Mashantucket Pequot Tribe 20th century to present What happened to the tribe in the early 20th century? the last Pequot living on the reservation, the federal government started planning to take back the land.
Who was the last Pequot on the reservation?
Who was the last Pequot on the reservation?
By the time of the 1910 US Census, only 13 tribal members lived on the reservation. By the early 20th century, the reservation of 214 acres had a total population of 20 or 30 persons. In 1973, with the death of Elizabeth George (1894-1973), the last Pequot living on the reservation, the federal government started planning to take back the land. But in this period, the number of tribal members had increased, and they had maintained some continuity of culture. They began to organize politically and planned to assert their sovereignty and try to reclaim some of the land they had lost in the 19th-century Connecticut sale. In 1976, under the leadership of newly appointed tribal council chairman, Richard "Skip" Hayward, son of Elizabeth George, the Mashantucket Pequot filed a federal land claim against the state. They challenged the state's illegal sale of more than 800 acres of reservation lands in 1855. The US Department of Justice entered the suit, as it dealt with federal issues and constitutionality of the state action. The suit's settlement was documented by federal legislation in 1983: the Mashantucket Pequot Indian Land Claims Settlement Act included the tribe's federal recognition, and was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. also filing a federal land claims suit against the state of Connecticut for its sale of land in 1855. The tribe achieved political success by persuading Congressmen and appropriate committees in making the case for recognition and land claims. In this period, some tribes based in New York filed land claim suits against its state government, winning in court. On October 18, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed the Connecticut Indian Land Claims Settlement Act, which included federal recognition of the Mashantucket Pequot. They were the eighth American Indian tribe to gain federal recognition through an act of Congress rather than through the administrative process of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and Department of Interior. At least one other case of recognition had also been tied to the settlement of a tribe's legitimate land claim. The Mashantucket Pequot have since added to their reservation by purchase and placed the additional lands into trust with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) on behalf of the tribe. As of the 2000 census, their total land area was 2.17 square miles (5.6 km2). CANNOTANSWER
Elizabeth George
The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation is a federally recognized American Indian tribe in the state of Connecticut. They are descended from the Pequot people, an Algonquian-language tribe that dominated the southern New England coastal areas, and they own and operate Foxwoods Resort Casino within their reservation in Ledyard, Connecticut. As of 2018, Foxwoods Resort Casino is one of the largest casinos in the world in terms of square footage, casino floor size, and number of slot machines, and it was one of the most economically successful in the United States until 2007, but it became deeply in debt by 2012 due to its expansion and changing conditions.

The tribe was federally recognized in 1983 through the Mashantucket Pequot Land Claims Settlement Act.  The federal land claims suit was brought by the tribe against the State of Connecticut and the Federal government, charging that the tribe had been illegally deprived of its land through state actions that were not ratified by the Senate. As part of the settlement of this suit, Congress gave federal recognition to the tribe, in addition to approving financial compensation so that the tribe could repurchase lost land. Tribal membership is based on proven lineal descent of 11 Pequot families whose ancestors were listed in the 1900 US Census.

The Mashantucket Pequot tribe is one of two federally recognized tribes in Connecticut, the other being the Mohegan Indian Tribe.

Geography
The Mashantucket Pequot Indian Reservation is located in Mashantucket, Connecticut, in southeastern Connecticut's New London County near the Thames River. It is held in trust for the tribe by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The tribe also owns land in the adjacent towns of Ledyard, Preston and North Stonington, as well as in New London.

Demographics and membership

Today, the Mashantucket Pequot population consists of more than 1100 enrolled members. As a federally recognized tribe, the Mashantucket Pequots have the authority to determine their membership criteria. The tribe requires its members to be of proven lineal descent from 11 Mashantucket Pequot ancestors listed in the U.S. censuses of 1900 and 1910.  In 1996, the tribal membership voted to close enrollment, with the exception of children born to currently enrolled tribal members.

The 2000 census showed a resident population of 325 persons living on reservation land, 227 of whom identified themselves as American Indian, while others identify themselves as having more than one ethnicity, including non-Pequot spouses.  Since that time, the tribe expanded reservation housing, and members continue to relocate to the reservation as housing becomes available.

Government

As of 2020, the Mashantucket Pequot Elders Council officers are:

Chair—Marjorie Colebut-Jackson
Vice-Chair— Shirley "Laughing Woman" Patrick
Secretary/Treasurer-Anthony Sebastian

The seven members of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Council are:
Chair—Rodney A. Butler
Vice-Chair—Latoya Cluff
Secretary—Matthew Pearson 
Treasurer— Merrill Reels
Councilor—Daniel Menihan 
Councilor—Crystal Whipple
Councilor—Richard E. Sebastian

The current administration's seven-member council has stated that the tribe's priorities are protecting tribal sovereignty, focusing on the educational, emotional, and physical well-being of members, and working to leverage the tribe's financial and economic strengths through partnership initiatives, both locally and abroad. Mashantucket Pequot's local investments include the Lake of Isles golf course and the Spa at Norwich Inn, both of which have proven to be positive additions to local municipal tax bases.

Council members are elected by popular vote of the tribal membership to three-year, staggered terms. There are roughly 600 eligible voting members of the tribe, which numbered 1086 in 2018. Tribal Members must be at least 18 years old and in good standing with the tribe to be eligible to vote.

Chairman
Richard Arthur Hayward, 1975 to 1998.
Kenneth M. Reels, 1998 to 2003.
Michael Thomas, 2003 to 2009.
Rodney Butler, 2010 to present.

Economy
The Mashantucket Pequots have owned and operated one of the largest resort casinos in the world since 1992. The University of Connecticut analyzed the Foxwoods casino's effects on the Connecticut economy, and their report stated that it had a positive economic impact on the neighboring towns of Ledyard, Preston, and North Stonington, as well as the state of Connecticut, which has received more than $4 billion in slot revenue.

History
The Mashantucket Pequots are descendants of the historic Pequot tribe, an Algonquian-speaking people who dominated the coastal area from the Niantic River of Connecticut east to the Pawcatuck River which forms a border with Rhode Island, and south to Long Island Sound. A second descendant group is the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation, which is not recognized by the Federal government.

During the colonial years, colonists recorded inter-tribal warfare, shifts in boundaries, and changes in power among the tribes. Scholars believe that the Pequots migrated from the upper Hudson River Valley into central and eastern Connecticut around 1500. William Hubbard wrote Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians in New-England in 1667 to explore the ferocity with which the Pequot tribe had attacked the colonists. He described them as invaders from "the interior of the continent" who "by force seized upon one of the places near the sea, and became a Terror to all their Neighbors." Contemporary scholars suggest that archaeological, linguistic, and documentary evidence show that the Pequots were indigenous for centuries in the Connecticut Valley before the arrival of settlers.

By the time that Plymouth Colony and the Massachusetts Bay colony were being established, the Pequots had established military dominance among Indian tribes in central and eastern Connecticut. They numbered some 16,000 in the most densely inhabited portion of southern New England. The smallpox epidemic of 1616–19 killed roughly 90-percent of the Indians on the eastern coast of New England, but it failed to reach the Pequot, Niantic and Narragansett tribes, and this assisted the Pequots in their rise to dominance. But the Massachusetts smallpox epidemic in 1633 devastated the region's Indian population, and historians estimate that the Pequots suffered the loss of 80-percent of their entire population. By the outbreak of the Pequot War in 1637, their numbers may have been reduced to about 3,000 in total.

Pequot War

In 1637, Connecticut and Massachusetts Bay colonies overwhelmed the Pequots during the Pequot War.  This followed the Indians' attack on Wethersfield, Connecticut that left several settlers dead. The military force of the two colonies was led by John Mason and John Underhill, and they launched an assault on the Pequot stronghold at Mystic, Connecticut, killing a significant portion of the Pequot population.

The colonists enslaved some of the surviving Pequots, sending some to the West Indies as labor on sugar cane plantations, putting others to indentured servitude as household servants in New England. Most of the survivors, however, were transferred to the Mohegan and Narragansett tribes. A few Pequots returned to the reservation years later, and they intermarried with the colonists. Many of the Pequot descendants, while multi-racial, retained a sense of culture and continuity.

Present day
The Mashantucket Pequot reservation was created by the Connecticut Colony in 1666, but only 13 people lived on the reservation by the time of the 1910 United States Census. Elizabeth George (1894–1973) was one of the last Pequot living on the reservation and, when she died in 1973, the federal government started planning to reclaim the land which they presumed would be vacated upon the deaths of the last remaining Pequot residents.

Richard "Skip" Hayward, a grandson of Elizabeth George, led the Tribe's efforts in filing a federal land claims suit against the state of Connecticut which challenged the state's sale of 800 acres of reservation lands—an event which had occurred more than 100 years earlier in 1855. The State of Connecticut agreed with the Tribe, and the US Department of Justice entered the suit, as it dealt with Federal issues and the legality of the state action.

On October 18, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed the Connecticut Indian Land Claims Settlement Act which included Federal recognition of the Mashantucket Pequot tribe. They were the eighth American Indian tribe to gain Federal recognition through an act of Congress rather than through the administrative process of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and Department of Interior. The Mashantucket Pequots have since added to their land holdings by purchase and placed the additional lands into trust with the BIA on behalf of the tribe. As of the 2000 census, their total land area was .

In 1994 it purchased, and later developed further, what is now known as The Spa at Norwich Inn in Norwich, Connecticut.

Controversies
The Bureau of Indian Affairs had established criteria by which tribes seeking recognition had to document cultural and community continuity, a political organization, and related factors. Among the criteria are having to prove continuous existence as a recognized community since 1900, with internal government and tribal rules for membership.

In 1993, Donald Trump said that the owners of Foxwoods casino "did not look like real Indians." He became a key investor with the Paucatuck Eastern Pequots who were seeking federal recognition.

In his book Without Reservation: The Making of America's Most Powerful Indian Tribe and Foxwoods the World's Largest Casino (2001), Jeff Benedict argues that the Mashantuckets are not descended from the historical Pequot tribe, but rather from the Narragansett tribe.  Spokesmen for the Pequots denounced the book and asserted that Benedict's genealogical research was inherently flawed, as it failed to reflect the correct descendant lineages for the Mashantucket Pequot people identified on the 1900 and 1910 US Censuses. Laurence Hauptman argued with Benedict's assertions on the genealogy of current members, and anthropologist Katherine A. Spilde also criticized it.

In 2002, the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation of North Stonington, Connecticut briefly gained federal recognition, as did the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation in 2004. The State of Connecticut challenged these approvals, however, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs revoked recognition of both in 2005. It was the first time since the 1970s that the agency had terminated any federally recognized tribe.

Tribal membership rules
The Mashantucket Pequot tribe receives numerous requests from individuals applying for admission as members. They base tribal membership on an individual proving descent, by recognized genealogical documentation, from one or more members of eleven families included on the 1900 US census of the tribe.

Each federally recognized tribe has the authority to set its own membership/citizenship rules. Their descent rules are similar to the Cherokee Nation's reliance on proven direct descent from those Cherokee listed in the early 20th-century Dawes Rolls. CBS News reported in May 2000 that the tribal membership had voted to drop the requirement that tribal applicants have a minimum percentage of Mashantucket Pequot blood. However, the tribe has since begun to require genetic testing of newborn children whose parents are tribal members, to establish maternity and paternity.

Foxwoods

In 1986, Skip Hayward and financial backers built a high-stakes bingo hall on reservation land, and later they added other facilities. In 1992, the Mashantucket Pequots opened Foxwoods casino, which is now one of the largest casinos in the world. Adjacent to Foxwoods is the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center which interprets Pequot history and culture. The museum hosts local and international indigenous artists and musicians, as well as mounting changing exhibits of artifacts throughout the year.

See also

 Connecticut Indian Land Claims Settlement
 Foxwoods Resort Casino
 Indian gaming
 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act
 Mashantucket Pequot Reservation Archeological District, a U.S. National Historic Landmark
 Wetu

References

Further reading

Primary sources

Hubbard, William. The History of the Indian Wars in New England 2 vols. (Boston: Samuel G. Drake, 1845).
Mason, John. A Brief History of the Pequot War: Especially of the Memorable taking of their Fort at Mistick in Connecticut in 1637/Written by Major John Mason, a principal actor therein, as then chief captain and commander of Connecticut forces; With an introduction and some explanatory notes by the Reverend Mr. Thomas Prince (Boston: Printed & sold by. S. Kneeland & T. Green in Queen Street, 1736).
Mather, Increase. A Relation of the Troubles which have Hapned in New-England, by Reason of the Indians There, from the Year 1614 to the Year 1675 (New York: Arno Press, [1676] 1972).
Underhill, John. Nevves from America; or, A New and Experimentall Discoverie of New England: Containing, a True Relation of their War-like Proceedings these two yeares last past, with a figure of the Indian fort, or Palizado.  Also a discovery of these places, that as yet have very few or no inhabitants which would yeeld special accommodation to such as will plant there . . . By Captaine Iohn Underhill, a commander in the warres there (London: Printed by I. D[awson] for Peter Cole, and are to be sold at the signe of the Glove in Corne-hill neere the Royall Exchange, 1638).
Mashantucket Pequot Reservation and Off-Reservation Trust Land, Connecticut United States Census Bureau
Vincent, Philip. A True Relation of the late Battell fought in New England, between the English, and the Salvages: With the present state of things there (London: Printed by M[armaduke] P[arsons] for Nathanael Butter, and Iohn Bellamie, 1637).

Secondary sources

Benedict, Jeff. Without Reservation: How a Controversial Indian Tribe Rose to Power and Built the World's Largest Casino (New York, NY: Perennial, 2001).
Review: Without Reservation, Indian Gaming
Boissevain, Ethel. "Whatever Became of the New England Indians Shipped to Bermuda to be Sold as Slaves," Man in the Northwest 11 (Spring 1981), pp. 103–114.
Cave, Alfred A. "The Pequot Invasion of Southern New England: A Reassessment of the Evidence", New England Quarterly 62 (1989): 27–44.
Cave, Alfred A. The Pequot War (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996).
Eisler, Kim Isaac. Revenge of the Pequots: How a Small Native American Tribe Created the World's Most Profitable Casino (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2001).
Fromson, Brett Duval. Hitting the Jackpot: The Inside Story of the Richest Indian Tribe in History (New York, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003).
Hauptman, Laurence M. & James D. Wherry, eds. The Pequots in Southern New England: The Fall and Rise of an American Indian Nation  (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993).
McBride, Kevin. "The Historical Archaeology of the Mashantucket Pequots, 1637–1900", in Laurence M. Hauptman and James Wherry, eds. Pequots in Southern New England: The Fall and Rise of an American Indian Nation (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993), pp. 96–116.
McBride, Kevin. "Prehistory of the Lower Connecticut Valley" (Ph.D. diss., University of Connecticut, 1984).
https://books.google.com/books/about/Facing_East_from_Indian_Country.html?id=NXCxAl75LfIC[ Richter, Daniel K. Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America], (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001).
Simmons, William S. Spirit of the New England Tribes: Indian History and Folklore, 1620–1984 (Dartmouth, NH: University Press of New England, 1986).
Spiero, Arthur E., and Bruce E. Speiss. "New England Pandemic of 1616–1622: Cause and Archaeological Implication," Man in the Northeast, 35 (1987): 71–83.
Vaughan, Alden T. "Pequots and Puritans: The Causes of the War of 1637", William and Mary Quarterly 3rd Ser., Vol. 21, No. 2 (April 1964), pp. 256–269; also republished in Roots of American Racism: Essays on the Colonial Experience'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).

External links
 Map of the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation, 2009, US Census Bureau
"The Pequot", Foxwoods
Connecticut Indian Land Claims Settlement, Pub. L. No. 98-134, 97 Stat. 851 (codified at 25 U.S.C. §§ 1751–60), 1983
Pequot History, Dick Shovel
National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA)

Native American tribes in Connecticut
American Indian reservations in Connecticut
Algonquian ethnonyms
Algonquian peoples
Pequot
The Connecticut Indian Land Claims Settlement was an Indian Land Claims Settlement passed by the United States Congress in 1983.  The settlement act ended a lawsuit by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe to recover 800 acres of their 1666 reservation in Ledyard, Connecticut. The state sold this property in 1855 without gaining ratification by the Senate. In a federal land claims suit, the Mashantucket Pequot charged that the sale was in violation of the Nonintercourse Act that regulates commerce between Native Americans and non-Indians.

The settlement act appropriated $900,000 to buy the disputed lands and transferred those lands and the state reservation in trust to the Department of Interior of the federal government.  The settlement act permits the state of Connecticut to exercise civil and criminal, but not regulatory, jurisdiction over the lands.  Gaining federal recognition and sovereign control of their land enabled the Mashantucket Pequot to develop gaming on their reservation, specifically, the Foxwoods Resort Casino. It is the largest casino in the world by revenue and floor space, and by 2007 was the most profitable. It has struggled financially in the second decade of the 21st century.

Background

The Pequot War (1634–1638) all but exterminated the Pequot. The English colonists divided surviving captives, assigning them to their allies, the Mohegan and Narragansett tribes. In 1651, John Winthrop the Younger persuaded the Connecticut Colony to create a 500-acre reservation for the Pequot in Noank, removing them from their previous places of residence.  In 1666, the Connecticut General Assembly voted to create a 2,000-acre reservation for the "western" Pequot (the group previously in the custody of the Mohegan) in Ledyard, Connecticut; the eastern Pequot were given 280 acres in present-day North Stonington, Connecticut.  By 1790 (the year that Congress passed the first Nonintercourse Act), the Ledyard reservation had been reduced to 1,000 acres, due to sales by white supervisors.  In 1855, Connecticut sold 800 of the remaining acres at $10/acre, putting the money into a state-administered trust account for the Pequot people.

In the 1970s, David Crosby of Pine Tree Legal Assistance, a non-profit law firm that was litigating Joint Tribal Council of the Passamaquoddy Tribe v. Morton in Maine, began to discuss a land claim by the Pequot people.  As advised by Crosby, in 1974 the Pequot established a non-profit corporation—Western Pequot Indians of Connecticut, Inc.  In April 1975, Crosby finished his research and presented his findings to the Pequot.

Litigation
The Western Pequot of Connecticut filed suit in May 1976 in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut.  The case was assigned to Judge Mosher Joseph Blumenfeld.  The named plaintiffs were the Western Pequot Tribe and its leader Richard "Skip" Hayward; among the named defendants were Holdridge Enterprises and its president, David Holdridge.  The 800-acre claim included an estimated 12 to 35 private landowner defendants.  The state of Connecticut was sued, and declined requests from the defendants to become involved in the litigation.

One of the lawyers for the defendants was Jackson King, a partner at Brown, Jacobson, Jewett & Laudone. King became involved in the case after being contacted by one of the named defendants, who had served with him on a local land conservation commission, contacted him. King had finished first in his class at University of Connecticut School of Law, and was well regarded.

Federal recognition
HUD
The Pequot pursued federal recognition in parallel with their land claims litigation.  They applied to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to participate in HUD's Indian housing assistance program.  In March 1976, Connecticut Governor Ella Grasso certified to HUD that the Pequots were "an autonomous unit or government" for the purposes of the revenue-sharing program.  At this time, the tribe had 32 members.

BIA
On January 15, 1979, the Pequot filed a preliminary petition for federal tribal recognition with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).  Historian Jack Campisi, who had previously worked as an expert witness with attorney Tom Tureen (known for his role in Joint Tribal Council of the Passamaquoddy Tribe v. Morton (1975) and other Nonintercourse Act claims), prepared the petition.  The Pequot did not submit a full recognition application to the BIA until mid-1983.

Settlement Act

Following Congressional passage of the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act in 1980, attorney Tom Tureen turned his attention to the Mashantucket Pequot case.

In October 1981, Tureen approached King (the defendants' lawyer) regarding a federally legislated settlement.  Tureen proposed that the state of Connecticut turn over the reservation to the federal government, and that the federal government pay the property owners fair market value to include their land in the federal reservation.  As part of the deal, the state would retain civil and criminal, but not regulatory, authority of the reservation.  The state approved the settlement in June 1982.

The federal settlement bill included a $900,000 appropriation, the appraisal value of the 800 acres, which the Pequot would use to buy the land from the landowner defendants.  The legislation also provided that the landowners would not have to pay capital gains tax as long as they reinvested the money in real estate.

Senator Lowell P. Weicker, Jr. (R-CT) delivered the draft bill to the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs.  Peter Taylor, the committee's general counsel, noticed that the bill did not limit the amount or location of the lands that the Pequot could buy with the settlement funds.  Tureen and King prepared a map in accordance with Taylor's wishes.

Senator William Cohen (R-ME), the chairman of the committee, began hearings on July 14, 1982.  William Coldiron, the solicitor general of the Department of the Interior, testified against the bill, which he viewed as circumventing the BIA's recognition process and as costing too much money.  Cohen criticized Coldiron for lacking enough knowledge about the Pequot.  Representative Sam Gejdenson (D-CT) also supported the bill.

The House passed the bill, H.R. 6612, on October 1, 1982, and the Senate passed a different version on December 21.  The compromise version was passed by the Senate on February 24, 1982 by voice vote, and by the House on March 22.  However, President Ronald Reagan vetoed the bill, opining that the state should pay more of the cost and that the Pequot may not meet the BIA's definition of a tribe.  Tureen, King, Hayward, and Sandy Cadwalader of the Indian Rights Association began lobbying for a veto override.  Once 67 Senators had committed to voting for the bill—enough to have been the first veto override of Reagan's presidency—a compromise was proposed whereby Connecticut would contribute $200,000 toward road improvements (which became known as "the veto road").

At a new set of hearings in July 1983, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs John W. Fritz declared that the administration would not object to the new bill. Reagan signed the new bill, S. 1499, into law on October 18, 1983. Since 1983, the Mashuntucket Pequots have appeared on every list of federally recognized tribes published by the Department of the Interior in the Federal Register.

Aftermath

Bingo
On April 30, 1984, the Pequot corporate body voted 12-1, with two abstentions, to approve construction of a high-stakes bingo operation on their reservation.  Barry Margolin, Tureen's law partner, took the lead in representing the Pequot in this matter.  After Connecticut's chief state criminal attorney wrote the tribe a letter threatening to shut down the bingo operation if opened as planned, the Pequot filed for a federal preliminary injunction. Judge Peter C. Dorsey (who, as a magistrate, had ruled favorably for the Pequot in their land claim) granted the injunction.  Dorsey granted a permanent injunction on January 9, 1986, holding that Connecticut's bingo laws did not apply to the reservation.  The bingo hall opened on July 5, 1986.

Cabazon Band and the IGRA
The Supreme Court's ruling in California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians (1987), which upheld the right of the tribe to develop a gaming casino on their reservation, was a catalyst to the Pequot's ambition to upgrade their bingo hall and develop a gaming casino.  

In the wake of the Supreme Court decision, Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) on October 17, 1988.  Tureen and Margolin concluded that the IGRA required Connecticut to negotiate a tribal-state compact with the Pequot in good faith because of a state statute that permitted non-profits, with a state license, to hold "Las Vegas nights" twice a year.  The state statute in question had been lobbied for by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) in 1987.  At the request of Governor William O'Neill, acting state attorney general Clarine Riddle prepared a memorandum highlighting the differences between high school students playing casino games for monopoly money and a full-scale, for-profit casino. O'Neill denied the Pequot's request.

Development of Foxwoods

When the state failed to negotiate, on November 3, 1989, the tribe sued the state under a provision of the IGRA— that permitted such suits if state did not negotiate in good faith within 180 days. (This part of IGRA was subsequently declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in Seminole Tribe v. Florida (1996.) The case was docketed again before Judge Dorsey.  Dorsey granted the tribe summary judgment in May 1990, ordering the state to resume negotiations and conclude a compact within 60 days.  

The Second Circuit upheld Dorsey's ruling on September 4, 1990.  The compact was forwarded to Secretary of Interior Manuel Lujan, Jr. on October 1990 for his approval.  On April 22, 1991, the Supreme Court declined to grant certiorari to the state's appeal from the Second Circuit's ruling.

Former Senator Weicker replaced O'Neil as governor in January 1991.  Weicker was opposed to gambling, and was advised that repealing the "Las Vegas night" statute was the only way to avoid a Pequot casino.  Moreover, Weicker would have had to repeal the law before Secretary Lujan gave final approval to the compact.  The Mashantucket Pequot retained lobbyists, reached out to charity groups that used the "Las Vegas night" statute, and brought in Native American Rights Fund executive director John Echohawk to defeat Weicker's proposed bill.  Weicker's bill prevailed by 18-17 with one absent in the Connecticut Senate.  However, the House rejected the bill by more than 20 votes.  Secretary Lujan approved the compact on May 31, 1991.

The Pequot signed a financing agreement with Malaysian partners on February 25, 1991 for the construction of Foxwoods Resort Casino.  Foxwoods opened on February 12, 1992.  That year, even though slot machines had yet to be installed, the 245-member Pequot tribe earned $148 million in revenue and $51 million in profit from Foxwoods.  Threatened with the possibility of competition from non-Indian gambling, the Pequot offered the state a share of slot machine revenue in October 1992 (the issue of slot machines had been left for the courts in the original compact). A provision of the agreement provided that if slot machine gambling were to be legalized in the state, the revenue sharing would cease.  On January 13, 1993, the tribe and state announced a deal that would give the state 25% of gross slot machine revenue, guaranteeing at least $100M/year.  By 1998, Foxwoods was generating $1 billion in revenue and $152 million in net income for the tribe.

Reservation expansion
Starting in 1993, the Pequot began negotiations to purchase additional lands and convey those lands to the Department of Interior in trust under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Local towns sued the tribes to prevent this.  In 1996 and 1998, the Interior Department, under Secretary Bruce Babbitt, approved the tribe's request to put  and , respectively, into trust.  The Supreme Court's decision in Carcieri v. Salazar (2009) prevents any further such transfers.

Notes

References
 (2001).  .
 (2002).  .
 (2004).  .

Aboriginal title in the United States
Ledyard, Connecticut
Legal history of Connecticut
Native American history of Connecticut
1983 in Connecticut
1983 in American law The Mashantucket Pequot Reservation Archeological District is a historic district in the northeast corner of the town of Ledyard, Connecticut. The district includes nearly  of archeologically sensitive land in the northern portion of the uplands historically called Wawarramoreke by the federally recognized Mashantucket Pequot Tribe. It is within territory documented as Pequot land in the earliest-known surviving map (1614) of the region. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1993.

The district includes a significant portion of lands historically occupied by the Pequot. In 1666 the Connecticut Colony set aside about  of land as Pequot territory. Over the next two centuries the Pequot population dwindled, and in 1856 the state reduced the reservation size to .

In the 1970s the tribe formally filed a land claim suit for the recovery of its land, eventually recovering more than  under a settlement affirmed by an act of Congress. Archaeological investigations into these lands have identified more than fifteen sites of interest. The tribe considers the entire reservation to be archaeologically sensitive, requiring investigation before any significant construction projects take place on its territory.

Materials found at sites investigated on the reservation include aboriginal lithic and quartz stonework, and a variety of colonial trade items believed to date as far back as the 16th century. While the earliest village sites found provide little evidence about housing, by the 18th century the Pequots were documented as living in both traditional wigwam-style structures, as well as European-style wood-frame houses. The archeological evidence of the villages shows they included large (3-4 acre) plots of farmsteads surrounded by stone walls (the walls being one place where objects of interest are often found).

See also
List of National Historic Landmarks in Connecticut
National Register of Historic Places listings in New London County, Connecticut

References

National Historic Landmarks in Connecticut
Archaeological sites in New London County, Connecticut
Archaeological sites in Connecticut
National Register of Historic Places in New London County, Connecticut
Ledyard, Connecticut
Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Connecticut
Pequot
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Connecticut
1666 establishments in Connecticut