many Native Americans during the 1980’s was the
development and expansion of gambling casinos on
tribal reservations. As Cherokee C. L. Henson points
out, gaming has long been a part of Native American
traditions. When tribes in Florida and California
started high stakes bingo games in the late 1970’s,
the state governments tried to intervene to close the
games. When the tribes sued the respective states in
federal court, the courts ruled that if a state allowed
gambling, then reservations therein were entitled to
run gaming establishments without state interven-
tion.
Not popular with the states, this ruling was com-
promised by Congress in 1988, when it passed the
Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA). Seeking to
mediate between the Native Americans and the states,
Congress instituted a system under which both the
states and the tribes felt unfairly constrained. The
IGRA created the National Indian Gaming Commis-
sion, whose approval was required for all manage-
ment contracts. Furthermore, tribes were required
to negotiate gaming compacts with their respective
states if they intended to engage in “Class 3” gaming,
which was defined as any type of gaming beyond
bingo and the like. Since Class 3 gaming is the life-
blood of most casinos, the result of this legislation
was that Indian casinos were regulated by a federal
commission and were always dependent upon states
to approve their contracts. To most Native Ameri-
cans, the law seemed to infringe upon the legal juris-
diction of the reservation, as a parcel of land owned
and governed by the tribe.
Despite the legal issues that confronted Indian
gaming, in time it flourished, growing from a
hundred-million-dollar industry to a multibillion-
dollar industry. Tribes benefited as a group from
these businesses, because they were required by law
to use the income generated by casinos for the gen-
eral welfare of the tribe. Some tribes even distrib-
uted large per capita payments to their members.
Impact Despite the proliferation of profitable gam-
bling casinos on reservations, Native Americans,
who make up only 0.05 percent of the entire U.S.
population, continued to rank among the most
impoverished segment of American society. In the
1990 census, 30.9 percent of Native Americans lived
in poverty, compared to 13.1 percent of the U.S.
population as a whole. Similarly, unemployment on
reservations averaged 45.9 percent, while it aver-
aged 6 percent in the country as a whole. Median
family incomes for Native Americans in the 1990
census were $21,750 as compared with $35,225 for
whites. Similar discrepancies existed among educa-
tional opportunities: Some 9.3 percent of Native
Americans were college educated in 1990, whereas
20.3 percent of whites were. Meanwhile, between
1980 and 1993, rates of alcoholism continued to
be high among Native Americans. Whereas white so-
ciety had a rate of alcoholism of 6.9 people per
100,000, among Native Americans, the rate was 59
per 100,000. Thus, despite grassroots protests and
despite the profit of Native American casinos, Native
Americans remained one of the most deprived seg-
ments of American society.
Further Reading
Henson, C. L. “Gaming in Indian Country.”Ameri-
can Studies Today Online. http://www.americansc
.org.uk/Online/Gaming.htm. In a brief article,
C. L. Henson, a Cherokee and the former Direc-
tor of the Special Education Unit of the Bureau
of Indian Affairs, decries the development and
growth of gaming on Native American reserva-
tions.
Mason, Dale W.Indian Gaming and Tribal Sovereignty
and American Politics. Norman: University of Okla-
homa Press, 2000. Mason examines the issue of
casinos on reservations in the context of tribal
sovereignty and American politics.
Matthiessen, Peter.In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. New
York: Penguin, 1993. Matthiessen’s book is so
controversial in its accusations that it was banned
for a while. It provides an account of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation’s war on the American In-
dian Movement and the conviction and imprison-
ment of Leonard Peltier.
Smith, Paul C.Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement
from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee. New York: Norton,- A useful history of the American Indian
Movement.
H. William Rice
See also Aboriginal rights in Canada, Cher;
Erdrich, Louise; Harp seal hunting; Income and
wages in the United States; Indian Gaming Regula-
tory Act of 1988; Minorities in Canada; Multi-
culturalism in education; Racial discrimination.696 Native Americans The Eighties in America