The Eastern Shawnee Tribe, now located in Oklahoma, has sued Ohio to recover thousands of acres of their ancestral lands.
The Columbus Dispatch reports that the tribe's lawyer, Mason Morisset of Seattle, said that the Shawnee hope to convince Ohio to allow the tribe to locate one or more casinos on smaller plots of land. Several economically depressed municipalities in the state, including the city of Lorain, have suggested they would welcome a gambling palace.
Charles Enyart, the tribe's chief, said the Shawnee were forced out of Ohio and have land claims based on the Treaty of Greenville, signed in 1795. He said state Attorney General Jim Petro ignored offers to negotiate.
Such discourteous treatment harkens to an earlier era in this nation's history which we had believed to have long since yielded to a more enlightened course of dealings between tribal and state government, Enyart said in a letter to Petro and Gov. Bob Taft.
The suit was filed in federal court in Toledo.
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