Federal Indian policy expert Richard Pombo, who served as a member of Congress from 1993-2007 and chairman of the House Resources Committee from 2003-2007, recently announced he will ask current members of the committee to open an investigation into the “apparent misuse of taxpayer-funded grants” regarding the destruction of “a National Historic Landmark, the historic Hickory Ground”—the site of the December 17 grand reopening of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians’ Wind Creek Casino in Wetumpka, Alabama. Pombo added, “I am also suggesting that my former colleagues tell the federal agencies to act immediately to stop all gaming operations at this site. The Poarch should ultimately be forced to restore Hickory Ground, and build their casino at some appropriate place instead. It is not too late to do this, and it would give us all something to truly celebrate.”
Pombo said Wind Creek, with 1,500 new slot machines and a 16,000-gallon shark tank, was built on the site of Hickory Ground, the last capitol of the Creek Nation. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it’s the burial place of the ancestors of the Hickory Ground Tribal Town in Oklahoma, and the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and one of the starting places on the Trail of Tears for the Muscogee Nations before their members were forced to move from Alabama to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma.
Pombo said in 1980, the Poarch acquired Hickory Ground with historic preservation grant funds from the state of Alabama and the federal government. In exchange, the Poarch promised to preserve Hickory Ground for Creek Indians in Alabama and Oklahoma forever. “That promise has been shamefully broken,” Pombo said.
He said in addition to denying Muscogee Creek people access to Hickory Ground for observances and ceremonies, the Poarch have exhumed the remains of dozens of Muscogee Creek people and their associated funerary objects have disappeared.
“Taxpayers have been defrauded, in that funds intended for historic preservation were ultimately used to build a casino on top of what the funds were intended to preserve,” Pombo said.
He fears that “Congressional and public support will no doubt decline for tribal gaming” and that tribal lands may not be taken into federal trust status “because of the Poarch example of gaining trust status for preservation purposes, and then desecrating graves and ceremonial grounds. I can assure you that developers are watching this situation closely, and cannot wait to tell the story of the tribe that willfully destroyed hallowed grounds in order to build a casino to skeptical members of Congress.”
Pombo noted the Poarch operate another casino less than 15 miles from the Wetumpka site. “There is no reason that the nearby casino could not have been expanded instead, and Hickory Ground preserved,” he said.
