From the Western Michigan Business Review (H/T Indianz):
Thursday, December 06, 2007By Lynn Stevens
lynns@mbusinessreview.com
Both the Nottawaseppi Huron Band and the Gun Lake Tribe see the opening and continued success of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians’s Four Winds Casino as inspiration. They are sure that it’s only a matter of time until they, too, can open financial engines.
From Mlive:
NEW BUFFALO TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — The American Indian tribe that owns the new Four Winds Casino Resort in extreme southwestern Michigan is withholding its first revenue-sharing payments from local governments and school districts.
The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians says it has concerns about the organization of the board that is to oversee the distribution of the estimated $3 million a year in payments.
The new issue of Red Ink just arrived in the mail. I have a short story in this edition, Thinking about What I’ve Done. It’s about Indian lawyers, sorta.
From the Chicago Tribune:
Four Winds Casino and Resort has a half-dozen restaurants and a 165-room hotel. (Four Winds Casino and Resort photo / November 22, 2007)
|Tribune staff reporter
NEW BUFFALO, Mich. – First thing’s first: Gambling can be dangerous.Casinos, on the other hand, are fascinating.Think about it: Top-notch restaurants, well-appointed hotel suites, luxurious spa services, live entertainment, boutique retail outlets, free-flowing alcohol and, of course, gaming galore — in most cases, at all hours. Minus the whole “experience nature” thing, casinos essentially provide all the major amenities of a luxury vacation under one neon-clad roof.They’re also not without their annoyances: that steady hum of ringing slot machines tuned to the pleasant key of C major, which can get stuck in your head for days; and, despite advanced air filtration systems, the lingering stench of smoke.But it’s all part of the experience. Staying at a casino — even just for a weekend (I wouldn’t recommend any longer) — means immersing yourself in a culture that may be foreign from your own. Which, when you think about it, is the whole point.So, where to go? The obvious destination for experiencing casino culture is Las Vegas.
And then there’s New Buffalo.
About 2 miles from downtown New Buffalo (population 2,200) lies the brand-new $180 million Four Winds Casino Resort, which opened its doors Aug. 2. The place is huge. It boasts 130,000 square feet of “gaming positions” (actual seats at slot machines or gaming tables) which, were it located in Las Vegas, would make it the second-largest casino on the Strip; plus a half-dozen restaurants and a modest 165-room hotel.
And, when I visited two weeks ago, all of its grandeur seemed absolutely necessary, due to the sheer volume of visitors. As I approached the long, winding drive leading to the casino nestled in the woods, I encountered something I’ve never before experienced in New Buffalo: traffic. People were lined up in their cars, waiting to park in one of the 2,120 spots in the heated, four-level parking garage and commence spending money. And after hanging out for a few days, it’s easy to see why: The place is beautiful — and, perhaps more importantly, resembles nothing of the gaudy glam of Vegas.
Designed by Urban Design Group (which counts Disney among its clients) and owned by the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, Four Winds has the look and feel of a regal North Woods lodge, situated far enough back from Interstate Highway 94 that the “woodland retreat” facade is believable.
Just inside the entrance, a grand rotunda (on which a local Pokagon artist will soon begin a mural project) is flanked by two ridiculously huge fireplaces; the beams lining the arcades (leading to shops and a bus terminal at one end, the hotel at the other) were carved from dead standing cedar and birch trees, which are often used in tribal ceremonies for the Pokagon band.
At the heart of it all is the gaming floor itself, which, despite the refreshing lack of neon, looks like a casino (darkly lit, maze-like carpet, banks and bars at every turn), but the restaurants tucked within could stand alone — even in Chicago.
From the Notre Dame Observer:
While driving around South Bend, students might notice Potawatomi Park, Potawatomi Zoo and Pokagon Street – places all named after former residents of the area, the Potawatomi American Indian tribe and its local division, the Pokagon Band.
But not all passers-by may be aware that the land upon which Notre Dame was built once belonged to the Pokagon Band.
As a part of Native American Heritage Month, Notre Dame’s Multicultural Student Programs and Services (MSPS) will host a series of events bringing members of the Potawatomi tribe to campus to relay the history between the tribe and the University. As part of this series, MSPS will host a dinner Dec. 4 featuring members of the Potawatomi tribe to share their history.
Before Notre Dame founder Father Edward Sorin claimed this plot of land on Nov. 26, 1842, the land had been inhabited by the Pokagon Band, said Kevin Daugherty, educational resource developer for the Pokagon Band.
The Chicago Treaty of 1833, however, ordered the removal of Indians in the northern Indiana region, Daugherty said. Leopold Pokagon, a prominent Potawatomi leader and the spokesperson after whom the Pokagon Band is named, negotiated the right to stay on the land and was given a sum of money, Daugherty said. Pokagon used this money to buy land northwest of modern-day Dowagiac, Mich., where Daugherty said many members of the band still reside today.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, Potawatomi land stretched from what is now Chicago to Detroit, Daugherty said.
Many different villages populated this region and considered themselves Potawatomi, sharing a common language and culture. Such villages had alliances but operated independently on a local level.
The Pokagon Band of the Potawatomi Indians resided in the southwest Michigan and northern Indiana region, including the grounds where campus is now.
“They of course moved around a bit,” Daugherty said. “They moved along the St. Joseph River to farm, hunt and gather.”
Notre Dame anthropology professor Mark Schurr led an archaeological survey along the St. Joseph River about five years ago. The survey, a joint effort of a Notre Dame field school and the Pokagon Band, lasted about three years and revealed a few village sites along the river, Schurr said.
American settlers began moving west and consequently pushed for removal of American Indians by the U.S. government, Daugherty said.
In compliance with settlers’ demands for westward migration, the Indian Removal Act of 1830 dictated that all native peoples east of the Mississippi River move to present day states of Kansas and Oklahoma, said Ben Secunda, a Notre Dame history professor.
Just as the Cherokee’s removal was called the “Trail of Tears,” Secunda said, the Potawatomi called their removal the “Trail of Death.” The Potawatomi tribe, along with sympathetic whites such as the Catholic missionaries and traders friendly to the Indians, strongly protested it.
Secunda noted that violent roundups, led by governmental officials like Indian agent John Tipton, occurred throughout the Midwest except in the area of Michigan where Leopold Pokagon had secured land for his people. Pokagon’s land, Secunda said, became a safe haven for refugees evading the removal to Kansas. Baptist missionaries in the area supported such removals, he said.
To resist such removal, Leopold Pokagon, in 1830, trekked to Detroit to the Catholic headquarters to make an appeal, Secunda said. He asked for a Catholic priest to come back with him, one who would aid in removal resistance, convincing Father Stephen Badin and the Catholic missionaries to come down to the South Bend area, Secunda said.
Badin and the missionaries came and worked out of Pokagon’s log chapel, the famous historic landmark next to Saint Mary’s Lake, Secunda said. This became their base of operations.
Essentially, he said, out of Leopold Pokagon’s appeal came Notre Dame.
“The Pokagon band, Roman Catholic Church and Notre Dame priests supplemented each other at a key point in their history,” Schurr said. “Since then the groups have gone their separate ways. None would be as successful as they are now.”
Badin and the other Catholic missionaries successfully replaced the other pro-removal missionaries.
“The forerunners of the University did the right thing,” Secunda said. “With their help, the Potawatomi people were able to maintain a level of self-sufficiency, avoid removal, become Catholic and basically survive as a people.”
When Sorin arrived in the area in fall of 1841, “the Pokagons and the Catholics were interacting readily,” Daugherty said.
From the beginning, the Potawatomi in the area coexisted peacefully with the new settlers, Schurr said.
In fact, he said, Badin and the other priests shared many meals with the tribe members. They also lived in close proximity with the tribe.
The Pokagon Band today is scattered throughout Midwest. This dispersal is not totally unprecedented, Daugherty said.
“We have never had a land base or tribal ownership,” he said.
Though there is dispersal, the largest Pokagon population today is located in northern Indiana and southwestern Michigan.
About 3,300 members are in the Band today, and Daugherty said roughly 40 percent live within about 30 miles of Dowagiac. There is also a large concentration of people in the Kalamazoo area, with the remainder scattered across the Midwest.
Native American Heritage Month at Notre Dame includes a number of programs. In addition to the Dec. 4 dinner, the agenda includes a workshop in black ash basketry on Nov. 26. A visual display on contemporary American Indians will be displayed in the library for the remainder of the month.
Nick Reo’s recent post on online posts written in response to the Inland settlement reminded me of a dissertation by Scott G. Sochay, “Newspaper Images of Native Americans: Michigan Newspaper Coverage of Treaties and Compacts Affecting Indians in the Territory and State of Michigan” (1998). The diss. covers the 1819Treaty of Saginaw, the 1836 Treaty of Washington, and the 1993 gaming compacts.
It’s a large document, but you can download it here: Sochay Dissertation
The Supreme Court denied cert in a case captioned Montana v. Crow Tribe of Indians, 484 U.S. 1039 (1988) (No. 87-343). The case involved the State’s attempt to impose severance and gross proceeds on a non-Indian mining company.
The cert pool memo (from a Rehnquist clerk no less) ripped the State’s argument:
[Montana]’s contention that its taxes should not be preempted because they fall on Westmoreland, rather than on the Crow Tribe itself, is ludicrous. The state severance and gross proceeds taxes have restricted the amount of taxation [Crow] can levy on its lessees. The CA9 found that the marketability of [Crow]’s coal was significantly diminished by [Montana]’s taxes, resulting in a corresponding decrease in the amount of money accruing to[Crow]’s coffers.
Cert Pool Memo at 7.
How times have changed. After Cotton Petroleum and Wagnon, states can strategically tax for the specific purpose of limiting on-reservation activities and all but eliminate tribal tax base.
Lakes has a management contract with the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and some other tribal properties. It’s report is here.
Tribal Extinction: Enrollment Issues in the 21st Century – featuring Marilyn Vann and Mike Phelan
The Native American Law Students Association and the Center for Diversity Services will welcome two speakers on Friday, November 9 to discuss perspectives of tribal enrollment, a controversial issue at the forefront of Indian Law and Constitutional Law. The event features guest speakers Marilyn Vann, recently disenrolled from the Cherokee Nation and lead plaintiff in the Cherokee Freedmen cases, and Mike Phelan, counsel for the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians. The event begins at 6:30pm in the Castle Board Room on the 3rd floor of the MSU College of Law. Dinner will be served and all are welcome. Please contact Melissa Velky with any questions at velkymel@msu.edu.
Details about the Cherokee Freedmen (and others) are here.
Justice Michael Cavanagh, the Michigan Supreme Court’s liaison with Michigan’s tribal courts, is speaking before the members of the Michigan Indian Judicial Association this morning.
Justice Cavanagh, along with Tribal Judge Michael Petoskey, spearheaded the Court’s adoption of Michigan Court Rule 2.615, extending comity to tribal court judgments.
Justice Cavanagh wrote about the origins of the rule in an article published in the University of Detroit Law Review. Download Justice Cavanagh’s Article.
Tribal courts from numerous tribes appeared at this talk today at the MSU College of Law: Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Indians, Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, Bay Mills Indian Community, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe.
Justice Michael F. Cavanagh
Justice Cavanagh received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Detroit in 1962 and his law degree from the University of Detroit Law School in 1966. He began his career as a law clerk for the Michigan Court of Appeals. In 1967, Justice Cavanagh was hired as an assistant city attorney for the City of Lansing and thereafter was appointed as Lansing City Attorney, serving until 1969. He then became a partner in the Lansing law firm of Farhat, Burns and Story, P.C. In 1971, he was elected judge of the 54-A District Court. Justice Cavanagh was then elected to the Michigan Court of Appeals, where he served from 1975-1982. At that time, he was the youngest person ever elected to the Michigan Court of Appeals. Justice Cavanagh was elected to the state Supreme Court in 1982 and was re-elected in 1990, 1998, and 2006. He served as Chief Justice from 1991-95. Justice Cavanagh’s current term expires January 1, 2015.
The son of a factory worker and a teacher who moved to Detroit from Canada, Justice Cavanagh worked on Great Lakes freighters during the summers to help pay his tuition at the University of Detroit. During his years in law school, he was employed as an insurance claims adjuster and also worked for the Wayne County Friend of the Court as an investigator.
Justice Cavanagh has participated in numerous community and professional activities, including Chairman of the Board of the American Heart Association, Past President of the Incorporated Society of Irish/American Lawyers, Board of Directors of the Thomas M. Cooley Law School, and the Commission on the Future of the University of Detroit Mercy . He is a Member of the Institute of Judicial Administration, New York University Law School. He has served as Vice President of the Conference of Chief Justices, Chair of the National Interbranch Conference of Funding the State Courts, and member of the National Center for State Courts Court Improvement Program. Other appointments include the Michigan Justice Project, Chairman of the Judicial Planning Committee, Michigan Crime Commission, Judicial Coordinating Committee, and Chair of the Sentencing Guidelines Committee. Justice Cavanagh is the Supervising Justice of the Michigan Judicial Institute. Justice Cavanagh was instrumental in the planning, design, construction and eventual completion of the Michigan Hall of Justice. He has served as Supreme Court Liaison, Michigan Indian Tribal Courts/Michigan State Courts since 1990, and has attended many national Indian Law conferences and participated in Federal Bar Association Tribal Court symposiums.
Justice Cavanagh and his wife, Patricia, are the parents of three children, and have two grandsons. The Cavanagh family resides in East Lansing .
Turtle Talk 
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