Indian Gaming > California tribes battle over off-reservation casino

May 23, 2005

California tribes battle over off-reservation casino

The San Manuel Band of Mission Indians and the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe are at odds over a proposed off-reservation casino on land that both claim as ancestral.

The San Manuel Band says the Timbisha Shoshones have no right to seek land hundreds of miles from their existing reservation in Death Valley. "That land is ancestrally ours, and to have a foreign government trying to take our land is inherently wrong," San Manuel Chairman Deron Marquez told The Riverside Press-Enterprise.

But the Timbisha Shoshones also say they have ancestral connections to Hesperia, where the casino is proposed. "I mean no disrespect to Chairman Marquez, but that sounds a little bit like 'I've got mine. You can't have yours," Kevin Flynn, a developer for the Shoshones, said.

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Tribes clash over casino (The Riverside Press-Enterprise 5/23)
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