Seminole Tribe Purchases Transnational Corporation

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (AP) - The Seminole Tribe of Florida completed its $965 million purchase of the Hard Rock cafes, hotels, casinos and music memorabilia from The Rank Group PLC on Monday through a combination of a bond offering and an equity contribution from the tribe.

Jim Allen, CEO of Seminole Gaming, said the deal with UK-based Rank Group for Hard Rock International was composed of a $525 million bond offering and a $500 million equity contribution. The additional $35 million was for closing costs and working capital, Allen said.

The deal was completed after details were worked out in London, New York and Florida. It marks the tribe's entry in the worldwide hospitality industry and gives the tribe's gaming operations a foothold in states where gambling is legal. The purchase was first announced in December and approved by Rank Group shareholders in January.

To celebrate the deal, more than 200 tribe members attended a colorful signing ceremony, which featured music, a poetry reading and speeches by Seminole council members in English and Miccosukee, a Seminole language. Then, tribal leaders gathered under the Council Oak tree to sign documents symbolizing the sale's completion.

"The acquisition of the Rank-Hard Rock system today makes our economic survival a little bit more sure," tribe vice chairman Moses Osceola said, with black, red and yellow flags serving as a backdrop. "We are bound and determined to make this thing work."

The Hard Rock business includes 124 Hard Rock Cafes, five Hard Rock Hotels, two Hard Rock Casino Hotels, two Hard Rock Live! concert venues and stakes in three unbranded hotels. It also features a collection of rock 'n' roll memorabilia that includes 70,000 pieces, including guitars owned by Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton.

The Seminoles were the first Native American tribe to get into the gambling business, and it says the deal is an American tribe's first purchase of a major international corporation.

"The Seminole Tribe has paved the way for Native Americans to get into the big business industry," tribe chairman Mitchell Cypress said.

The tribe has about 3,300 members and owns and operates seven casinos in Florida, including Hard Rock Hotel and Casinos in Tampa and Hollywood. Before it entered the cigarette and gambling business, the tribe was mired in poverty. Today, more than 90 percent of the tribe's budget is made up of gaming revenue, which stands at about $500 million, according to court records cited by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Each tribal member receives a monthly dividend from operations. Revenue generated by the tribe's businesses goes into education, health care and other services.

"It was a good effort by the council to position the tribe for the 21st century in a business sense," said tribe member Joe Frank, who lives on the Big Cypress reservation. "Tribal membership is growing and we need to diversify our business assets to ensure that all our tribal members have a good future."

The tribe already has plans to expand the business, with the number of Hard Rock hotels to grow to 15 in the next three to four years, Allen said. This year, Hard Rock plans to finish reconstruction of a hotel and casino in Biloxi, Miss., that was damaged by Hurricane Katrina. It also plans to open a hotel in San Diego, begin development of a hotel and casino in Macau and start building condo-hotel properties at the Copper Mountain Resort in Colorado and in Palm Springs, Calif.

Monday's deal does not include Hard Rock's Las Vegas casino, which is owned by Morgans Hotel Group, or Morgans' rights to Hard Rock intellectual property in Australia, Brazil, Israel, Venezuela and many areas of the United States west of the Mississippi River.

Rank has said the sale freed the company to concentrate on gambling. It retained the Hard Rock Casino in London and plans to change it to the Rank Gaming brand.

In a Rank Group earnings report filed Friday, Hard Rock International reported operating profits increased 18.7 percent to $74.8 million, from $63 million the year before. It saw continued growth and improvement in all four business divisions comprising company-owned cafes, franchise cafes, hotels and casinos, a news release said.

Seminoles With African Ancestry: The Right To Heritage

This article has been reprinted with the kind permission of the editors of GBN: Global Black News. The CAC Review's Creative Commons license does not apply to this article. Normal copyright restrictions apply. The original article appeared at http://www.globalblacknews.com/SeminolesBakariAkil.html.

Seminoles With African Ancestry: The Right To Heritage
By: Bakari Akil II
Date: December 24, 2003

There has been an ongoing debate among Seminoles with African ancestry and Seminoles with Native American ancestry regarding the legitimacy of the "Black Seminoles." The arguments have reached crisis proportions as families have split along racial lines, Blacks Seminoles have been voted out of tribal councils and can no longer fully participate in life as a Seminole and some have even lost rights altogether in the Seminole nation.

These happenings have truly become crucial due to recent actions in the Seminole nation's favor such as the $56 million dollar settlement granted due to loss of land and forced relocations by the US government. In addition, as the case with many Native American groups who have been able to profit from "reparations" resulting from restitution granted due to US governmental persecution through the 17th - 20th centuries, there has been reconsideration on who has the right to claim to be a Native American, especially those with African ancestry.

As I have written on this issue previously, instead of writing a full column arguing the merits of Black Seminoles right to exist, similar to my article "Seminoles, Native Americans and African Bloodlines," I will instead cite powerful testimony of a prominent American individual who lived during the early 19th century. It is my contention that his account can lend a clear and credible voice on the debate of who is and who is not a "Seminole."

In the book, published in 1858 entitled, The Exiles of Florida: The Crimes Committed By Our Government Against The Maroons Who Fled From South Carolina and Other Slave States, US Congressman Joshua Giddings authors a powerful account which weighed in on the discussion of the plight of the Seminoles in the United States. He clearly outlines their origins and history up until that point in the middle of the 19th century. Here are his words:

The constant escape of slaves, and the difficulties resulting therefrom, constituted the principal object for establishing a free colony between South Carolina and Florida, which was called Georgia. It was thought that this colony, being free, would afford the planters of Carolina protection against the further escape of their slaves from service.

These Exiles were by the Creek Indians called "Seminoles" which in their dialect signifies "runaways" and the term being frequently used while conversing with the Indians, came into almost constant practice among the whites; and although it has now come to be applied to a certain tribe of Indians, yet it was originally used in reference to these exiles long before the Seminole Indians had separated from the Creeks.

The Indians that removed themselves from the Creek confederacy that Congressman Giddings referred to were a relatively large group residing within what is now Alabama and Georgia. Opting for self-rule they migrated to Florida Territory and were able to reside under an area which Spain claimed ownership. He further explains:

From the year 1750, Seacoffee and his followers rejected all Creek authority, refused to be represented in Creek councils, held themselves independent of Creek laws, elected their own chiefs, and in all respects became a separate tribe, embracing the Mickasukies, with whom they united. They settled in the vicinity of the Exiles, associated with them, and a mutual sympathy and respect existing, some of their people intermarried, thereby strengthening the ties of friendship, and the Indians having fled from oppression and taken refuge under Spanish laws, were also called Seminoles, or "runaways."

Here we have powerful testimony from a US congressman who in 1858, had no future stake in the claim of who has the right to be called a Seminole, whether African (Black) or Native American. What he did have an interest in was ensuring that there was an account of what happened to these "Exiles" who were Black and trying to enlighten and raise the consciousness of others to their plight. As he did in the past, I believe his words do the same now.

To demonstrate the loss Black Seminoles experienced, then and now, we will conclude with these passages from his book:

The Exiles thus free from annoyance, cultivated the friendship of their savage neighbors; rendered themselves useful to the Indians, both as laborers and in council. They also manifested much judgment in the selection of their lands for cultivation-locating their principal settlements on the rich bottoms lying along the Appalachicola and the Suwanee Rivers. Here they opened plantations, and many of them became wealthy in flocks and herds.

He further writes that by 1815:

Their plantations extended along the river several miles, above and below… Many of them possessed large herds, which roamed in the forests, gathering their food, both in summer and winter, without expense or trouble to their owners…..Here were the graves of their ancestors, around whose memories were clustered the fondest recollection of human mind. The climate was genial. They were surrounded by extensive forests, and far removed from the habitations of those enemies who sought to enslave them; and they regarded themselves as secure in the enjoyment of liberty.

In closing, this testimony by Mr. Giddings provides justification for the re-evaluation of the removal of those of African ancestry from the ranks of the Seminole nation and also to remember what sparked the relationship of Africans (Blacks) and Native Americans in the first place. The current destitute conditions that Seminoles of both African and Native American ancestry have been forced to endure as a result of oppression and persecution both past and present should not create a divide that causes either group to make decisions and take actions based on the lowest of human values but based upon the values and morals that guided their initial cooperation and brotherhood in the first place.

To deny Seminoles with African ancestry the right to exist, to claim their birthright, to prosper with the Seminole nation and to "break bread" with their history and heritage is not only a travesty of justice, but is inhumane as well.

To Read More About the Seminoles Refer To:
Seminoles, Native Americans and African Bloodlines By Bakari Akil and
The Christmas Eve Freedom Fighters Of 1837 By William Loren Katz


References:

Giddings, J. (1858). The Exiles of Florida: The Crimes Committed By Our Government Against The Maroons Who Fled From South Carolina and other Slave States (Republished 1997). Baltimore, MD: Black Classic Press.

Akil, B. (2002, May 17). "Seminoles, Native Americans and African Bloodlines." Retrieved December 23, 2002 from , Global Black News Web site: http://www.globalblacknews.com/SeminoleBakari.html