"The General Indian Allotment Act if 1887 was twisted to the interests of land grabbing speculators according to Senator Teller who said: "The real aim of this bill is to get at the Indian lands and open them up to settlement. The provisions for the apparent benefit of the Indian are but the pretext to get at his lands and occupy them. If this were done in the name of Greed, it would be bad enough; but to do it in the name of Humanity, and under the cloak of an ardent desire to promote the Indian's welfare by making him like ourselves, whether he will or not, is infinitely worse." The 1864 Organic Act of the Territory of Montana, the Enabling Act opening the way for statehood in 1889, Ordinance No.1, which was appended to Montana's 1889 Constitution and Article 1 of the 1972 Montana Constitution; each contain a disclaimer of right and title to Indian lands and acknowledgement that until the title was extinguished by the United States, all Indian lands would remain under the absolute jurisdiction and control of the United States Congress."
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau
pg.7
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