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Legacy: The Pequots' Comeback Pays Off Big

By Steve Wick | Staff Writer

In 1637, the Pequots were massacred, their name officially erased from the maps of Connecticut. Today, they operate the most profitable casino in the world. In 1992, the tiny Mashantucket Pequot Tribe opened Foxwoods Resort Casino on their reservation in Ledyard, Conn. It is today the western hemisphere's largest casino, with customers exceeding 50,000 a day. The casino's slot machines alone generate $50 million a month in revenues.

Once considered a scourge by their English enemies, the Pequots today are eastern Connecticut's largest employer and taxpayer. Historians say only a few Pequots survived the Pequot War, which was a bloodbath carried out at an Indian-built log fort near present-day Mystic by English soldiers. Survivors were hunted down throughout the countryside and eastern Long Island and killed; others were sent to live with other Indian groups.

By 1856, the original reservation of more than 2,000 acres had dwindled to 214 acres, with tribal members dispersed throughout the country. By the mid-19th Century, only two Pequot women remained on the reservation.

Their comeback began in the 1970s when tribal chairman Richard Hayward -- the grandson of one of the two women who were the reservation's only residents -- hired attorneys to help the Pequots regain some of their original reservation. Efforts to improve the local economy led to the casino's opening in 1992, which brought back many Pequot descendants. The tribe now has more than 500 members.