sion for the Mashantucket Pequot tribe, proprietors
of the Foxwoods casino, the Sioux on the Pine Ridge
Reservation in South Dakota, site of the famous AIM
protests of the 1970’s and the notorious Wounded
Knee Massacre of 1891, remained among the poor-
est people in America. Three out of four people
were unemployed. Lazarus quotes tribal vice presi-
dent Milo Yellow Hair: “It is like living at the bottom
of a well,... the Great White Father looks down and
says ‘Here’s a few dollars.’”
Complicating matters further, the federal govern-
ment has continued to fail to take responsibility for
the long-standing mistreatment of Native Ameri-
cans. In the 1830’s, during President Andrew Jack-
son’s administration, infamous for the Trail of Tears,
a trust fund was established by the federal govern-
ment to manage income from federal use of Native
American land and other assets. Royalties were sup-
posed to be passed along to the tribes. Though up to
$350 million has been deposited into that account
each year, the money has not been distributed in an
equitable fashion to the tribes in question. When
Keith Harper, attorney for the Native American
Rights Fund, sued the federal government on behalf
of 300,000 Native Americans in the late 1990’s, gov-
ernment officials were unable to explain what hap-
pened to the disbursements. Furthermore, after
U.S. district judge Royce C. Lamberth demanded an
explanation from federal authorities, the U.S. gov-
ernment disclosed that in 1998, 162 boxes of records
had been shredded, making reconstruction of what
happened to the money almost impossible. Though
the shredding was apparently a part of a routine
purging of government records, the documents de-
stroyed contained information on the disbursement
of funds between 1900 and 1958. Furthermore, the
shredding of documents was revealed only after an
attempt on the part of government officials to cover
up the matter.
Impact In 1990, 30.9 percent of Native Americans
lived in poverty, compared to 13.1 percent of the
U.S. population as a whole. In 2000, 25.7 percent of
Native Americans lived in poverty, compared to 12.4
percent of the total U.S. population. Similar discrep-
ancies continue to exist in educational opportuni-
ties: 9.3 percent of Native Americans were college-
educated in 1990, whereas 20.3 percent of whites
were; by 2000, 11.5 percent of Native Americans
were college-educated, compared to 26.1 percent of
whites. Despite the popular perception that gaming
has been a panacea for Native Americans, the major-
ity of Native Americans continue to be an underpriv-
ileged people, seemingly forgotten and abandoned
by the federal government.Further Reading
Hsu, Cathy H. C., ed.Legalized Casino Gaming in the
United States: The Economic and Social Impact.
Binghamton, N.Y.: The Haworth Hospitality
Press, 1999. Though Hsu’s book covers gambling
throughout the United States and not just on
Native American reservations, three chapters
provide detailed analyses of the impact of gam-
bling on Native American reservations. The
book as a whole gives useful perspectives on gam-
ing in the United States, both its history and its
impact.
Jackson, Robert L. “Officials Destroyed Records on
Native Americans.”Los Angeles Times, December
5, 1999, p. 5. Jackson reports on the ongoing suit
concerning the trust fund the federal govern-
ment established for income from Native Ameri-
can land and assets.
Lazarus, Edward.Black Hills White Justice: The Sioux
Nation Versus the United States, 1775 to the Present.
Reprint. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,- The most complete account available of
what is arguably the most famous treaty violation
in the history of U.S.-Native American relations.
Since the matter of the broken 1868 treaty grant-
ing the Black Hills to the Sioux is still not re-
solved, the book is well worth reading for those in-
terested in the continuing failure of the United
States to make good on its promises to Native
Americans.
Staurowsky, Ellen J. “American Indian Imagery and
the Miseducation of America.”Quest51, no. 4
(1999): 382-392. Presents the continuing debate
about team mascots.
H. William Rice
See also Dances with Wolves; Demographics of the
United States; Employment in the United States; In-
come and wages in the United States; Minorities in
Canada; Nunavut Territory; Poverty; Race relations.606 Native Americans The Nineties in America