Some Conn. Tribes Have All the Luck

"We love the two casinos that are there," said Ken Dautrich, a public policy professor at the University of Connecticut. "But we would hate to have more."

The fight between state and tribes took place within the Interior Department's creaky tribal recognition bureaucracy. Those who participated say it had everything and nothing to do with gaming.

Nothing, because the system -- set up before the advent of Indian casinos -- is supposed to be concerned only with genealogical and historical questions: Do the current tribal members actually descend from Colonial-era Indians? Has the tribe always had a functioning central authority?

"It's a really straightforward process," said James E. Cason, an associate deputy secretary at Interior who oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

But not many people agree with that here in Connecticut, where gambling seems to always have been just under the surface.

Investors hoping for a Foxwoods-style payoff gave the tribes millions to dig up reams of documents, such as an 1873 petition signed by Eastern Pequot members, which might flesh out current members' family trees.

"You need to hire professors, anthropologists, historians," said Flowers, whose tribe's history since the 1636-38 Pequot War has been tangled by intermarriage with other tribes and non-Indians. "You need a lot of money."

State and town officials were, however, equally thorough in their rebuttals. In the case of the 1873 petition, they cried foul because some of the signatures seemed to be in the same handwriting.

Along the way, the process occasionally detoured into the surreal: For a while, one group of Eastern Pequots told the press that the others were non-Indian impostors, though later the two groups united. Then there was a cameo by Trump, whose casino company sued for breach of an investment agreement with the Pequots.

In 2002, things seemed to have gone in favor of the Eastern Pequots. The federal government issued a "final determination" that they should be recognized.

But final, in this case, did not actually mean final. After an appeal from the state and towns, Washington agreed to rethink the decision.

That process took more than three years.