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Power & Profit in Indian Country
A Corporation Disguised as a Nation

by Kari Lydersen
04.21.04

Ray Halbritter, the leader of the Oneida Indian Nation in upstate New York, is one of the wealthiest men in the state, according to other members of the tribe.

It is not a hard claim to believe.

Halbritter has positioned himself as head of the extremely profitable Turning Stone casino on the reservation, which earns about $167 million in annual profits from over 2.5 million visitors per year, according to the Manhattan consulting group Christiansen Capital Advisors, and Halbritter is also the acting CEO of various for-profit companies under the umbrella of Oneida Inc. The Oneida Inc. enterprises, including construction, gas stations, land development, textiles and home cookware, employ about 2,000 people, making Oneida Inc. one of the largest employers in central New York. Though these enterprises function exactly like corporations, they are able to take advantage of the tax exempt status offered to Indian tribes. Halbritter also owns a media company, which among other things publishes the widely circulated newspaper Indian Country Today.

Media reports in various papers, including Indian Country Today, often show Halbritter as a benevolent philanthropist, known for donating millions of dollars to various projects and causes.
Halbritter himself describes the casino’s profits and his general wealth as a way to strengthen the tribe’s identity and sovereignty.

“Our revenue has allowed us to take control of our own destiny more than any political or theoretical speech,” Halbritter, who didn’t return calls for this story, told The New York Times in 2001. “While people meet and make speeches, we’re actually doing things.”

But many in the Oneida tribe say he is far from a progressive and generous force. Rather, they say, he has continued the tradition of oppression and control suffered by Indians at the hands of the U.S. government, and has in fact taken it upon himself to strip his people of their traditions and bind them under his control as part of his plan for profit. Not only that, but in the process his leadership has undermined the traditional matriarchial and democratic traditions of the Iroquois, with a patriarchal Men’s Council that mirrors the white power structure of secrecy and exclusiveness rather than the inclusive, collective structure set up by the Iroquois League of Nations hundreds of years ago and followed by many tribes to this day.

"Among the Iroquois there is no such thing as a leader or king," said Danielle Patterson, Halbritter's cousin and outspoken opponent. "What Halbritter has done is taken this democratic form of government and turned it into a dictatorship.

The Fall of the Oneia

he name Oneida comes from an anglicization of the people's own name for themselves, "One yota ka o no," meaning Granite People or People of the Standing Stone. The Oneida are one of the original five nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, along with the Mohawks, the Onondagas, the Cayugas and the Senecas. (In 1715 a sixth nation, the Tuscaroras, was added to the group). The Iroquois nations, like almost all Native Americans in the country, have seen their land holdings decimated by the federal and state governments and private entities through deceptive or fraudulent deals and treaties or outright force. Before European colonization, according to a 1995 article in the publication Akwesasne Notes, the Iroquois “exercised active dominion” over about four fifths of the state of New York, an area of about 39,000 square miles. The Iroquois Confederacy laid claim to almost 25 million acres of land in the U.S., and they were known for being careful protectors of the land and its resources. By 1995, the article says, they only had 86,716 acres nationwide, .034 percent of their original holdings. The Cayugas lost all of their land in New York, and the Onondagas were left with only 7,300 acres in the state. The Mohawks have only 14,640 acres.

The Oneida once lived on 5.3 million acres in upstate New York. By 1990, the reservation consisted of only 32 acres.

Their story of loss reads much like the tragic tales of other tribes around the country. But in this case the exploitation and co-optation suffered at the hands of the American system, including both white and Indian authorities, is starkly epitomized in one man—Halbritter.

During the latter half of the 17th century, the Oneida, like many Indian tribes, saw drastic reductions in their numbers due to epidemics including smallpox introduced by white settlers and traders. Around that time alcohol also began to take its toll.

The pillage of the Oneida Nation is especially perverse considering that unlike most Iroquois, the Oneida actually supported the U.S. during the American Revolution. In 1777 the Oneida volunteered their surplus corn to feed George Washington's troops during the brutal winter at Valley Forge, and Washington also employed an Oneida as his personal cook. More importantly, the U.S. Constitution itself was based on the Iroquois Constitution, developed around 1142 as an oral tradition and later committed to print. The Founding Fathers were impressed by the Iroquois’s notion of a direct democracy, a government by the people “with the consent of the governed,” though unfortunately the U.S. democratic system later degenerated into its current form of corrupt representative democracy. The tenets of self determination and freedom of speech and religion which became part of the Bill of Rights were part of Iroquois law, and Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson both specifically referenced the Iroquois document during the debates that led to the drafting of the U.S. Constitution.

Despite the U.S. government’s early overtures at cordial and respectful relations with the Iroquois, the white land grab soon started. The Oneida's land was swiftly eroded following treaties signed in 1785 and 1788, ceding land to various companies with the blessing of the government.

In 1821, the Oneida purchased land in Menominee, Wisc., where about 700 Oneida emigrated over the next 20 years. As the government continued to seize Oneida land, more and more Oneida immigrated to Wisconsin and also to the town of Thames in Ontario, Canada. Today, there are Oneida communities of about 15,000 near Green Bay, Wisconsin and about 4,000 in Thames. The New York Oneida now number only about 1,000.
In the early 1980s, all three Oneida groups sued the state of New York along with the federal government and the counties of Madison and Oneida for illegally taking 250,000 acres of land in 26 illegal transactions during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The U.S. Department of Justice backed them up in their claims that the transactions violated the Non-Intercourse Acts, and in 1974 and 1985 the Supreme Court issued rulings in favor of the Oneida. In February 2002 the federal and state government and the counties reached a settlement in which the tribe would get $225 million to reacquire land within the 250,000-acre claim area. However, in August 2003 the federal government simply decided not to put up the money for the deal, essentially ending the affair and leaving the tribe with no restitution.

Halbritter’s administration issued brief statements insinuating they would continue to try to gain the land.

“The nation has always believed that a fair and equitable settlement will be reached,” Oneida spokesman Mark Emery told Indian Country Today.

“We weren’t anticipating a positive response from the federal government,” Cristina Danforth, a member of the Wisconsin Oneida, told the paper.

The Rise of Ray

n the mid-1980s Halbritter, a Harvard-educated lawyer, and two other Oneida men were appointed interim custodians of the tribe, called "peacekeepers" or "eyes and ears" for the Onondaga Grand Council. Each represented a different “Wolf Clan,” the traditional leadership structure of the tribe. They were supposed to turn over power to an elected leadership when the time came, and to respect the traditional, matriarchal and democratic leadership structures which centered around the Wolf Clan Mothers.

But, in 1990 after the other two interim leaders died, Halbritter took the opportunity to start seizing total control. He appointed a "Men's Council," something which is unheard of in Iroquois matrilineal tradition, and began making new laws and policies governing the lives of the tribe. He also started the for-profit company Oneida Inc. and named himself the CEO, with the Men's Council functioning as a sort of Board of Directors.
He staged a coup against the remaining vestiges of traditional leadership. One day the Wolf Clan went to the traditional Long House for their meeting, only to find the locks had been changed by Halbritter and the Men's Council, who were using it exclusively for their meetings. Halbritter hired a 50-plus-member private police force, which is not recognized by the county or state police, many of them non-Native. They have been widely charged with physical abuse and intimidation in carrying out Halbritter's wishes. Many call them "goons," a term which originated to describe the thuggish private police on the Pine Ridge reservation. Halbritter also set up a tribal court staffed with his own supporters and subject to his final say on all appeals.

In 1993 Halbritter won approval from the state and local government, including then Gov. Mario Cuomo, for construction of the Turning Stone casino, which soon became a vastly successful enterprise with reported profits of $167 million per year.

Halbritter violated tradition by making the casino deal without input from the tribe, fostering the nascient opposition to his leadership. The deal was also in violation of a 1988 ruling by the Indian Gaming Commission that required a tribal referendum before the construction of a casino.

In 1993 the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) Grand Council refused to recognize Halbritter's authority as leader of the Oneida.
That year the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) also ruled that Halbritter's leadership was in fact illegal and invalid. But in just 24 hours the BIA had reversed their position, many say at the urging of New York elected officials, namely Congressman Sherwood Boehlert, and Sen. Alphonse D'Amato, who were known as gambling supporters and cronies of Halbritter.

Halbritter used casino profits to buy up surrounding land on the market, bringing the current total Oneida holdings outside of the actual 32-acre reservation to about 4,000 acres.

Like many tribes, tribal members receive regular pay-outs of the casino profits—anywhere from $1,100 per month to about $5,000 per year according to different people. But many say that rather than uplifting the overall socioeconomic status of the reservation, the casino revenue has served as a tool for Halbritter to retain his stranglehold on power. Those who oppose him don't receive the casino benefits or other tribal benefits including college scholarships, insurance and health coverage.

"People are afraid to speak out because they are afraid to lose their housing and benefits," said Patterson. "It's a whole brainwashing theory he has to make people codependent. He has 'woodwork Oneidas' who support him—people who came out of the woodwork when they heard about the casino. Those people are so misled they don't know who they are. Many of them relocated here from Syracuse or other cities [after the casino revenue started flowing.]"

Meanwhile in a brief interview for this story which he did before declining to speak further, Emery said Patterson and others who don’t recognize Halbritter’s administration shouldn’t expect to collect from its profits.

"They don't recognize our government, so they should get money from whatever government they do recognize," he said.

Patterson also noted that though they get stipends from the casino, many Oneida are paying that money right back to Oneida Inc. because they rent homes on Oneida Inc.-developed for-profit rental housing, such as a development called White Pines.
"A lot of our people are still at or near the poverty level, many are on welfare, while he's getting all this money from the casino," she said. "At White Pines it is all rental, there is no ownership, and the police control every aspect of it. They're paying the money he gave them right back to him in $500 or $1,000 per month rent."

In 1995, many Oneida protested in a March for Democracy opposing Halbritter's leadership. Many of them had their cash and benefits terminated. Other demonstrations against Halbritter’s authority over the years have also resulted in people losing their benefits and intimidation and violence by the tribal police.

Opponents of Halbritter note that his leadership doesn't fall under either of the two accepted forms of Indian government—traditional roles inherited through the tribe or elected governments.

"Without a trial or hearing we have been found guilty by the Men's Council of conspiring with the Confederacy, meeting with Wisconsin Oneida and being in the company of unnamed, apparently dangerous 'Canadians,'" wrote Diane Shenandoah, Halbritter's cousin and another major critic. "Halbritter has taken away our benefits while denying us, at risk of arrest, access to our Oneida facilities, including the Long House. He has punished Oneida for speaking to the press, enacted ordinances which are unknown to residents and passed laws which he can change on a whim."

Family Feud or Fraud?

albritter and his supporters say the opposition against him is nothing more than a family feud. And many of his most ardent opponents are his own relatives; along with his cousins Diane Shenandoah and Danielle Patterson, his aunt Maisie Shenandoah and other relatives are among the most outspoken about Halbritter's regime. They say they have all been physically assaulted by the private police force or members of the Men's Council, and Patterson even lost her home, seemingly because of her opposition to Halbritter. Currently Halbritter’s administration is also trying to bulldoze Maisie and Diane Shenandoah’s houses.

In 2000, Halbritter instituted a "safety and beautification program" supposedly meant to bring all the homes on the reservation up to decent construction and safety standards. But Patterson, Shenandoah and other opponents saw this as just another tool for Halbritter to consolidate his power. Under the ordinance Halbritter ordered that all homes would be inspected by his building inspectors, and that homes that weren't up to code and weren't satisfactorily repaired would be demolished. Many of his opponents live in trailers or shacks on the "original 32 acres," having not moved onto the land bought up by Oneida Inc.

Halbritter's inspectors ordered most of the 22 homes on the original 32 acres demolished. By the fall of 2001, only seven families remained.

In November 2001, Patterson was ordered evicted along with her three children, supposedly because her trailer was not up to code. Patterson said she had been trying to fix her home with her shoestring budget, earned mostly by doing beadwork since she has been cut out of the casino revenues and other benefits by Halbritter. She said that Arthur Pierce, the Oneida public safety commissioner, had ordered her children be taken away because she had no central heating, then had written a letter to workers with Stoneleigh Housing company ordering them not to deliver a furnace to her home until her building inspection had been completed. Patterson refused to let building inspectors enter.

On Nov. 16 she had a confrontation with inspectors and as many as 30 of the private police outside her home. In the course of the clash Patterson says she was physically assaulted by the police and then arrested on charges of second degree criminal contempt and resisting arrest.

She said that the inspectors had a metal bar and an order from the Oneida Tribal Court allowing them to enter her home. She said that after she refused them entry, they grabbed her and pulled her away from the door. She said she was thrown against the door, threatened with a can of mace, had her hair pulled out and was otherwise injured during the scuffle, in which she was also accused of kicking a police officer. Maisie Shenandoah, 69, was thrown off the porch by police, she said. Patterson was treated at the local hospital for bruises and emotional trauma.

Patterson said that when she returned to her home after being released by police, she found it vandalized, drawers overturned and pipes and fixtures pulled out of the walls. Her seven-year-old daughter, Jolene, witnessed the "inspection." The house was found to be "not fit for human habitation," according to the inspector's report, and ordered demolished. Patterson appealed the demolition, but in 2002 her home was raized nonetheless. In October the Oneida Nation Tribal Court issued a stay preventing the demolition of Maisie and Diane’s houses, which had been scheduled for Oct. 26.

A statement released by Halbritter’s people said only that they are “obligated to ensure Territory residents do not live in unsafe or unsanitary housing.”

"It's a matter of health and safety," said Emery of Patterson’s house. "Her home had no foundation, the windows were boarded up."

Divided…and Conquered?

aisie Shenandoah, a Wolf Clan Mother, originally endorsed Halbritter's appointment to interim leadership, but now she calls him "an overfed despot with a taste for Italian suits" and a "petty tyrant," as quoted in several news articles.
Halbritter and his publicists as well as local media including The New York Times often characterize the struggle as one of assimilationists versus traditionalists, saying that opposition to Halbritter centers around some Oneidas' beliefs that the casino violates tribal law and tradition. Shenandoah, Patterson and others say they do think the casino violates Oneida tradition, including the explicit teachings of Seneca profit Handsome Lake. Lake, who lived from 1735-1815, was known as a drunk and depressed tribal member before having a series of revelatory dreams and becoming a moral and spiritual leader of his people. He described gambling, witchcraft, strong drink and secret poisoning as the Four Great Offenses, with adultery, card playing and reluctance to have children also considered evil.

“After his dream Handsome Lake became a famous orator and preacher, articulating the dilemmas in which the Seneca were trapped and prescribing both religious and secular solutions – including refraining from drinking whiskey, practicing magic and engaging in sexual promiscuity,” wrote John Hanchette, a founding editor of USA Today, in a Niagara Falls Reporter story about a proposed casino there. Hanchette referred to Lake’s premonition that the world would end because of human sin and decadence epitomized by the casino.

But even more important than the morality of gambling, Halbritter’s critics say, is the issue of how the casino profit is used to further Halbritter's political power within New York state and his tyrannical hold over his own people.

Patterson, the Shenandoahs and the other handful of tribal members who oppose Halbritter say they are determined to hold on to their land and to keep fighting for a return to tribal traditions and increased democracy in the tribe. Far more than a family feud, they see their struggle with Halbritter as a symbolic fight between the integrity and traditions of Native Americans and the all-mighty dollar.

"We were always a humble people," said Patterson. "It's true that money does divide and conquer. It has divided our family."

In a paper on the Oneida situation, University of Nebraska professor Bruce Johansen describes the conflict as a symbol of the corrosion of culture, tradition and tribal ties that money in general and casinos in particular can cause in Indian Country.
"The Oneida Nation of New York under the leadership of Ray Halbritter has created a powerful economic motor, but one that has left many traditionalists feeling like strangers in their own land, as they have been evicted from their homes, watched by non-Indian police, and cut off from tribal benefits because they exercised their rights to dissent," he wrote. "Many of them have come to ask: 'What kind of sovereignty is this?'"

Kari Lydersen is an indefatigable journalist whose writing has appeared in over one hundred publications across the country, from the Washington Post to Clamor Magazine. She is currently working on a book focusing on the post-9/11 experience of U.S. immigrants for Common Courage Press. She may be reached at karilyde@aol.com