SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. – A stone’s throw from the mansions of the rich and famous, the Shinnecock Indians of Long Island have their own “in” spot, the Thunder Bird Coffee Shop.

A two-story building on the 800-acre Shinnecock state reservation, the shop keeps “real busy” in summer time when celebrities and their hangers-on from New York City flock to the Hamptons, said manager Ben Haile. “But we do pretty well from the year-round crowd.”

The Shinnecock’s coffee house is one of a handful of Indian businesses marketing the produce of Indigenous farmers from South and Central America.

They are much smaller in scale than the Oneida-Mayan and usually work through coffee brokers, but some of them have been in the business for nearly five years.

The Shinnecocks go through about 1,000 pounds of organically grown green coffee beans every two to three months, Haile said, importing through a New York City middleman, Royal Coffee.

Some 20 miles east on the Long Island coast, the Unkechaug, a closely related tribe on the Poospatuck reservation, have been roasting imported beans for nearly four years. Tribal head Harry Wallace runs a full-service operation on the tribal enclave, roasting and packaging the beans and shipping out of his own warehouse. “It’s a tough road to go,” he said.

His Native Coffee Traders Association buys organically grown beans from Indigenous coops in Central America, Mexico and Peru, using an import agent based in New York City.

“We were buying from Chiapas (Mexico) all through the so-called rebellion,” Wallace said.

Both companies owe their inspiration to non-Indian Dean Cycon, a veteran advocate of Indigenous rights and development overseas and political reform on American reservations.

About 11 years ago, Cycon said he began a development program for coffee-growing villages in Central America.

Seven years ago, he founded Dean’s Beans in New Salem, Mass., to roast imports and co-founded Cooperative Coffees, Inc., which buys direct from producers on fair trade terms. The privately enforced fair trade pact seeks to provide growers “a minimum price for coffee that’s a living wage,” he said.

Cycon’s interest in American Indian reservations led him to promote the Indigenous connection. Wallace was one of the first to seek out his help.

Cycon has also worked with Kevin Gasco of the White Earth (Minn.) Anishinabeg (Ojibwe) in setting up the Muskrat Coffee Co. last November.

The going has been slow at Muskrat during the summer, Gasco said. As the husband of Winona LaDuke, Green Party candidate for vice president, he has had his distractions.

Gasco and Wallace both mentioned that although the Indian casino and resort industry would seem to be a natural market, they have not yet managed to crack it.

Wallace said the mostly non-Indian casino procurement centers prefer to deal with the less-expensive, large food companies. The coffee is cheaper there, Cycon added, “because it’s an inferior crop from “debt” plantations.”

“It’s a problem all through Indian country,” Wallace said.

“We lack credibility with the corporations. And apparently we lack credibility with the Indian casinos. I find that incredible.”

He said that all he asked was a chance to prove his product. “Every time we’ve been given that opportunity, we’ve come through with flying colors.”