North American history is being debunked by scholars like Charles C Mann who, in his revealing work ‘1491’ New Revelations of The Americas before Columbus, tells of the gamble that didn’t pay off. On March 1621, Massasoit, the Wampanoag’s sachem, met with a delegation of Pilgrims under the command of Edward Winslow to engage on a course that would change the history of the new territories and seal the fate of the Native Americans.

Foreigners had been calling on the Massachusetts coast for over a century and had been allowed temporary stay by the local nations and confederations, which would as often as not ally with and war against each other. Apart from ambition for new wealth, the foreigners brought into the newly discovered continent previously unknown viruses and disease, and by 1621 villages and nations had been decimated by epidemics that had changed the demography and political structure of the territories.

Under this scenario Massasoit, now chief of a depleted Wampanoag Confederation, along with northern ally Samoset on the Massachusetts coast and the legendary Squanto (Tisquantum), decided to meet the Pilgrims’ leader to enable the settlers to remain permanently in exchange for their alliance against other foes, especially the Narragansett to the west. History has proven that Massasoit’s gamble did not pay off. Not only did the colonists establish themselves in the New World but also, helped by such terrible allies as epidemics and other more sinister means, went on to conquer the rest of the new territories.

Twenty years ago Congress gave Indian tribes broad rights to operate the kind of casinos that others legally cannot, but it has taken decades for Washington to understand that the Mashpee Wampanoag claim to a native culture was real. Now the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian nation of Massachusetts has signaled its intention to follow the trail blazed by Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. The tribe has acquired 350 acres in Middleborough, about 40 miles southeast of Boston, as a potential site for a casino resort with a 1,500-room five-star hotel, at least 3,000 slot machines, dozens of table games, restaurants, lounges, entertainment, golf courses, a health spa, shopping, and convention space, all easily accessed off Interstate 495.

Clyde W. Barrow, a gambling specialist at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, is quoted as saying that compared to national spending rates, New England trails other regions with gambling spend at about US$3.5 billion a year on gambling, but would increase this sum by ‘another US$1.5 billion a year if casinos are added’. The Mashpee Wampanoag casino and resort would generate around US $700 million a year, contributing as much as US$100 million to the State when it opens in 2010. (E-05.23.07)

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