CHARLESTOWN, R.I. – Bella Noka, a tribal council member of the Narragansett
Indians, fasted four days and nights in the parking lot of her tribe’s
short-lived smoke shop during a snowy mid-March cold snap. As she became
increasingly weak and light-headed, family members finally persuaded the
slight, five-foot-tall 38-year-old to call off her hunger strike and rushed
her to a local hospital.

Noka was protesting what tribal members consider to be local mistreatment
of her tribe and specifically obstruction by town officials of a tribal
elderly housing project. Her dramatic stand was an individual act,
unsanctioned by the tribal government. But it summed up the seething
frustration of the membership as they begin another cycle in a decades-long
drive for a casino, or any other form of economic development.

The heightened emotions never really subsided after the Rhode Island state
police raided and closed the tribe’s smoke shop last July 14 in a violent
confrontation captured on television news videos. “The tribe was really
traumatized by it,” said Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas.

Noka and her teenage son were among eight tribal members arrested in the
raid. So was her husband, First Tribal Councilman Randy Noka and another
council member, Hiawatha Brown.

Local police continue to dog Councilor Brown. On the morning of Feb. 28,
the Charlestown police charged him with assault after one of their cruisers
chased his car onto tribal land and stopped him in front of the Four Winds
Community Center. He was also charged with driving with a suspended
license. Police say that Brown punched the arresting officer in the jaw,
but Brown denies that he used his fists.

As tribal members surrounded the police officer, Brown ran inside the
community center. Randy Noka persuaded the police to leave the tribal land,
which fronts on a main state road, Route 2. By early afternoon, Chief
Sachem Thomas negotiated Brown’s surrender. He later pled not guilty and
the case is pending.

Although the tribe is beginning a public relations campaign, well financed
by its financial backer Harrah’s Entertainment, for a statewide referendum
on a casino, the recent incidents reveal how it has faced day-to-day
tensions on a wide range of issues since it first won back an 1,800-acre
reservation in a 1978 land settlement. The Narragansetts received federal
recognition in 1983.

Bella Noka’s hunger strike focused on the long-stalled low-income elderly
housing project on a 31-acre site the tribe acquired in 1991. The project
was derailed years earlier by financial mismanagement, but the tribe hoped
to revive it after U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton agreed to take the
land into trust for the tribe, giving it sovereign status. The town of
Charlestown is still fighting the addition to the reservation. Even though
a 2003 U.S. District Court ruling upheld Interior, the town and state are
appealing to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston. The U.S. has just
filed a brief in support of the tribe, and oral argument is scheduled for
late summer. It has also agreed to postpone taking the land into trust
until after the Circuit Court rules

While the suit is pending, town officials are refusing to swap an easement
it holds to protect its water supply for another one offered by the tribe.
The town’s Solicitor for Indian Affairs Joseph S. Larisa Jr. said the
easement was intertwined with the land-into-trust suit issues of the reach
of state and local laws, which he said applied to the tribe’s main
reservation under the terms of the Rhode Island Indian Land Claims
Settlement Act. If the tribe and Interior prevailed in the suit, he said,
the 31 acres would be the only Indian land in the state completely free of
state and local jurisdiction. He said the town “fully supported” the
elderly housing, once the sovereignty issue was disposed of.

In his turn, Chief Sachem Thomas said the tribe refused to compromise its
sovereignty. He added, however, that it had no intention of putting a
casino in Charlestown since it already had an arrangement with West
Warwick, further north and much closer to an interstate highway.

The police pursuit of Councilor Brown highlighted another constant issue,
law enforcement jurisdiction. The Narragansetts maintain a federally
trained and deputized police force with criminal enforcement powers on the
reservation. The issue of jurisdiction heated up in February when tribal
police arrested a non-Indian driving on Route 2 alongside Narragansett land
after receiving a report that he might have fired shots into the
reservation.

On this issue, Thomas said, “We do feel there is a ray of hope.” The
Governor’s office and state and local police have met with the tribe to
negotiate a compact on jurisdiction, although progress has been slow.
Thomas said there was “a growing concern for public safety” and that he
felt state and local police were willing to work with the tribe.

Larisa confirmed that his side was negotiating in concert with the Governor
and the U.S. Attorney’s office. He said that one issue was the scope of
state and local enforcement power on the Settlement Act lands, but that a
cross-deputization agreement, giving tribal police jurisdiction off the
reservation, was not on the table. “It hasn’t been requested,” he said.

Although the Narragansetts have made progress in many areas, including
schooling and a well-appointed health care center, they have faced constant
frustration in finding an economic base. Some proposals, such as an
amusement park or NASCAR race track, haven’t been feasible because of the
shortage of usable land. (Much of the 1,800 acre reservation is swampy.)
The quest for a casino has turned into another battle. After winning cases
up to the U.S. Supreme Court holding that it was legally entitled to build
one, the tribe saw the prospect snatched from its grasp in a Congressional
rider sponsored by the late U.S. Sen. John Chaffee, explicitly excluding it
from coverage by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.

Attempts to win approval through a statewide referendum have foundered in a
legislature heavily lobbied by the rival Lincoln Park dog track. It was
after the State Senate adjourned last summer without authorizing a vote
that the tribal council voted to open the smoke shop as an economic
alternative. The state police raid followed within days.