Product Description
In 1973, an old American Indian woman dies with nothing left of her tribe but a trailer and a two-hundred-acre reservation in the sleepy backyard of Ledyard, Connecticut. It seems to signal the end of the Mashantucket Pequot tribe. But it is just the beginning. Over the course of the next three decades, the reservation grows to more than two thousand acres and becomes home to Foxwoods, the largest casino in the world, grossing more than $1 billion per year. The Pequots are reborn, immensely wealthy, and in possession of an enormous amount of political influence.How did it happen?In compelling detail, Without Reservation tells the stunning story of the rise of the richest tribe in American history.It begins with… More >>
Without Reservation: The Making of America’s Most Powerful Indian Tribe and Foxwoods the World’s Largest Casino
Without Reservation: The Making of America’s Most Powerful Indian Tribe and Foxwoods the World’s Largest Casino
5 Comments
Tags: America's, Casino, Foxwoods, Indian, Largest, Making, Most, Powerful, Reservation, Tribe, Without, World'sPosted 15 Apr 2010 in General
Someone recenty wrote, Without Reservation reads like a John Grisham novel. Well, I read all of Grisham and Benedict is no John Grisham. Rating: 1 / 5
Has Jeff Benedict no brain? Did he actually research this issue or did he fabricate this story while balancing his checkbook?
I have lived in the area my entire life. I have worked for the tribe for six years. I am a descendant of a Pequot. Did Benedict contact me or my family? No. Did I ever see him on the Reservation, inquiring of natives, looking into the Museum and Research Center? No. Is his book correct? No.
Benedict uses fallacy to line his pockets with monies from the sales of his book by folks in surrounding towns who are looking for someone to tell them that the Pequots are non-existant and those claiming Pequot heritage are bad.
Did Benedict ever consider that the reason Richard “Skip” Hayward reported himself as “white” on his marriage records was because the tribe was not recognized at that time? Probably not.
Quite frankly, it seems the only thing that Benedict was thinking about when he researched, wrote, and published this book was himself – laughing all the way to the bank at everyone’s emotional expense.
Tonight, Benedict will be at the Ledyard High School to talk to the people. I will be in attendance to see how he tells the public about my heritage and how he believes it doesn’t exist. Glad to know he is going to tell me about my non-existance.
Perhaps Jeff Benedict should change his name to Benedict Arnold, as he is screwing the residents of area towns and making a mockery of native tribes, while fleeing to his cushy pad in Boston, counting the money he gained on a bunch of lies.
You are a real piece of work, Benedict. Have fun writing the sequel, and next time, try to get it right. By the way, the only reason I gave this book one star is because you cannot leave “0″! Rating: 1 / 5
After reading Jeff Benedict’s book Without Reservation, I knew it was all about money and not about the truth. I came to this conclusion with two questions to myself. Is there any one single individual who was involved in the passage of the 1983 Mashantucket Pequot Land Claims Settlement Act that supports Benedict’s allegations that Congress was duped? No. Could I identify as a factual matter (not Benedict’s opinion) any new and compelling evidence in the book or since its publication that would warrant a Congressional investigations and hearings? No. Apparently Congress doesn’t think so either. The fact is, Mr. Benedict wrote a novel that can be best described by his own words. ‘The best lies are often times laced with bits of the truth.’ I couldn’t have said it better myself. Rating: 1 / 5
I should declare my interest in that I am an attorney who represents Indian tribes conducting casino gaming under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. I also know Tom Tureen personally, and while I’m not a close friend of his (and have occasionally disagreed with him) I do consider him to be an ethical and moral person, who would never perpetrate a fraud. I know a number of other persons who figure in Mr Benedict’s book, such as the former Eastern Area Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Mr Bill Ott, and Mr Bill Wakole, who was fired for pretty much doing his job. Both Ott and Wakole were dedicated federal employees who were not just time-serving bureaucrats, but who took especial pains to see that Indian people got what they were entitled to. I also have been involved in the recognition process for other tribes. The Mashantuckets are deemed to be unusual in the book, because they were recognized by legislation, but that really isn’t so unusual, and, in fact, I think it is more proper than the present method of making a group seeking recognition satisfy various criteria, some of dubious validity. When one gets right down to it, the relationship between an Indian tribe and the federal government is a political one, not based upon anthropological or ethnological or genealogical factors. When the invading Europeans met the original inhabitants of the American continent, they didn’t read off a check-list of categories such as polity, blood quantum, written historical records, and the like. They entered in agreements with them, and solicited their aid in getting about the newly-discovered territory.There wasn’t a lot of paper-pushing back then. In the case of the Mashantuckets, Mr Benedict raises some serious questions, but, on his strongest point, the dearth of genealogical evidence as to the Mashantucket Pequots, there is quite a bit of evidence to the contrary of his confident assertion that Elizabeth George Plouffe, the last Pequot living on the Western Pequot Reservation, was not even of Indian descent. The census records and the reports of the Connecticut Indian commission, contemporary documents, say otherwise. But there is another, rather nasty aspect about Benedict’s book: he never comes out and says it directly, but a lot of the problem he has with Chairman Ken Reels and the present Tribal Council arises out of the fact that these persons have dark skin, and are obviously descended from African-Americans. In other words, these “black” Indians really stick in his craw. While this anti-black sentiment, unfortunately, can be seen among some few Native Americans who are only reflecting the anti-black racism of American society, nevertheless, a lot of the present animosity directed against the Mashantucket undoubtedly stems from this. The Connecticut towns and their supporters disavow it, but their whole opposition has taken on a racist, anti-black cast since Mr Reels appeared on the Tribal Council. It is disingenuous to deny it: it’s there, it’s palpable and it’s disgraceful, and it disfigures Mr Benedict’s book. I also found horrendous errors in the book, some of them quite basic legal mistakes, which makes me wonder whether Mr Benedict passed his course in Real Property in the law school he claims to be attending. In fact, he gets a number of things so wrong, that it makes me think that he’s got a hell of a nerve accusing the Mashantuckets of wholesale fraud when his attempt to show a learned knowledge of Indian law falls so resoundingly flat. Another thing that I found objectionable in the book, and which I would have thought HarperCollins would’ve edited out, is these gratuitous references to Skip Hayward’s alleged spousal abuse. It’s hard for me to see what all of this has to do with the fraudulent representations charged to Chairman Hayward by Mr Benedict, even if one would assume, and only for the sake of argument, that they are true. All it is, is a crude smear tactic which, as all such must, ends up in making the author look bad. After all, Mr Benedict, when did you stop beating your wife? Rating: 2 / 5
This fascinating book reveals the history of the present day Mashantucket Pequot tribe. The fact that Mr. Benedict has succeeded in documenting the truth is a credit to his talent and perseverence. He has written an amazing true story of the political and legal machinations which enabled the Mashantuckets to achieve economic success and political power. An outstanding accomplishment! Rating: 5 / 5