from Colonial days to the present, as opposed to Benedict's book, which uses a narrative style, recollected quotes and reconstructed scenes to put readers in the middle of the story.

Benedict said he has read ''Revenge of the Pequots'' but would not comment on it.

                  The Rebirth Of A Nation, Take II

                  By Bethe Dufresne - More Articles
                  Published on 2/4/2001
http://www.theday.com/news/ts-re.asp?NewsUID=81FF87EA-504D-4325-9854-CE4B2FF3CA29

The second book from a major publisher to chronicle the amazing rebirth of the Mashantucket Pequot tribe has arrived in some local bookstores, and like its predecessor, “Without Reservation,” it's unlikely to turn up in the gift shops at Foxwoods Resort Casino.

“Revenge of the Pequots,” by Kim Isaac Eisler, creates a far more flattering picture of the tribe's resurgence than Jeff Benedict's “Without Reservation,” which disputed the tribe's genealogical authenticity as well as its right to the land beneath Foxwoods. No such charges are lodged here.

Eisler's flattery, however, is almost wholly reserved for Skip Hayward, the tribal leader without whom there would probably be no modern-day Mashantucket, and for Tom Tureen, the pioneering Maine lawyer who taught Hayward how to make the law work wonders for him.

Kenneth Reels, the Mashantuckets' current leader, is portrayed as an ungrateful opportunist who switched from the Narragansett to the Mashantucket tribe, through Hayward's intervention, then padded tribal rolls with his own family members and plotted to oust Hayward from power. Not surprisingly, Reels isn't listed among the author's sources.

Racial rivalry between the predominantly black Reels family and the predominantly white Hayward family, the hard topic that won't go away, is touched upon, but Eisler is more concerned with the politics of Indian gaming than the politics of Indian identity.

Hayward, the author says, gave him one half-hour interview during which Hayward confirmed certain details in the book. Once again, however, we have a major book about the Mashantucket Pequots with very little direct input from tribal members ­ not that authors haven't sought to interview them.

Needless to say, this leaves significant information gaps, giving rise to endless speculation. Cynics say the tribe has a lot to hide; sympathizers say the tribe has a lot to fear. Yet another book on the Mashantuckets is reportedly in the works. It will take much more reporting, in any event, and probably many years to get a clear picture of this complex turnabout in American history.

Local people will find no big revelations in “Revenge of the Pequots” (Simon & Schuster, $25), which is obviously directed at a national audience unfamiliar with the genesis of Foxwoods and its owners. Still, it's a smooth read that skillfully assembles a lot of information about the power struggles and territorial battles that shaped this remarkable development, from the 17th century through the 20th.

Eisler doesn't doubt that some tribal members, specifically Hayward and his family, have a “remote” genealogical link to the 17th century Pequots who narrowly escaped extinction at the hands of English colonists and their Indian allies. Unlike Benedict, he doesn't critically examine the 1983 Settlement Act by which the U.S. Congress recognized the Mashantuckets.

Eisler's focus is squarely on the all-American success story of Skip Hayward, a former Electric Boat welder who used the tools he had ­ an abandoned reservation, a nation enthralled by “Dances with Wolves” ­ to create a brand new entity on the American scene.

With a mixture of journalistic cynicism and winner-take-all enthusiasm, the author winds up characterizing the Mashantucket Tribal Nation as “a new modern-day paradigm that changed the face of the country ­ not Native American but Casino-American.”

Again and again, Eisler emphasizes the Mashantuckets' phenomenal luck at coming along when they did, while sympathy for Native Americans was at its height and knowledge of the federal laws governing Native American tribes was at a minimum. While Eisler doesn't suggest, as Benedict did, that the Mashantuckets didn't deserve federal recognition, he seems to concur with Benedict that the politicians who approved the deal had no idea what they were doing.

Eisler interviewed some of the local people who are fighting to limit the size of the Mashantucket reservation and preserve their quiet rural lifestyle, but he's not a southeastern Connecticut insider, like Benedict, who grew up in Waterford. Benedict bonded with these people, whom he portrays in “Without Reservation” (HarperCollins) as the newest victims of big money influence.

Eisler theorizes that mainstream Americans, who've come to Foxwoods in droves, feel a lot better about gambling on an Indian reservation than they do about gambling in Las Vegas or Atlantic City. Instead of putting money into the pockets of Steve Wynn and Donald Trump, Foxwoods customers can fantasize that they're actually helping to make amends for all the wrongs ever done to Native Americans.

Although Eisler never questions Hayward's idealism, he suggests that the tribe's $200 million museum devoted to Pequot history, a project dear to Hayward's heart, has the added benefit of assuring Foxwoods gamblers that, by funding this tiny tribal nation, they're supporting a broad noble cause.

As national editor for Washingtonian magazine, Eisler has made the gambling industry, Native American and otherwise, his specialty. His chronicle of the Foxwoods phenomenon is sophisticated in its business and political reporting, but simplistic in its attitude that it's about time the Indians came out on top.

Ever since America got wind of Foxwoods, pundits everywhere from academia to late night talk shows have embraced the idea that this casino metropolis and those that have followed it constitute just revenge for all the horrors inflicted on Native Americans throughout history. The irony of it all is certainly neat ­ especially when viewed from a safe distance.

Up close, however, revenge invariably turns out to be a messy business.
 
 

                    © 1998-2000 The Day Publishing Co.
 

BOOK REVIEWS:  INDEX