AQUINNAH — A sweeping canvas of scrubby green pines, tawny pockets of sands, and flecks of blue ponds on the western tip of Martha’s Vineyard encompasses the territory of the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe. On this pastoral piece of their ancestral homeland, the Aquinnah are exempt from the laws and codes that bear upon all others on this island.
The one thing the Aquinnah cannot do, according to a pact they struck three decades ago to take back their land, is open a casino. But that is exactly what the tribe is trying to do.
The issue has torn the island asunder. Vineyarders who staved off such chains as Starbucks and Wendy’s are appalled at the prospect of 300 flashing, whirling, honking slot machines drawing flocks of patrons in lumbering tour buses. And they accuse the Aquinnah of going back on their word.The tribe says it needs the revenue and argues that a federal law enacted after the Aquinnah cut their deal supersedes their compact with their Vineyard neighbors.Now, the island awaits a decision from a federal court in Boston over the question of whether the Aquinnah have to abide by their pact or whether the law that has allowed 250 other tribes to open casinos applies equally to them. “I want my people to have every program and service that they are entitled to as Indian people,” Tobias Vanderhoop, the tribal chairman, said recently as he showed off Menemsha Pond, the West Basin, and the famous russet cliffs that tower over the shimmering sea.“We are not just some corporation” looking to capitalize on a casino, he said. “We are a sovereign tribal government. And these are our lands.”It is a sentiment those who share the island with the Aquinnah understand. Few wanted to be quoted publicly criticizing the tribe for fear of appearing insensitive to the shattered history of a people whose land was taken away by settlers from Europe.“If the casino was from anyone else people would be really freaking out,” said one business owner, who asked that her name not be used. “But because it’s the tribe, nobody wants to touch it.” David L. Ryan/Globe Staff Tobias Vanderhoop says a casino would reinvigorate the Aquinnah Wampanoag.Some visitors felt less constrained in stating that a casino would alter the serene and timeless character of the Vineyard.
“Do you want to turn it into one big Jersey Shore?” asked Eva Trussel, who was visiting from Georgia. “It is a beautiful part of the world. I’d hate to see the island tarnished, and that’s the only word for it.”
But Vanderhoop says the casino is about restoring the health of a tribe whose numbers on the island have steadily diminished. Many have fled to the mainland, where 1,000 Aquinnah live; fewer than 300 remain on the Vineyard.
A casino could reverse that trend, helping to draw tribal members home to this mostly undeveloped end of the island with the prospect of work at the casino.
Before that can happen, Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV must untangle the conflicting legal claims of the Aquinnah and the private landowners who oppose them.
In the 1980s, the Aquinnah negotiated a settlement with landowners for the return of hundreds of acres they claimed had been taken from them by force or subterfuge by settlers and their descendents. To cinch the deal, the Aquinnah, then landless and unrecognized as a tribe by the federal goverment, agreed to abide by state and local laws that “prohibit or regulate the conduct of bingo or any other game of chance,” a phrase that has become the rallying cry of forces aligned against the tribal casino, including Attorney General Maura Healey.
Congress ratified the settlement in 1987, and in doing so granted the tribe the status of a sovereign nation with the right to govern themselves on their lands.
A year later, Congress passed comprehensive regulations about what federally recognized tribes could do on their lands that have been since interpreted to mean that they could operate casinos without state or local interference.
The tribe’s ambition for a casino has gone mostly unnoticed in the state, while attention has focused on large resort casinos planned by industry behemoths Wynn Resorts and MGM Resorts, and by the Aquinnah’s cousins, the Mashpee Wampanoag.
Many islanders brush past arguments of legal principle and precedent and insist that the casino proposal is doomed because keeping a business afloat anywhere on the island is difficult when seasonal fluctuations in tourism are so dramatic, let alone in one of the remotest corners.
“I would be shocked if it comes and even more shocked if it succeeds,” said Rob Baker, who owns and operates Woodlawn Variety & Grill in Vineyard Haven.
Some islanders cited the tribe’s failure at a commercial oyster propagation operation in Menemsha Pond. Others pointed to a tribal community center built at considerable expense, including contribution from the federal government, but never completed, and empty and fallow for more than a decade.
“I know how hard it is to run a business on the island,” said John Tiernan, an owner of an Oak Bluffs hotel. “I wish nothing but good for the tribe. But I just don’t see it working.”
Sean P. Murphy can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Follow him on Twitter @spmurphyboston.| < Prev | Next > |
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