"Those of us in Western New York who oppose war need to start paying attention to our own backyard. where community activists and developers are fanning the flames in the US and Canada’s ceaselessly rekindling war against the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Six Nations) Confederacy.

In the US, Central New York’s Upstate Citizens for Equality (UCE) is using US courts to challenge Haudenosaunee sovereignty in Central New York—including that of the Oneida land where the Turning Stone Casino is located.

With things heating up, US federal officers mysteriously appeared in Caledonia, where native protestors blew their cover by commandeering their unmarked car. Canadian media reported that officials from the US Border Patrol were ostensibly in Canada to “observe” how Canadian police dealt with native protestors.

Sovereignty is the legal basis that allows the Seneca Nation, part of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, to build a casino on its Buffalo Creek territory. For US citizens, the emergence of sovereign foreign territory in the middle of Buffalo is a difficult concept to swallow. This retaking of lost territory was made possible by a rather recent piece of congressional legislation articulating a deal with the Senecas allowing the US city of Salamanca to remain on their Cattaraugus reservation.

This deal poses a real challenge for anti-casino forces. How do you oppose casino plans by neighbors without opposing the right of those neighbors to exist? Or put simply, can you be anti-casino without being anti-Indian? Can you oppose casinos without supporting the centuries-old war against the Haudenosaunee?"

Get the Story:
Michael I. Niman: Anti-Casino or Anti-Indian? (The Buffalo Art Voice 6/15)