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The pride of claiming Native American lineage--as almost 2 million Americans did in the 1990 Census--has been joined by a big practical benefit since passage of the Indian Gaming Act in 1988. Today there are 198 tribes with some sort of gaming on their reservations. Some use the resulting income for community development, education and investment. Others simply make big payouts to their members. The Shakopee, a small Minnesota tribe, writes checks for as much as $700,000 to each of its adult members every year. This kind of jackpot has attracted a host of non-Indian investors, willing to put up millions of dollars to back would-be Indian tribes in their attempts to win federal recognition.
"Ever since we allowed Indians to have gaming, we have made them into wonderful bets for big-money interests," says Representative Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican who opposes the Quiet Hawk group's efforts. His district includes much of the land entangled in what he calls the group's "bogus" land claims, which sweep across much of western Connecticut, including land occupied by Bridgeport city hall, Trumbull town hall, the headquarters of People's Bank and hundreds of private homes. Quiet Hawk retorts that the casino issue came up long after his group began its quest for recognition and real estate--which by now includes land claims filed on about 1,000 acres of Connecticut.
Quiet Hawk's Paugussetts have long been recognized as a tribe by the state of Connecticut, but that status required scant proof of lineage and carries few benefits. Only 10 of the modern Paugussetts live on the group's two reservations: a quarter-acre lot in the town of Trumbull and 106 acres in Colchester. There a metal gate blocks the gravel drive, and a NO TRESPASSING sign bars the curious from visiting the two mobile homes inside. A mailbox reads GOLDEN HILL RES.
What's at issue is not whether the Golden Hill Paugussetts ever existed as a tribe, but whether Quiet Hawk's group is descended from them as a tribe. Historical documents show that as early as 1639 the Paugussetts asked the Governor of Massachusetts to help them recover "squaws" taken into slavery by English settlers. At that time the tribe numbered about 800 members, who fished the Housatonic and Naugatuck rivers and cultivated corn and other vegetables. Sun worshippers, they prayed to the east every morning. Many Paugussetts died fighting in the 1637 Pequot War against the English. After that war, much of their land was sold or taken away. By 1875 the Paugussetts had only a quarter-acre left, and the tribe had greatly dispersed.
Quiet Hawk's people claim to be descended from a man named William Sherman, who they say was a member of the original Paugussett tribe. Sherman was born in New York in 1825 and spent his youth whaling before arriving in Trumbull at age 32. It was he who bought the quarter-acre lot in 1875 and preserved it as the tribe's then only reservation. Sherman's race in the 1880 Census was listed as "Indian." He was identified as a Paugussett in his newspaper obituary in 1886, and in two books published shortly before he died.