Mohawks, Money and Death

By Joelle Attinger

Fearing for the safety of their grandchildren, Joellene Adams and her husband left the barricade and drove into enemy territory. But as they pulled up to the home of their son Richard, he fired an automatic rifle at the car. Later that evening Richard telephoned with an apology: "Ma, I'm sorry. I didn't know it was you." Replied his mother: "Don't ever call me Ma again. "

Over the past year such violent Mohawk vs. Mohawk clashes have become commonplace on the 28,000-acre St. Regis reservation, as a bitter quarrel over lucrative casino operations has escalated into a virtual civil war. Heavily armed pro- and antigambling factions have battled for control of the main road through the reservation, which straddles the border between upstate New York and Canada's Quebec and Ontario provinces. Last week the fighting reached a new and bloody peak: thousands of shots were exchanged in a three-hour gun battle that left two dead. Hundreds of New York State troopers, who had previously been reluctant to intervene on the largely self-governing reservation, and a force of Canadian police moved in to restore an uneasy calm.

More is at stake than the gambling industry, with revenues of as much as $300 million, which has flourished on the U.S. side of the reservation since bingo parlors were introduced in 1986 as a quick and easy way to fund tribal welfare programs. "It's a question of who is going to have jurisdiction and under what conditions" over every aspect of reservation life, says Ron LaFrance, acting director of the American Indian Program at Cornell University. A bitter power struggle between three competing tribal councils has been exacerbated by disagreements among a maze of U.S. and Canadian government agencies that oversee the reservation.

Mohawks who live on the Canadian side enjoy less autonomy than their American counterparts. Their only attempt to launch a bingo operation was quickly shut down in 1984 by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The casinos on the U.S. side are also illegal. But that has not kept thousands of gamblers from both sides of the border away from the blackjack, roulette and baccarat tables at six gaudy gambling palaces. Since last June, federal and state law- enforcement officials have repeatedly raided casinos, confiscated cash and removed slot machines in an attempt to keep gambling within legal bounds. But a shutdown would require continuous police presence, a provocative move U.S. officials have not been ready to make.

Although the crackdown has drawn applause from antigambling Mohawk factions, it has provoked a militant response from Mohawks who regard the raids as violations of the tribe's sovereign rights. "We need to exercise our right to self-determination," argues Francis Boots, spokesman for the Mohawk Warriors Society, a militant and well-armed vigilante group that favors the casinos. "Gambling is just a small part of that."

Gambling foes charge that the casinos have not only attracted unsavory elements to the reservation but also failed to produce economic benefits. "We still have no supermarket, no Laundromat, no arena," says Chief Howard Tarbell, head of the St. Regis Tribal Council. "We need legitimate economic alternatives so people don't look only to the casinos for hope." Besides trying to monopolize the profits from casinos, critics claim, the Warriors are seeking to protect cross-border trading operations worth $100 million annually. U.S. and Canadian officials are searching for a formula that would restore peace to the reservation. But so far they have been oddly reluctant to involve Mohawks directly in their talks. Last week 30 provincial, state and federal officials gathered in Montreal to discuss the future of the tribe. Not a single Mohawk leader was present. Not one had been invited.

With reporting by Stephen Pomper/Massena