Things could get interesting on Monday.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, Governor Paterson reiterated his intent to collect taxes on cigarettes sold to non-natives at native-owned stores.\u00a0 He worried openly on WOR Radio about the possible repercussions:<\/p>\n
This is a very dangerous situation.\u00a0 There is a, I think, high alert. The State Police tell us over and over again that there could be violence and death as a result of some of the measures we’re taking.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The warning signs are there.\u00a0 Members of the Seneca Nation protested and burned tires to fend off the tax collection in 1992 and 1997, closing the New York State Thruway both times.<\/p>\n
A blog called Seneca Voice urged Seneca Nation members<\/a> to “start setting up some fires here and there just to let the public know that we are serious and we are ready to battle.”<\/p>\n
The Seneca Nation says it has no connection to the blog.\u00a0 Nation President Barry Snyder Seneca has repeated \u201cviolence is not on our agenda\u201d, but he\u2019s acknowledged some tribal members may not agree.<\/p>\n
Mayor Michael Bloomberg inflamed the situation<\/a> when he urged Paterson to “get a cowboy hat and a shotgun” to enforce the tax collection.<\/p>\n
Tribes statewide<\/a>, and native groups around the country<\/a>, were outraged, calling the comments “racist, offensive and hurtful.”\u00a0 They said<\/a> it would be like conjuring the spectre of Hitler to Jews, or the KKK to African-Americans.\u00a0 Paterson called the comments “inappropriate”.<\/p>\n
Bloomberg didn’t even apologize.<\/p>\n
In Indian Country, this is all much bigger than cigarettes.<\/p>\n
At issue here is tribal sovereignty, and it cuts to the heart of New York’s relationship with the tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy, who once owned all the land here.<\/p>\n
The legal ramifications of what happened when Europeans took native land in the 1700s are playing out today in the context of land claims, cigarette sales, casino construction, and plenty of lawsuits.<\/p>\n
But when you talk to many native people who live on the reservations – the parcels of land they have left – the issues are about identity and spirituality, family and survival.<\/p>\n
And those are very serious things for Governor Paterson to be messing with in the name of collecting $200 million to fill Albany’s coffers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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