WHERE DOES THE BLACKFEET MONEY GO TO?

The tribal council is a white-style political body, but it is less open than the usual city, county, or state government, and way less democratic, resembling a dictatorship in a third-world nation with a third-world economy starving the people. The tribal council has restricted tribal members participating in the process of tribal government even to going out of town to divide up the tribal budget so nobody can see what they are doing with tribal dollars. The result is that we do not know how much tribal money we have or what the tribal council does with tribal dollars. The tribal council has given themselves several raises in salaries and travel accounts in secret sessions, so that we know nothing about tribal finances until they are forced to confess the tribe is near bankrupt or has to pay back several million dollars to federal grant sources because they mismanaged federal grant money. The impasse between the chiefs faction and the chairman's faction brought unnecessary suffering to the people, even to denying the tribal poor their welfare benefits, and that is deliberate neglect of the people and community. It showed the people that the tribal council really doesn't care for the people's welfare or the children's well being. The chief and chairman didn't suffer a whit because they had the money at tribal headquarters and tribal casino to pay for their means while the people lived in their cars to avoid freezing in their homes because they could not pay electric bills. NO HARDSHIP!  signs at tribal headquarters told you what they think of your suffering, get out and stay out! The tribal commodity house was under guard from starving Indians as the council refused even to allow food to be distributed in an emergency. Food trucks from Great Falls and Missoula brought food and winter jackets for the Blackfeet children. The white people cared more for us than our chief and chairman. The tribal council failed in providing food, shelter and clothing for the Blackfeet people, who, by the way, pay their salaries and travel and luxurious lifestyles. By luxury I mean the cost of maintaining the upper class of the tribe, at least until they lose an election, and are provided a $40,000 tribal check for their service when they leave office. The four year terms of the tribal council costs the Blackfeet people $5,840,000 in salaries and travel checks, and the salary increases were voted in secret sessions in council chambers. That is what the tribal council has done with their four year terms of office, voted in a tribal referendum by the Blackfeet people, all on a promise they would do better with longer council terms. It is not a racial comparison of politicians as all races lie and cheat but our boys never go to prison, they just pay back federal grant audit exceptions with tribal dollars. That was done because tribal councilmen jumped out the windows of the tribal office when the FBI Agent showed up to question them. The agent said it was too bad it wasn't the 10th floor and save the cost of a trial, but Chairman Old Person saved the council crooks by testifying in federal court that the Blackfeet Tribe would pay back the missing federal grant money, it's the way we do business, he whined to the judge, and the judge said "I feel sorry for the people you represent." At least before we could vote out the entire tribal council every two years and roll the dice on a new council. Now we have a perpetual thieving bunch of incompetent robbers. Bob Juneau Sr.  

HAPPY HUNTING GROUNDS "FILCHED"

The successful land grab and usurpation of Indian property and sovereignty required a little help from above, not "God" but "Congress." The economics and politics of government graft require the active conspiracy of politicians as greed and politics are inseparable. The human parasites who have robbed the Blackfeet Indians since 1863 are called "border-whites" who live on the borders of Indian reservations to prey on the Indians and trespass on Indian lands and then, finally decided, hell, we might as well move in, and robbed the private-property of individual Indian landowners. The border-whites are confederates who settled in Montana but built their plantations on Indian reservations and created a white-apartheid territory called "reservation/county" to give themselves a title to the stolen property of the Indians. The Blackfeet Reservation has 529,000 acres of void Patent-in-Fee lands of border-whites who live in a white apartheid territory called Glacier County, Montana right on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, and of course, the crook always takes the best lands and water holes, oil wells, and other treasures owned by Indians. The Crow Tribe has over 600 forced patents of Crow allotted lands amounting to billions of dollars in Crow coal reserves and across the nation a hundred million acres of Indian lands were robbed by border-whites within the reservation borders. The Frontier Montana "Political-Mercantile" system that robbed the Indians is now a national problem with the Congress corrupted by crooked corporate powers, who actually threaten mankind's existence with climate change pollution's caused by the smog-brothers etc. The Wall Street Bankers robbery of millions of Americans retirement funds and gambling losses of loans and mortgages of millions of American property owners reminds me of Montana Territorial Governor Green Clay Smith, who was also appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs by Congress, gambled away the Indians funds at a Faro Table in a Virginia City gambling den. What could the Indians do about it? What did Congress do to Wall Street Bankers? The Congress of the United States bailed out the bankers, not out of jail, but out of debt caused by greed and government corruption. I think the Indians and the average Americans must be getting a sore asshole from all the screwing done to them by Congress and the smog-brothers. Here on the Blackfeet Reservation we have a tiny population of border-whites who hog the economy and leave the American taxpayers to pick up the bill for treaty violations that brought financial ruin to prosperous Blackfeet cattle ranchers by 1890. It is all stolen by now, and we live in abject poverty while the human parasites in Glacier County live a rich lifestyle like their confederate ancestor's plantation slave owners, but, alas, all we Indians have is a corrupt Congress to look to for justice, kind of like all Americans today. In 1921 when the border-whites were starving the Indians once again the Blackfeet Indians requested the army to just kill them all off immediately to put them out of their misery. We are at that point today as our youth are dying of a diabetes epidemic caused by tribal poverty.That is why we must win our land claims or die! Bob Juneau Sr.  

EXCERPT FROM THE 'SACRED BUFFALO VISION', A BLACKFEET HISTORY BOOK

Chapter on 'Blackfeet Soldiers "Doughboys" Starved", P. 133
 Hart Schultz, son of James Willard Schultz had a Blackfeet mother, Natahki, and was an eyewitness to the genocides of many Blackfeet Indians, as he was in Glacier Park at the time, and wrote his father on the condition of the Indians in letters dated August 17 and 27th, 1921: "Well, the Blackfeet are about finished. Excepting a few old people, they get no rations and the rations that are given out last only three or four days instead of the fourteen days they are supposed to cover. They have no grain crops, very little hay, and the worst is yet to come, the dreaded winter. Yesterday, Many Guns and Dog Gun and others came away up here to see me, and said they were so hungry they had to ask me for help. Have been constantly giving out food and money since I arrived here. They ask why the Government doesn't send the troops to kill them all off, and put them out of their misery? An old woman came up to see me, walking all the way from the forks of the Two Medicine River. She was in rags and starving. I gave her a meal and bought flour, coffee, meat and sugar for her and she broke down and cried. I tell you, by God, that it makes me mad all the time to see the condition these Indians are in! Tuberculosis is rapidly killing off the Indians, but it serves well the interests of purpose of those who are after this big-grass country, now practically all taken by the agents of the big-meat trust, Swift & Co. through its subsidiary the Portland Land & Cattle Company. One of the traders at Browning had two hundred and twelve of Blackfeet patents-in-fee to their lands and other traders had many more." The National Indian Memorial Association President Joseph K. Dixon wrote to General Pershing on the Blackfeet soldiers "Doughboys" who were being starved and dying along with their aged parents; "150 Blackfeet Indians fought in World War One on the fields of France, and only 20 of them came back, not one of them sound, and many of them wounded; that these Indian veterans are now dying by the roadside, and so are many of their other tribal members, from sheer hunger; that the tribe is being decimated by the pangs of hunger; that their hunting grounds have been preempted [Glacier Park] and their land filched. Please use your influence to strike a blow somewhere, somehow, that will rouse the people to a realization of the horrors that exist at their own door, and that the spirit of good will clustering about the manger and cradle in Bethlehem will bring gifts of food and clothing to these dependent, oppressed, and damaged Indians, old and blind, who lived to rear boys whom they sent to fight under your swords in France, and are likewise wounded, helpless, and suffering with their fathers whom they cannot help. God have mercy on us if we do not do something, and do it soon." Alas, we the Blackfeet of today are still fighting for our stolen lands taken by starvation amounting to murder by border-whites living in Glacier County, a white-apartheid government transplanted on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, who have usurped the treaty rights, cattle industry, oil wells and allotted lands of the Blackfeet Indians. Sincerely, Bob Juneau Sr.

CHRISTMAS A "HUM-BUG" FOR THE BLACKFEET INDIANS-$50 PAYMENT AN INSULT

Was it the mean old scrooges, dumb politicians, or just plain old greed that brought financial ruin to the tribe, or maybe it was the $2,000,000 race track, $7,000,000 casino in a cornfield, or 85 room luxury hotel in Browning, where the winos and bums run off any customers. No, it wasn't just those tribal council disasters, they had help with the "casino council" chairman Earl Old Person, who set up his tribal office in the log house given him by the tribe to go along with his house on government square, or the sordid history of his rule for 30 years when the tribe sank under a mountain of debt and slothful work record as chairman. Shakespeare said "The evil that men do. lives after them." We will pay forever for his disasters because the white man is his hero, and he blocked our last chance the Blackfeet had to recover their allotted lands, by doing nothing! The past three years of non-compliance with federal grant funds will mean a lot of hardship and poverty for our children and old folks this winter once again. NO HARDSHIP! is the sign of the times at the tribal office. Old Person told the tribal council that we, the Blackfeet claimants for the forced patents claims are a "bureau problem." I guess if you are a tribal leader who is proud of never going against the "bureau" it is a viable response, but what tribal leader would throw his own people out and welcome the white man to stay on our reservation by blocking our claims with his powers as chairman. The Senate Indian Affairs Committee welcomed us in 1980 to bring our allotted land claims but we needed a tribal council resolution to bring the senators to Browning to hold field hearings and take testimony from the dispossessed heirs of the original Blackfeet Allottees. The dispossessed heirs are this generation of Blackfeet Indians. All of us have a relative who was robbed of their family lands. I get requests from tribal members, descendants, and heirs all the time on the forced patent claims status, and I have to tell them the truth-Earl Old Person killed your claims. The statute of limitations did not run out as our tribal lawyer contends as we got the claims filed in court and in Congress prior to the deadline of December 31, 1982. Tribal political families do not want the senate Indian committee on the reservation. In 2001 we got a tribal resolution passed requesting a senate investigation of our allotted land claims, removal of white-fee land owners on the reservation, and Glacier-Pondera County refund of all taxes to tribal government and $600 million dollars to be paid to tribal heirs of the original allottees plus restoring all trust land titles to the Blackfeet landowners. There is no white man in Glacier or Pondera County that can prove he owns anything on the Blackfeet Reservation. Isn't the claim a better Christmas payment than chump change of $50 and the tribe bankrupt? Do not approve the water compact unless we get our land and money back from border-whites. Bob Juneau Sr.

WHAT DO THE BLACKFEET PEOPLE WANT TO DO WITH THEIR LAND AND WATER?

The border towns of Cut Bank, Valier, Conrad through their Commercial Clubs campaigned in 1913 to force the sale of 156,000 acres of Blackfeet irrigated farm lands and oil fields by starving over 100 Blackfeet Indians to death in the winter of 1913 while the tribal council was trying to get word to Washington that the Blackfeet people were in dire need of food, clothing and shelter. The Great Northern Railway owner James J. Hill had already robbed the Blackfeet of land and timber and was paid $25,000 from tribal funds to build the Blackfeet Highway from East Glacier to St. Mary Village, Now he was taking the oil fields and tourist trade from the Indians while the big meat trust Swift & Armor robbed the Indians land allotments through their subsidiary the Portland Land & Cattle Company. The agent and county government officials combined to issue fee patents which were robbed by white men by the hundreds and Joe Sherburne conspired to bankrupt the Indians of 25,000 head of cattle industry, and rob the "big-grass country" of the Blackfeet Reservation. Hundreds of Indians lost their lands and were broke and landless after being prosperous cattle ranchers in 1890. It was rumored that the senate investigator was killed by Chicago crime boss Al Capone, who had a phony bank in Browning which loaned money to Indians and foreclosed on their cattle herds before they could ship them to market. Every swindler headed to Browning on a "dog-trot", as Mrs. Monroe had said about sheep companies getting ten cent leases. The other ruse of the whites was to influence the federal reclamation service to build large reclamation projects that irrigated Blackfeet lands and transported tribal waters to downstream water users; all done at the expense of the Indians when Charles Davis, Supervisor of Farming for the Indian Bureau reported that after the expenditure of $900,552.26 of tribal land cession funds there was not a single acre of Blackfeet land under cultivation. Chairman Wolf Tail summed up the Government Indian Policy on the Blackfeet Reservation Economy: "The major service the government could perform is to put a stop to the useless expenditures of thousands upon thousands of dollars of our money on the construction by the Reclamation Service of irrigating canals, etc. in the endeavor to make farmers out of a people who have no desire or inclination to become such, who are not fitted for it by nature and who were never consulted about their wishes in the matter, but have always been treated by the government as children, and who had well-defined ideas as to what they wanted or what was good for them." Excerpts from the Sacred Buffalo Vision available on Amazon.Com , Sincerely, Bob Juneau Sr.

"RESERVATION/COUNTY IS A WHITE-APARTHEID TERRITORY"

Did you vote to be a part of Glacier or Pondera County on the Blackfeet Reservation? No! The Blackfeet Indians were not allowed to vote in the election to incorporate the county governments within the reservation in 1919, or hold public office, or to be a state citizen. Oh happy days for the Blackfeet Indians of today, we get to hold office, vote, and even get served in stores in Cut Bank, but does that make up for robbing 529,000 acres of allotted lands, 25,000 head of cattle, oil wells, and businesses that generate an estimated $850 million dollars of the gross reservation product from Glacier Park tourism, cattle industry, crops, oil & gas, and now they want the rest of our water resources worth billions of dollars per year. The truth is the Blackfeet people are the poorest on the reservation despite owning 900,000 acres of allotted and tribal lands. "Education" was the answer our educated leaders said, and it is sadly untrue except for the 8% of the tribe that have college degrees. The civilized Indians are content to run for county government and state political offices, but the money is controlled by the state legislature in Helena, and last term the legislature voted down $164 million in social/welfare funds meant for the poor Indians residing in reservation/counties. The Blackfeet children in public schools suffer a 50% drop out rate, a genuine disaster, doubly so as it is our own Blackfeet/Cree superintendents and school board who still teach the "savage Indian" class in history that glorify the white man. My platform has been to teach the truth to tribal leaders and the school system to stop the psychological damages done to our children by historical lies in school curriculum in Browning Public Schools. We cannot ever win our stolen lands back until we learn our own political history and treaty rights to tax free lands and to be free of white rule on the reservation. The "reservation/county" is a system of internal colonialism whereby a tiny minority of white men can control the majority of Blackfeet Indians and reservation economy and usurp the tribal treaty rights and restricted allotted Indian trust property through state law and county government imposed on our illiterate and incompetent original allottees in 1912-1922. Border-whites are human parasites on the Blackfeet people and reservation economy including robbing the successful, self-reliant Blackfeet cattle industry developed by 1890 with 25,000 cattle, 500 Blackfeet ranchers, and shipping steers to Chicago markets. Most of the Indians had cattle and equipment to produce hay for winter feed and for sale to the agency. The people were happy and prosperous until the white man robbed us and stole everything from us, which is the basis of our current land claims. Vote no on the state-tribal water compact until we get our stolen property back and remove the white man from the reservation and regain our tribal sovereignty and allotted land base and cattle industry. Bob Juneau Sr.