The Oneida, Seneca and Mohawk tribes all have casinos...maybe they can help them too. Not sure how much land we can give to them?
I know a few natives. The Onondagas don't want casinos and the they don't want to sell pot because they are more conservative in nature, and they don't want those kinds of behaviors to draw in and corrupt their young people.
On the other hand, their biggest income generators are tobacco sales, the diner and the box lacrosse center. So maybe they ought to consider something more to help their people get out of poverty.
They were given the French Fort a few years ago, but they have basically shut it down, or only use for occasional private events. A lost opportunity, if you ask me. They could use it as an education and outreach center, to engage with the community.
I was having a Facebook conversation with a woman who is a performer who is a Mohawk around the time 5 years or so ago, that the Onondaga were asking for land around Onondaga Lake to be returned to them. This was around the time of the "completion" of the clean up of the lake.
So, I asked her, "what do they want to do with it?" And she just didn't seem to understand my question, but that's probably because she was thinking "all this land is really ours". I was trying to make the point to her, that yes, this was all your land, but there's a mall there now, and all this other development.
I said "if the Onondaga have some particular plan for how they'll use the land, it will make a more compelling argument to give at least some of it back, beyond saying, we own it because of this 200 year old treaty."
She didn't take my point in the spirit intended, and that was the end of the conversation. I don't think many white people (or people of color, for that matter) are adverse to doing something for natives, just like we gave them the right to operate casinos. We obviously have to do more, and have to do more to respect and teach their heritage.
Which brings me to a different point, but an interesting one. I'm kind of a history buff, and most people don't understand the tremendous history of the Haudenosaunee. They were not just "The First Democracy in North America" (story of Hiawatha and the Great Peacemaker).
But in fact, the Haudenosaunee built an inland empire that, at its peak in the mid 1700s, went far beyond the borders of New York State. Their empire extended many miles on the northern side of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie into modern day Canada. And as they defeated more and more native tribes to gain control of the beaver trapping grounds, they eventually spread into the Ohio River Valley, as far west as Michigan and Indiana, and as far south as Northern Virginia.
Remember the old Hawthorne novel, "Last of the Mohicans"? Who is it who ended the Mohicans? The Mohawks. They got guns and steel weapons and tools from the Dutch and used them to dominate the beaver trade, from the mid 1600s to about 1760 and the French and Indian War. The British also armed the Haudenosaunee to help them fight the French along with their allies the Algonquins on the frontier (i.e. Central NY).
Everyone thinks the natives lived in these small communities with abundant resources like the Garden of Eden. But tribal relations, and our history, were more complicated than that. There is a great story to be told here.
www.syracuse.com
