They were members of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy, a loose trade and military organization of autonomous towns; their home lands were on the upper Alabama River.

[4] The Alabama first encountered Europeans when Hernando de Soto arrived in 1540 and visited numerous places during his expedition.

Under pressure as well by Native American enemies, the Alabama and Coushatta tribes wanted to avoid the powerful Choctaw in present-day Mississippi.

In the early 19th century, the Texas Congress granted each tribe two strips of land along the Trinity River.

In a hearing before the Indian Claims Commission in 1974, Dr. Daniel Jacobson suggested that the Alabama and Coushatta tribes were culturally related because of intermarriage.

In the tribe's earlier years in Texas, gathering, hunting, agriculture, fishing, and trading were its main economic pursuits.

In more recent years, the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe has relied on the service and entertainment industry to generate revenue and jobs on the reservation.

Such jobs had a multiplier effect within the regional economy, with businesses' reporting an increase in sales and tax revenues.

The entertainment center benefited not only the Tribe, but also the surrounding regions by creating more than 495 jobs and paying US$4.3 million in wages and nearly US$400,000 in federal taxes.

In July 2006 the Alabama-Coushatta sued lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates for attempts to defraud the tribe in seeking to defeat state legislation in 2001 that would have given them authority to run the casino.

The tribe claimed the lobbyists had hidden their motives in representing the competing Coushatta of Louisiana, which ran their own casino, and mobilized Christian groups in an underhanded way.

They included: Michigan's Saginaw Chippewa, California's Agua Caliente, the Mississippi Choctaw, and the Louisiana Coushatta.

On March 29, 2008, Jack Abramoff was sentenced to five years and ten months in prison for pleading guilty to fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy to bribe public officials.

Abramoff made a deal to cooperate with investigators to provide information about his relationships with several members of Congress.

He was released from prison on June 8, 2010 and completed the remaining six months of his sentence in a halfway house in Baltimore.

The issue has never really been one of crime control, morality, or economic fairness...At issue is economics...Ironically, the strongest opponents of tribal authority over gaming on Indian lands are from States whose liberal gaming policies would allow them to compete on an equal basis with the tribes...We must not impose greater moral restraints on Indians than we do on the rest of our citizenry.

The IGRA allows tribes to develop casino-style operations that could improve governmental services and economic conditions in Indian country.

Also, Class III gaming is subject to agreed regulatory procedures in Tribal-State compacts, which states are required to negotiate in "good faith".

Thus, while the IGRA gives tribes the right to have casinos, the Eleventh Amendment gives the states the right to refuse to negotiate tribal-state compacts.

They are typically used to invest in infrastructure for tribal members, such as housing, schools, and roads; to fund health care and education; and to develop a strong economy.

"[16] Tribal governments also use gaming revenues to develop other economic enterprises, such as museums, malls, and cultural centers that attract tourists and other visitors.