Written by: Jaylin Emond-Hardin | Entertainment Editor<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nov. 20, 2024, the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs notified Oregon officials that it would give its final environmental impact statement regarding an off-reservation casino that the Coquille Indian Tribe wishes to build in Medford, Oregon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Coquille Indian Tribe is one of nine federally recognized tribes in the state of Oregon. It is located in southern Coos County, with its reservation in Bandon, Barview, Coos Bay and North Bend communities. In May of 1995, the Coquille opened their casino, called The Mill Casino, which sits on the North Bend waterfront and is built into an old plywood mill the tribe purchased in the early \u201890s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of the tribe have protested one main issue, the Coquille\u2019s bid to build their proposed casino roughly 170 miles outside their reservation. More complaints have arisen from how it could take revenue from casinos in southern Oregon and northern California, one of which is just 70 miles north of the proposed Medford site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Seven Feather Casino and Resort sits just off of the I-5 in Canyonville, Oregon, and is owned and operated by the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians, whose members are the loudest opponents of the proposed casino. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians and more than 30 other tribes have been fighting for months to be heard about the devastating impacts mass off-reservation casino approvals will have on Indian Country, only to be dismissed and ignored,\u201d said Cow Creek Chairwoman Carla Keene. \u201cWe have requested \u2014 even pleaded \u2014 to be seen, heard and consulted with on the decisions being made by bureaucrats in D.C. that will devastate our tribal communities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While federal law allows for tribes to build casinos on tribal lands acquired before 1988, the law also has allowances for disadvantaged tribes, such as the Coquille Indian Tribe, that have limited federal lands. The law, however, also states that tribes must show modern and ancestral connections to the land they propose to build on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While it is clear that the Coquille Indian Tribe is disadvantaged, their connection to land in Medford is unclear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Coquille Indian Tribe bases its claims on a study \u2014 titled \u201cCoquille Trails: Early Historical Roads and Trails of Ancestral Coquille Indian Lands, 1826 – 1875<\/a>\u201d \u2014 that began in 2006, meant to investigate and publish a \u201ccultural geography\u201d of the modern Coquille tribe. The report was completed in 2012, the same year the Coquille proposed their Medford casino. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Scholars and historians who lobby against the Coquille Indian Tribe\u2019s newest claim of presence in the Rogue River watershed point to the languages the tribes of the area spoke \u2014 specifically Takelma and Shasta languages \u2014 which are not related to the ancestral languages of the Coquille \u2014 Athpascan and Kusan. Additionally, scholars have pointed out there is no documentation of Coquille villages or tribal occupation before 1950, when a tribal member attended Southern Oregon University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One such scholar is Stephen Dow Beckham<\/a>, a Coos Bay native and American history scholar, well-known for his work with Natives in the Pacific Northwest. His book, \u201cThe Indians of Western Oregon: This Land Was Theirs<\/a>,\u201d shares some of the most detailed history of Western Native tribes, and was written along with help from Coquille, Siuslaw and Lower Umpqua \u2014 the latter two a part of the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw \u2014 tribal council members. <\/p>\n\n\n\n