many of the original allotments were underutilized, the U.S. repurchased the unused land for ten cents an acre. Then, the government allotted those reacquired lands to non-Indian homesteaders, thereby ending the concept of “Indian Territory” and paving the way for non-Indian settlements and Oklahoma statehood.
As a result, Indian people, who could no longer exist the way they had for enumerable generations, lived in poverty until the 1980s. Unemployment and underemployment among Indian people were as high as 40 percent, with rampant alcoholism and drug abuse taking the lives of too many tribal youths
Then, something changed. The Indians discovered a new enterprise: bingo.
9 A prominent Seminole leader, never signed the relocation treaty. The name Osceola presently exists among many Seminole citizens.
10 See Crow Agency, Montana.
A Brief History of Gaming in America
In 2013, a single U.S. industry’s revenue surpassed almost every other industry in revenue. This industry generated more than $600 billion, provided approximately 700,000 jobs, paid billions more in wages and directly contributed more than $11 billion to local, state and federal tax coffers.
That industry? Native American gaming. Native American gaming continues to see unrivaled profits that provide direct financial support for hundreds of Native American tribes. Since the early 1990s, the majority of these tribal nations rose from abject poverty to a level of prosperity and thus allowed the rebuilding of tribal membership and cultures. This prosperity has prompted self-government, reclamation of lands initially ceded to tribes and cultivated business relationships with non-tribal industries throughout the world.
When representatives of the Seminole Tribe of Florida stood atop the Hard Rock Cafe in Manhattan’s Times Square on December 7, 2006, they served as the embodiment of unparalleled success.
At the press conference concerning the purchase, Seminole Hollywood Council Representative Max B. Osceola Jr. said to reporters, “Our ancestors sold Manhattan for trinkets. We’re going to buy Manhattan back, one burger at a time.”
On July 23, 2014, the NIGA held a two-day summit in Washington, DC, where more than 200 of the near-250 gaming tribes sent representatives to the event. Ernie Stevens, NIGA Chairman, gave testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and said that “Nationwide, Indian Gaming is a proven job creator. Indian Gaming delivered over 165,000 direct and indirect American jobs in 2013 alone. Indian Gaming has provided many Indian people their first opportunity to work at home on the reservation. Just as importantly, jobs on the reservation generated by Indian Gaming are bringing back entire families that had moved away.”
From the tiny tribal bingo halls that began the story of American Indian gaming to today’s mega Indian casino resorts, including the Chickasaw Nation’s WinStar World Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma, and the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians’ Resort and Casino in California, the success of Indian Gaming is testament to the drive and success of Indian nations. No other industry in America has enjoyed such rapid expansion and generated such enormous economic growth that directly affects the lives of its members as the Indian gaming industry.
Gambling had become acceptable.
Thankfully, there are law enforcement and Indian gaming agencies installed to prevent the licensing of those with criminal backgrounds. Non-tribal agencies, part of the DOJ, act as watchdogs to keep the industry clear of criminal influence. Every gaming tribe has an independent Tribal Gaming Agency headed by an appointed Commissioner (usually a prominent tribal citizen). These agencies focus on enforcing gaming regulations and vetting everyone associated with the gaming operation, including contractors and employees. During Indian gaming’s infancy, Ross Swimmer, a former Cherokee chief and now Special Trustee for American Indians attached to the Department of the Interior, began working with representatives sponsored by Gordon Graves to carefully craft tribal agreements with consistent language and terms. He also vetted Graves and other key persons during the process.
Gordon Graves’s Family History
Gordon Graves grew up in Crowell, Texas, a small North Texas town of fewer than 2,000 people. Graves was an honor student in high school. Exceptionally gifted in mathematics, Graves decided to become an engineer, graduating from the University of Texas as an electrical engineer in 1959. He then went to work for Litton Industries in California, designing computers for military aircraft.
Graves’s parents were both schoolteachers, along with his grandfather and four of his uncles. Education was of paramount importance to all of Graves’s ancestors.
Graves’s ancestors migrated to Texas in the late 1840s shortly after Texas became a state. Graves’s paternal grandmother, May Roberts Graves, the daughter of Ike Roberts and Portia McCormick, made the trip from West Virginia to Texas with her parents when she was a teenager.
The intriguing Roberts-McCormick family relationship is chronicled here by Retired Colonel Roger Graves, who is Gordon Graves’s first cousin.
According to Col. Graves, the McCormick’s received their land in western Virginia as a reward grant for the service of James McCormick Sr., an English soldier during the French and Indian War under the command of Lt. Savage, who was under the command of Col. George Washington himself during an expedition in 1758 against the French stronghold of Fort Duquesne, which is the site of present-day Pittsburgh.
A superior French force successfully blocked American troops, and the expedition had to withdraw to a place called Great Meadows, where the Americans hastily built a fortification, which they named, Fort Necessity. The French put the fort under siege, and Washington negotiated a surrender, which allowed his troops to return to Virginia. As a reward for the effort, large tracts of land in the western part of the colony became tract grants under the names of the company commanders. As a member of the company commanded by Lt. Savage, James McCormick received one of the sixty-acre tracts within the 28,627-acre allotment known as “Savage Grant.” McCormick purchased additional tracts from other members of his company. James McCormick, a friend of George Washington, and his father, Dr. John McCormick, owned property adjacent to Washington’s estate in what was then Frederick County, Virginia, now located in Maryland. Washington, in fact, mentions in his diary that James McCormick spent the night at Mount Vernon.
James McCormick Sr. never moved to the granted property in western Virginia, but his son James McCormick Jr. moved there in 1810. James Jr. married Jemima Violet, the granddaughter of Edward Violet Sr. (Gordon’s fifth great-grandfather), who was George Washington’s overseer. James and Jemima McCormick had fourteen children, the youngest of whom was Gordon’s great-great-grandfather, George McCormick, born in 1810 and later married to Virginia Terril.
George McCormick owned and operated a ferry on the Little Sandy River, which formed the border between West Virginia and Kentucky. At the same location, he also ran a ferry-boat from West Virginia across the Ohio River and into the state of Ohio. John and Mary Roberts moved to the same area around 1816. Their youngest son was Gordon’s great-great-grandfather, John Henry Roberts, born in 1814. As a result, Roberts owned and operated a tavern, which was like a modern-day bed-and-breakfast.
George McCormick and John H. Roberts were next-door neighbors on Twelve Pole Creek, which empties into the Ohio River. In 1857, a new town called Ceredo came to be at the confluence of the Little Sandy and Ohio rivers. The first house built in Ceredo was for John H. Roberts and George McCormick. Both men became wealthy, although a national economic depression occurred around that time, and many businesses
