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A Sovereign (And Successful) Chickasaw Nation
by Arun Rath
Morning Edition, April 27, 2009 · If we think of the Chickasaw as a nation, their No. 1 foreign policy priority is trade. Their No. 1 trading partner? Texas.
The WinStar casino is right across the border in Oklahoma, and it’s the closest legal gambling to Dallas, so even on a Tuesday night, the vast parking lot is filled with Texas tags.
Like many Indian tribes, the Chickasaw rake in huge sums from their casinos. But there’s a certain nervousness here about basing a whole nation’s fortunes on gambling.
“My mom used to say, ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,’ and that’s the essence of what we try to do with our businesses,” says Bill Anoatubby, who has been the governor of the Chickasaw Nation since 1987. He is now serving his sixth elected term. “There’s always this resistance to gaming — it’s in the community, it’s in the Congress — so you really, you’re not sure what the direction might be. Congress, with very little notice, could change the rules on us, and if they did, we would be — we could have problems.”
Anoatubby has spent much of the past 20 years working to strengthen the nation’s foundation by diversifying the tribe’s economy.
“We shouldn’t rely strictly on gaming, and we should invest as much as we can while the dollars are there,” he says. “We will take the profits from gaming, and we will invest those in new things.”
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