These questions, concerns, and appearances should be "enough to attract the attention of Congress and law enforcement," the Times editorial board opined.
It already has. In Congress, Sen. Slade Gorton, a Republican from Washington state, has introduced a bill to drastically reduce Indian sovereignty. Conrad Burns, a Republican from Montana, has drafted another bill that would exempt substantial portions of land within Indian reservations from tribal rule. And in Wisconsin, Gov. Tommy Thompson is threatening to cancel casino gaming compacts with Indians unless they agree to limit their hunting and fishing rights and back away from their efforts to enforce clean-water standards on reservations -- a use of sovereign power granted by Congress a decade ago and immediately seized upon by the Seminoles and a few other tribes.
As Seminole attorney Shore notes, centuries-old rights of Indian self-government are coming under increasing attack both locally and nationally, just as tribes are flexing their political and economic muscles. The backlash, partly driven by conservative antitax fervor, isn't a coincidence, he says. "As long as we were selling trinkets by the roadside, we weren't perceived as a threat," Shore notes. "Now there's a lot of grumbling about 'rich Indians.'"
Standing in the firelight near his Mercedes-Benz while he hacks cedar chips from a new dugout canoe, chief Billie says the anti-Indian hostility is misguided. This year, according to tribal comptroller Jim Boyd, the Seminoles received $16.2 million in federal and state funding from agencies such as Indian Health Service, Housing and Urban Development, and the Department of Agriculture -- a nice chunk of change on first glance, but a pittance when placed in historical and social context. The tribal corporation with its burgeoning cash flow is no different from any other successful corporation, Billie insists. "What's funny is that people who have stock in ITT or Exxon and make a nice dividend, I don't get bent out of shape about that," Billie says. "Well, our people have stock in the Seminole Tribe of Florida."
The real Fourth Seminole War is still to come, and members of the tribe will no doubt be looking for a battle-hardened guerrilla leader. Billie says he's considering a touch of hair dye, maybe an eye-tuck. He may fly to Durham, North Carolina, to a famous fat farm, drop a few of his 205 pounds, and get back in fighting trim. "I'm waiting for some young buck with bright ideas to step up and take over the herd, as they say," Billie offers. "But until that happens, I'm staying put. People are gonna have to deal with me."
Meanwhile the chief pilots his favorite helicopter from band practice to casino management meetings to an open-air photo shoot. The photos -- Billie posing in an airboat, Billie poling in a dugout canoe -- will be used to create a label for "Indian Secret," an all-purpose cleaning product the chief himself has invented.
While preening for the camera, Billie dreams out loud about the future of one of the tribe's worst failures: a massive, Wal-Mart-sized gaming parlor on the isolated Big Cypress reservation, still listed on some highway maps as the World's Largest Bingo Hall. Today the parking lot is littered with surplus military equipment bought cheap from the federal government. Tomorrow, though, the money might flow again: "What we need is a luxury hotel next door," Billie explains. "People come out here, they want to stay the night." Billie mentions his old acquaintance, Donald Trump, who visited the reservation a couple of months ago. Yes, he notes, the two discussed the prospect of full-out casino gambling. "When the time comes that I need somebody that knows what they're doing, I'd just as soon use Donald. He's got that flair about him that I like. On the other hand, we might manage the whole project ourselves, keep it in the family. That's where we're going in the future, more and more.
