History is almost always a factor when it comes to tribes—especially gaming tribes. In the case of a Northern California tribe in Shasta County that wants to build a new casino near the site of a bygone 1846 massacre, it’s a major factor, the Los Angeles Times reported October 22.
What historians call the Sacramento Massacre is not ancient history as far as three tribes are concerned. One, the Redding Rancheria, wants to replace and relocate its Win-River Resort & Casino with a $150 million, nine-story tower on 232 acres along Interstate 5, near the Sacramento River. It would have twice the number of slots, 1,200, and three times the hotel rooms, 250. The old casino would close.
Depending on which oral tradition you follow, 150 to 900 men, women and children were slaughtered by a U.S. expedition led by Capt. John C. Frémont, the celebrated “Pathfinder,” in what frontiersman and scout Kit Carson called “a perfect butchery.”
The controversy is whether this would desecrate the place. However, no historical marker denotes where it happened.
The Rancheria, with 422 members from three historic tribes, has planned the expansion/relocation for 19 years. It is within sight of the towering Mount Shasta. The Rancheria was formed in 1939, then terminated by Congress in 1958, and then recognized again when a federal court forced the government to restore recognition to California’s tribes.
It’s only lately that opposing tribes have thrown in the issue about the property being the site of the massacre. It is also opposed by the city of Redding and one of the largest private landowners in the U.S., Archie Aldis “Red” Emmerson. They oppose it for aesthetic and environmental reasons and because they believe it would increase traffic and hike public safety costs. The Shasta County Board of Supervisors, after initially opposing the project, currently supports it, in return for one-time payments totaling $3.6 million.
One of the tribes opposed is the Northern Wintu, whose chairman, Gary Rickard, recently told lawmakers, “In my heart, I find it hard to believe that there are Wintu people that are willing to build a casino on … the blood-soaked dirt of the massacre site.” He added, “There are dozens of other places along the I-5 corridor and the Sacramento River.”
His tribe has 560 members, but was never recognized by the U.S. government, and so it can’t put land into trust or build a casino.
The other opponent is the Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians. It commissioned a study by a Cal State Sacramento anthropologist who identified the site as being about two miles south of the proposed casino location. It wants it designated as a “sacred site.”
It operates its own casino 50 miles away in Corning: the Rolling Hills Casino and Resort.
Paskenta Chairman Andrew Alejandre, told an Assembly committee that the tribe opposes a casino “on top of men, women, children and elders. The spirit of these ancestors … Let them rest!”
Redding Rancheria Chairman Jack Potter Jr. said the actual location was miles away from the proposed casino location. He calls the accusation “a slander that will not be easily forgotten,” and says one tribe opposes the relocation because it would be competition.
Some members of his own Rancheria, who belong to the Wintu tribe, also oppose the relocation. Rickard and Potter were boyhood friends.
Potter told lawmakers at the same hearing where Rickard spoke, “Gaming in Indian country can be a tide that raises all of our canoes,” adding. “We should not battle against one another, in that spirit.”
The Times quoted a tribal elder as saying, “We’re all the children of genocide.”
The Bureau of Indian Affairs will weigh all the concerns and decide whether to put the land into trust for the tribe.
Potter summed up his view of the inter-tribal dispute: “We always talk about crabs in a pot. We are like all these crabs, stuck in a pot. When one tries to get out of the pot, all the others reach up and pull him back in.”
