U.S.
CATAWBA INDIAN RESERVATION, S.C. — In central South Carolina, clay is pulled from the land near the Catawba River by a Native American tribe of the same name. The loam is processed much as it was thousands of years ago, coiled into pots, scraped and burnished with river rocks and fired over an open pit until it can endure.
And in that ancient pottery tradition — the oldest continuing one in North America — lies the story of the Catawba people, according to the tribe’s elected chief, Bill Harris.
It is also motivation for its economic future. The Catawba Indian Nation, South Carolina’s only federally recognized Indian tribe, is looking to a casino resort and high-stakes bingo as a way to ensure its cultural future.
Central to the tribe’s plan for economic development: Holding the federal government to its promise, the tribe will expand throughout its ancestral lands. It has set its sights on 16 acres across the state line, in Cleveland County, N.C., where it hopes to build a 220,000-square-foot gaming facility and 750-room resort. It estimates that the $340 million casino project will initially create at least 4,000 jobs in a county where unemployment lingers at about 10 percent.
There’s another hurdle to the plan. The Cherokee, the Catawba’s historical trade rival, view the casino plans as competition.
“Based on the newly released information provided by Cleveland County, we are greatly concerned that this development will negatively impact job growth and revenue at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino and for the western region of North Carolina,” Cherokee Chief Michell Hicks said in a statement in the tribe’s newspaper.
In addition, the Catawba’s decision to pursue high-stakes gambling was not without internal moral debate for some members, sparked by the tribe’s religious lineage. Many Catawba were converted by Mormon missionaries in the late 1800s, with an estimated 10 to 15 percent practicing today, said tribe spokeswoman Elizabeth Harris.
“Many tribal members have some type of connection to the Mormon religion, having gone to church with their grandparents when they were young or with neighborhood friends,” she said, adding that there are about 150 active church members on the reservation.
“The one thing that America is about is separation of church and state,” Bill Harris said, adding that from a business perspective, he believed the same should hold true for the Catawba.
He believes even more strongly that a nation that does not study its culture will perish. It’s an ingrained mantra for the Catawba, who in recent generations have fought to rebound after the tribe was officially terminated by the U.S. government in favor of assimilation in 1959.
“We have 4,500 years of documented history of (working) in clay. That means there’s never been a generational stop,” he told Al Jazeera. “Are you going to be the generation to stop?''
Keeping those pottery traditions and other cultural programs going, however, will take money.
“That proposal would go a long way in helping Cleveland County overcome the effects of the past recession,” said Michael Chrisawn, president of the county’s Chamber of Commerce. The casino was first proposed to the county under the code name Project School House before the Catawba backing was revealed.
“It’s definitely going to be competition for the Cherokees. However, I don’t really think it’s going to be such a magnitude that it will compromise their operations,” Chrisawn said. The Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians operate North Carolina’s only casino — a 150,000 square-foot gaming complex in the western end of the state — and just this month broke ground on a $110 million satellite casino. Both are hours away from the proposed Catawba site. “I think the geographical location will mitigate the impact on the Cherokee,” he added.
The casino would be a victory for the Catawba, said Kathy Brown, a tribe member and an assistant administrator of the Catawba Cultural Center. “I think our people need that,” she said.
The center is home to an after-school program that teaches traditional drumming, dancing and language. The program, however, is currently limited to 44 children during the school year, despite the more than 100 children of the right age on the reservation who could to take part, she said.
“We would love to expand cultural programs. We would want to expand to serve as many who would come in,” she said. “I personally want to see it be a catalyst in improving the lifestyle for all our tribal members.”
About a third of the tribe’s 2,900 members live on the reservation, which sits on the banks of the Catawba River in South Carolina, about 30 miles south of Charlotte, N.C. At 700 acres, a little over a square mile, the rural reservation is modest, peppered with aging aluminum trailers and more modern modular homes. The community falls just outside the shadow of the sprawling shopping district less than 10 miles away, anchored by the Galleria Mall and a clutch of big box stores flanking the interstate.
It all sits on land that, by historical rights, once belonged to the tribe. In 1840, the Catawba entered into a land deal with South Carolina in which the state took ownership of their 144,000 acres along the river in exchange for reservation land in North Carolina. That treaty, however, fell apart when the U.S. Congress refused to endorse it. South Carolina, however, kept the land.
“You had a nation of native people without a land base,” Harris said. “I think with most Indian nations east of the Mississippi, that perseverance is what has kept us here. We have refused to give up who we are, but yet at the same time, we have assimilated into our surroundings in order to preserve who we are.”
Perseverance has indeed been key for the Catawba.
In 1973, the tribe regrouped and filed for federal recognition, suing to reclaim those 144,000 acres. It wasn’t until 20 years later, after they were granted federal recognition, that they agreed to drop their claim to the land that, by that point, was in a prospering corridor.
In exchange, the Catawba were given a $50 million settlement, access to federal grants, and promises of reservation expansion of up to 3,600 acres in their ancestral lands in South Carolina and parts of North Carolina. The tribe was also given permission to launch high-stakes bingo in South Carolina.
There was, however, one caveat: South Carolina officials were adamant there would be no casino-style gaming allowed under federal Indian gaming laws. The tribe says, however, North Carolina could be fair game.
It’s little wonder why the Catawba would be interested in establishing a casino resort. The Indian casino industry, which includes gaming sites of 240 U.S. tribes, rakes in about $27 billion annually, according to the National Indian Gaming Commission.
That promise of a payout is powerful for a tribe with 23 percent unemployment.
“The thing about economic development is sustaining the tribe, being self-sufficient as a tribe,” Bill Harris said. “Government programs only cover so much.” The tribe has a social-service program, a Head Start preschool program, as well as transit and after-school programs.
“Without economic development, we can only grow to the extent that grants allow you to grow, which is more about sustaining programs, not expanding them,” he said.
Harris would not comment on the casino plans, citing the pending land trust application filed last month with the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs for the Cleveland County land. Speaking about the tribe’s less contentious plan to launch high-stakes bingo near the reservation in South Carolina, however, he gave thinly veiled clues about where proceeds would go should the casino project receive the green light.
The Cherokee’s casino generates about $100 million in tax revenue for the state each year, an amount that could be replicated with the Cleveland County casino, predicts an economic-impact study for the Catawba proposal. During its first decade of operation, the Cherokee tribe was able to funnel $74 million in casino profits into its tribal-preservation foundation, which distributes grants for health care and home improvement, according to an economic impact study conducted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Despite the potential boost to state coffers, a group of North Carolina lawmakers is rallying against the proposal. More than 100 members of the state’s House of Representatives wrote to the Department of the Interior, opposing “any attempt by a federally recognized tribe” from outside the state to have land taken into trust for Indian gaming.
As the tribe awaits a federal decision on its land grant request, its small size continues to leave it vulnerable, according to one local scholar. “They don’t have the kind of presence in the state to buy political power,” said Dr. Steve Criswell, director of Native American studies at University of South Carolina – Lancaster.
There is fear history will wind back around. “They’ve managed to hang on,” he said. “The Catawba, they’re survivors.”
Error
Sorry, your comment was not saved due to a technical problem. Please try again later or using a different browser.