Book tells how lawyer helped build Pequot tribe and Foxwoods

A recently released book calls the man behind the proposed Maine Indian casino “clever” and “audacious,” and says Tom Tureen’s history with Connecticut’s Foxwoods casino shows he will spin the facts and do what it takes to win.

In his book “Hitting the Jackpot,” author Brett D. Fromson tells the story of how Foxwoods casino came to be. During a recent interview, Fromson said the importance of his book for Maine voters – who will vote on the casino Nov. 4 – is that it details how Tureen works.

In a separate interview, Tureen said he had little problem with Fromson’s book, but disagreed with the author’s assessment of him. Fromson “is just trying to sell his book,” Tureen said. Fromson was in Maine last month promoting his book and spoke at a CasinosNO! gathering.

“Hitting the Jackpot” tells how longtime Indian lawyer Tureen, of Falmouth, helped create the world’s largest and most profitable Indian casino in Connecticut by gaining tribal status for a group of people representing a tribe no longer in existence.

Fromson tells how Eliza George, a descendant of the Pequot Indians, lived alone in a modest, old house on a reservation recognized by the state of Connecticut. She died there in 1973. At that point, there was a reservation, but no tribe.

After her death, her grandson, Skip Hayward, took over the house and land. Back then Tureen was working for the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes of Maine in what would become the landmark Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act. Tureen was also helping tribes in other states gain legal tribal status.

Tureen and Hayward began working together and eventually bypassed the tribal approval process under the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. Instead, they gained congressional approval after lobbying members of Connecticut’s congressional delegation. During those meetings and hearings in Washington, Tureen presented Hayward as the chief of the Pequots, according to Fromson’s book.

In the book, Tureen told Fromson that if the Pequots’ tribal status had been challenged, and he had to prove to the courts that the group he represented was an actual Pequot tribe, it may have been “tough.”

Gaining tribal status opened doors for Hayward and his extended family, all descendants of Eliza George who now comprise the Pequot tribe. It led to their ability to begin a high-stakes bingo operation in 1986, which was an immediate success. In the first year, it earned $3.7 million for the tribe.

Seeing the potential of gambling, Tureen and Hayward pushed for more. Working with the governor’s office, Tureen and his legal partners helped gain approval for slot machines on the condition the tribe share the proceeds with the state of Connecticut. That paved the way to a full-fledged casino, Foxwoods, which opened in 1992.

Fromson writes that in settling with the state over transferring ownership of the reservation to the federal government, the state of Connecticut demanded it retain criminal and civil jurisdiction. Tureen agreed because he knew that only “regulatory” authority could prevent legalized gambling. On the same page, Fromson notes that Tureen said: “Never underestimate the ignorance of your opponents. People are real stupid sometimes.”

Later in “Hitting the Jackpot,” Fromson tells of one humorous incident when the Pequots were asked to show off their native culture – a challenge for the group since they had no history as a tribal community. It was in the early 1990s, and members had stopped in Hawaii to see their Malaysian financial backers. The Malaysians asked them to sing a traditional Pequot song. They had none, so they sang “You Are My Sunshine,” Fromson writes.

As Foxwoods grew, more Pequot descendants moved to the reservation and joined the tribe. Disputes evolved among tribal members. Black-skinned Pequots said they were being treated as “second-class Pequots” by Hayward’s white-skinned family. Eventually Skip Hayward was voted out as chief.

Fromson, a former business writer for Washington Post, acknowledges that for Maine voters, there is no question about the authenticity of Maine’s Penobscot and Passamaquoddy tribes. They have maintained their own communities, language and culture on tribal land.

What’s important to understand, he said during his Maine visit, is how Tureen, the architect of Maine’s casino referendum, works. What happened in Connecticut shows how resourceful Tureen can be, Fromson said. “Maine voters need to be aware of who they’re dealing with. This is no Ralph Nader.”

Pequots ‘were a real tribe’

In a subsequent interview, Tureen sharply disagreed with Fromson’s assessment of him spinning the facts. “I worked for Ralph Nader. (Fromson is) just trying to sell his book.”

Tureen acknowledged that he helped a group that was not a federally recognized tribe become one. The context of how that happened is important, he said.

Before he began working for the Pequots in 1973 and 1974, he was working with Maine Indians and others as part of the war on poverty and to promote Native American rights. A federal deadline was looming critical to securing tribal rights. “I tried to make sure none of the tribes got left out,” Tureen said.

He acknowledged being anxious about getting legal tribe status for the Pequots. If he had been forced to make the case in court, “it would have been tough, no question. The tribe was so small. … I was worried about it.” The Pequot descendants “were a group of people on the edge of extinction, but they weren’t extinct,” Tureen said. Back then, questions about what constituted a tribe “were novel questions. There was no definition of what a tribe was.”

Another book about Foxwoods, “Without Reservation,” asserted that Hayward and his relatives were not real Pequot Indians. That is false, Tureen said. Hayward and his relatives were Pequot descendants. Whether they constituted a tribe is a different matter, he said. A court may have ruled no or it may have ruled yes, Tureen said.

“I believe the fact that the state recognized the reservation meant they still were a tribe,” Tureen said. The fact there was a reservation “was probably sufficient. That’s not to say arguments couldn’t have been raised on the other side. … You’ve got to remember these questions were all on the cutting edge back then. These were questions that had not been addressed before.”

Asked about his statement “Never underestimate the ignorance of your opponent,” Tureen said he never made that comment to Fromson or that the quote “was taken out of context.”

“I did not say that to him. That’s a gratuitous remark,” Tureen said. “I’ve said before people do dumb things, but I did not say that in that context.”

When asked about the lack of Pequot culture and the Pequot song “You Are My Sunshine,” Tureen said there is no legal requirement for the Pequots to know a tribal language or a tribal song.

The Pequots “were a real tribe,” he said. “I didn’t make that up. Sure, this was a novel question. … The tribe was recognized by the state of Connecticut. They still had descendants from the ancient tribe. What’s the basis for them to stop being a tribe? There was nothing in statute.”

Tureen said he’s proud of what he did in Connecticut and his role in building Foxwoods and Connecticut’s other casino, Mohegan Sun. “What I did was create the largest taxpayer in Connecticut.”

The two Indian casinos generate millions of dollars each year for the state, and have created thousands of jobs. “The legal system worked for the tribes,” Tureen said.

The last page of Fromson’s “Hitting the Jackpot” states that Tureen said his biggest regret is that the riches of Foxwoods fell only to a few. In the later interview, Tureen said he had one more regret.

When he worked on the Maine Indian Claims Settlement agreement, “we did not get this right,” Tureen said, referring to the fact that the settlement did not allow gambling. “But the settlement included a provision that it could be amended” to give Maine tribes the same rights as other tribes. “That’s all we’re doing.”

bwashuk@sunjournal.com

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