I am glad the Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot tribes have a gambling monopoly in Connecticut, even though I am sure it is not adequate reparations for the historical mistreatment here of American Indians.

They have handled the gambling responsibility well and contributed mightily to Connecticut’s modern economy.

I support the current efforts to stop local communities from taxing personal property on Connecticut reservations. And I welcome campaigns for removing any and all surviving tributes to John Mason, who committed such great atrocities against Native Americans here.

But I have to say that renaming the Thames River the Pequot River, as proposed in legislation introduced by Rep. Anthony Nolan of New London, along with co-sponsors Reps. Cathy Osten of Sprague and Aundre Bumgardner of Groton, seems like a truly absurd plan to me.

I am not sure where the crazy idea came from. You would think the lawmakers could find many more pressing problems to address.

Most important, even if you think it is a really great idea, it appears the ability to rename a natural resource like the Thames River, with its navigable channel accommodating U.S. Navy and merchant vessels, rests with the federal not the state government.

The lawmakers might as well have introduced a bill renaming Long Island Sound as Pequot Pond.

But really, never mind that lawmakers don’t have the authority to rename the river and should find better ways to occupy their time.

The reasons they give for this pointless exercise - the proposed bill goes to a public hearing Monday - are foolish.

A Pequot-affiliated anthropologist recently told The Day the English referred to the tributary of eastern Connecticut for some years in the 17th century as the Pequot River, before formally naming it the Thames River.

That’s a pretty thin claim for a plan to officially rename the river the Pequot hundreds of years later.

I am not sure that all things that reference England and the English should be insulting or offensive to American Indians.

And if they are, where would the state’s sensitivity to that end.

If we have to change the name of the Thames River because it is offensive to Pequots, do we also have to rename the region’s two cities, Norwich and New London, which also recall English colonialism, after the tribe?

What about Lyme, and East Lyme, or Waterford for that matter.

Must all these communities have American Indian names too?

The most offensive part of Nolan’s bill, I believe, is the way it insults the Mohegan Indians, the state’s other federally-recognized tribe.

If we are going to focus on history we have to remember that the two tribes were historically great enemies. And to honor one by putting its name on the river that runs directly alongside the reservation of the other seems almost diabolical to me.

Finally, renaming the river to anything other than the Thames would be hugely disruptive and expensive. Wouldn’t you consider it a kick in the gut, for instance, if you owned a business like, say, Thames River Car Wash, which would suddenly have an outdated name, a commercial outcast, named after a river that doesn’t exist anymore.

Ignoring the interests of small businesses for no good reason is the kind of legislative arrogance that makes people hate politicians.

Let’s hope the name Pequot River stays buried in the 300-year-old cobwebs of history. I would bet money at Foxwoods Resort Casino that it will.

The lawmakers should find another way to pander to the modern-day rich Pequots.

This is the opinion of David Collins

d.collins@theday.com