Osceola, Seminole heroBritish leisure group Rank has agreed to sell its Hard Rock cafe and casino business to the Seminole tribe of Florida for US$965 million ($1,378,474). Rank has shed British household names like Butlins holiday camps, Odeon cinemas and Pinewood film studios in a drive to get rid of its image as an old-fashioned conglomerate. Hard Rock's portfolio includes 124 Hard Rock Cafes, 4 Hard Rock hotels, 2 Hard Rock casino-hotels, 2 Hard Rock Live! concert venues and equity stakes in three unbranded hotels.
Semi-what? A little from Wiki: They never surrendered to the U.S. government, hence the Seminoles of Florida call themselves the "Unconquered People." The Seminoles are the only American Indian tribe never to sign a formal peace treaty with the United States who spent $20 000 000 and lost 1500 soldiers in the early 1800s to subjugate them. When South Florida tourism boomed in the 1920's, Seminoles capitalized by wrestling alligators for money. In 1979, the Seminoles opened the first casino on Indian land, ushering in what has become a multibillion-dollar industry operated by numerous tribes nationwide.
This is the sentence which jolted me: They started out in northern Florida, but when the Americans attacked them, the Seminole tribe retreated further south, into the Everglades. So they’re not American? Yet they’re on American soil and taking in billions of dollars. Go America!
I've been to Seminole county quite recently. Let us just say that the view of almost every person I met there was that all race relations in America are somewhat unfortunate. Still, the Native Americans have one up on the Australian Aborigines. The received view of archeologists is that they have lived in Australia for about 100,000 years, though they only managed to receive full citizenship in 1968. Better late than never, I guess ...
ReplyDeleteIt is good that some of the Native Americans have done well. Having visited some of the reservations in the west of the US, many native Americans live a cursed life. I am sure that much of the money is channeled to small groups within each tribe. Some of the commercial success inevitably trickles down to ordinary members.
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