Some Conn. Tribes Have All the Luck

On Oct. 12, the day they finally were to hear from the government, the Eastern Pequots built a fire and prepared for a celebratory powwow, Flowers said.

At the tribe's office, leaders were gathered around the fax machine when, at 2 p.m., it started to spit out the government's decision.

"First page said it all," Flowers said.

There had been a "Reconsidered Final Determination," denying them federal recognition. Across the state, the Schaghticoke (pronounced SCAT-a-cook) Tribe was getting the same news.

These two decisions -- taken together with the 2004 rejections of two other tribes with casino ambitions, the Golden Hill Paugussetts and the Nipmucs -- have been seen to end an era here.

Though several other would-be Connecticut tribes -- including the Southern Pequots, the Western Pequot Tribal Nation of New Haven and the Native American Mohegans -- are in the Interior Department pipeline, their cases might not be decided for years.

"It's safe to say, at this point, that if there's ever going to be more casinos in this state, it's going to be a long, long time from now," said Jeff Benedict, a longtime activist who recently resigned as president of the Connecticut Alliance Against Casino Expansion.

For the rejected tribes, experts say, the best remaining option may be a long and possibly hopeless challenge in federal court. They may have to do it without their investors; a primary backer of the Nipmucs has already pulled out.

In interviews, leaders of three tribes -- the head of the Paugussetts did not return calls for comment -- said they were prepared to fight on.

But Richard Velky, chief of the Schaghticokes, admitted that it was a scary thought that they might, in one stroke, have lost their dreams of a casino and something more basic: acknowledgment as a legitimate Indian tribe.

"Oh, boy, I wouldn't even want to think about it," he said, asked about the possibility that the tribe's appeals would fail. "I don't know where we go."