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Native Americans
Definition Members of any of the aboriginal
peoples of the United States
Despite the economic success of casinos on certain Native
American reservations, Native Americans as a whole con-
tinued to be one of the most disadvantaged segments of
American culture during the 1990’s.
Early English settlers, such as the Pilgrims at Plym-
outh and the subsequent Puritan settlers at Massa-
chusetts Bay Colony, divided Native Americans into
“good Indians” and “bad Indians.” Early American
novelists, such as James Fenimore Cooper, provided
the same simplistic analysis, celebrating the virtues
of the “good Indians” while portraying the “bad In-
dians” as sly and untrustworthy. From the Native
American point of view, European contact cre-
ated similar divisions. Some tribal members became
“reservation Indians,” Native Americans who de-
pended on government handouts for survival, of-
ten falling prey to that most destructive of the
white man’s gifts—alcohol. Others, such as the
famed Sioux warrior Crazy Horse, lived the old
way. They were known as “traditionals.” Even in
the protests of the 1970’s and 1980’s, this division
in Native American life continued. In organizing
protests, such as the occupation of Mount Rush-
more in 1971, the American Indian Movement
(AIM) became the organization that represented
traditionals. On the other side of Native American
life were those who sought to accommodate them-
selves to American culture. Some of them became
victims of alcohol or drugs. Others figured out ways
to make large sums of money through casinos. Sig-
nificantly, the divisions lasted into the 1990’s, and
Native Americans remained a population of people
who were divided, discriminated against, and disad-
vantaged.
Indian Gaming In the 1999 afterword to the reprint
of his 1991 bookBlack Hills White Justice, Edward Laz-
arus points out the stark irony of the phenomenal
rise of gaming on Native American reservations:
“But such benefits and success provide cold comfort
to the vast majority of Native Americans, who like
the Sioux, reap little money from gaming and will
suffer immeasurably from a growing popular per-
ception—what Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell
(the sole Native American in Congress) has called
‘the Foxwoods myth’—that Indians all over the
country are now getting rich by exploiting the
vices of the white man.” Statistics support Lazarus’s
observation.
The improved economic status for tribes that
have introduced and profited from gaming is unde-
niable. In an essay fromLegalized Casino Gaming in the
United States(1999), Carl Boger, Jr., and colleagues
report that the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connect-
icut, opened in 1986, had created 9,500 jobs by 1993.
With an average salary of $35,000 per year, these jobs
paid some $2,000 more per year than the average job
in the area. Moreover, each casino job created
roughly 1.23 noncasino jobs through the increased
flow of people into and out of the area. Each of
those jobs decreased reliance of those in the area on
government programs and increased area home val-
ues. Boger and colleagues estimate that for every
1,000 new jobs, 175 recipients of Aid to Families
with Dependent Children (AFDC) were removed
from government rosters. These statistics reflect
the impact of one casino, the Foxwoods casino that
Senator Campbell alluded to in his statement.
Precise measurement of the economic impact of
casinos on Native American life is impossible since
Native Americans are not required to report their
earnings. Nonetheless, that gaming has been a
boon to those tribes that have developed casinos is
undeniable.
Still, the other side of the issue is significant. Ca-
sinos divide tribes and divide the Native American
population as a whole. Casinos bring with them in-
creased crime rates and an abandonment of tradi-
tional ways, much to the dismay of some tribal mem-
bers. Further, for Native Americans as a whole, they
create a division between rich and poor. Lazarus
points out that most of the tribes that have profited
from gaming are small tribes near major cities, a rel-
atively small segment of the Native American popu-
lation. During the same period of economic expan-The Nineties in America Native Americans 605