100 Year Old Criminal Conspiracy

Blackfeet people, what we are dealing with in the land frauds called "Forced Patents Cases" is a massive land fraud of severing Blackfeet allotted land titles in Glacier County Court and Pondera County Court. This is a 100 year old very sophisticated criminal conspiracy intended by the original conspirators Joe Sherburne and his co-conspirators to extend over the reservation land base and to reduce prosperous Blackfeet cattle ranchers to a condition of poverty they cannot resolve. It is a case of "creeping jurisdiction" whereby the border-whites established a toe-hold on the reservation that has grown to dominate the majority Blackfeet Indians by a tiny group of white ranchers, businessmen, railroad, Swift & Armor Meat Trust, and Glacier and Pondera Counties and the Montana Legislature and federal trustee-BIA and Interior Department. The "deliberate conspiracy" uncovered by Senate Investigator Walter W. Liggett in 1928 and documented by the Senate Indian Committee in the "Survey of Conditions of Indian Reservations in the United States" which is on file at the University of Montana, Mansfield Library. The conspiracy is designed to transform the Blackfeet Indian Reservation into Glacier and Pondera Counties under the jurisdiction of the State of Montana. The reservation economy is Glacier County for all practical purposes in stock raising and crops which is a $75 million dollar economy for white ranchers & farmers living on stolen Blackfeet allotments. It is a system of corruption, no matter if there are white, Blackfeet, Cree or Chinese Glacier County commissioners; you are carrying on Joe Sherburne's criminal conspiracy and are enemies of the Blackfeet Tribe. The second tier of the conspiracy is to make the remaining Blackfeet allotments "unusable." I remember long ago John Harrison trying to explain to us the isolation of Blackfeet ranchers from feed and water holes. Now we understand what he was talking about. Our response is to get to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee of the United States Senate. It is the only U.S. Government unit authorized to legally restore our trust land titles and water rights along with the successful, self-reliant Blackfeet cattle industry. It is an estimated $500 million dollar claim for the heirs of the original Blackfeet allottees. It will probably take a coalition of tribes to amass the political power to overcome the white ranchers and Montana Senators and Representatives. The Crow, Salish & Kootnai, and other Montana tribes have the forced patents too. Media attention will force it into the open. But, we have the approval of Congress as soon as the tribal council gets on our side of the issue. It is up to us at this point, our claims are sitting on the shelf at the Senate Indian Affairs Committee awaiting a Tribal council delegation like the chiefs of old time, who knew their treaty rights and reserved this reservation for this generation of Blackfeet people in the 1855 Treaty and the 1896 Agreement. The Blackfeet will probably lead like they always do, except under Chief Old Person, who is the big "white man incognito." Why don't he lead us? You know he is a hot dog for publicity, why is he hanging back? Lead us, we paid you for 55 years, you owe us! Or get a new chief.