The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.162-163

The Blackfeet Irrigation project was coming back to haunt the Federal Reclamation Service because it was never completed and it was built with Blackfeet tribal funds, and it reserved the water rights for the Blackfeet Tribe.  The Blackfeet Tribe also had identified, and undeveloped hydro-power sites, irrigation projects, bottled water, food processing, beef and livestock products and world markets worth billions of dollars in all value. Chinese government buyers were in the tribal office a few years ago, called the Blackfeet their relatives, and offered to purchase any and all Blackfeet products.

Legal experts pointed out that on the Blackfeet .Indian Reservation it has been the history of the Justice Department to represent the claims of the Bureau of Reclamation, the State of Montana and white irrigators against the reserved water rights of the Blackfeet Indians on the Blackfeet reservation.  Blackfeet Indian water quantification is held to a higher standard than whites on the reservation living on the stolen lands of the Indians, or whites in the State of Montana.  The Departments of Justice and Interior under the Reagan administration and Secretary of the Interior James Watt worked to reduce the Blackfeet water rights claims by establishing new arbitrary and capricious water quantification criteria, developed to be used only upon the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.162-163 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.162

The Indians know this, but are powerless to control their reservation economies. The corporation has controlled and raped Indian resources since the 1800’s in Blackfoot Country. The Federal Government has made a mockery of Indian treaty rights with all meaningful decisions made at the national level in the corrupt Interior Department and the executive branch. The United States violated Indian treaties for corporate profits.  

In the 1980’s the “government” discovered there were still outstanding Indian claims not resolved, and that these Indian land claims were tied to valuable Indian water rights, and mineral rights overlooked by the States and speculators in their first rape of Indian reservations. The Indian water rights are so valuable that President Reagan’s Interior Department and Justice Department moved to extinguish the claims of the Indians or failing that, to force the Indians to accept reduced water rights claims.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.162 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.161-162

President Nixon sent the F.B.I. and U.S. Marshals Service to the reservation to beat the shit out of the Indian protesters and over 200 Indians were murdered in two years of federal, state and county government occupation of the Pine Ridge reservation; the deaths including old Indian people, women and children as usual. You might say Dick Nixon had a “streak of cruelty” like most Republican politicians of that era in suppressing Indian protests of government oppression. American patriotism was his excuse for the killings. Hyper-patriotism is now a missile aimed at civil rights of all Americans.

            President Reagan “trickles down” Indian water rights

Corporate totalitarianism on the Indian reservations was so obvious that Soviet leaders and White apartheid South African leaders pointed to the Indian reservations as an impoverished people in the richest nation in the world. The Indian reservations resembled the Soviet Union and South Africa more than “America.” President Reagan’s economic policy “Reaganomics” is pissing on the poor and making the rich-richer.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.161-162 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.161

President Nixon’s Indian emancipation program was “dirty-tricks” and political chaff that covered up the political and economic structures of white apartheid and corporate exploitation on the Indian reservations. The Indians have become poorer under this illusion of Indian self-determination and made more reliant on government funding instead of becoming the successful cattle ranchers they had been prior to the coming of the Confederate soldiers and Texas cattle kings to the reservation.

President Nixon’s bogus Indian self-determination policy was a continuing link in the “chain of conspiracy” to preserve white apartheid political and economic structures on Indian reservations going back over 150 years to the Indian removals and allotted Indian land frauds. The Indian protests over Indian treaty violations by the United States and confederates plantations on the reservation in the 1970’s were ended with United States paramilitary police actions against Indian patriots and massive federal court indictments against Indian leadership.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.161 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.160-161

We will not take any money, will not ask anything of the one-eighth, but would like to split 50-50 with you all that we make over and above that. It is ridiculous that you have government personnel here and they do nothing for you. That is one of the things I forgot to mention, the resort possibilities on the reservation. Just to get into the tourist possibility that could grow on this reservation is this. I believe there could be operated quite successfully a large tourist type of development in the mountains. Theodore Last Star was telling me about his annual show and that could all be worked into a gigantic tourist attraction. That in conjunction with your large resort. I understand the Blackfeet Indian Tribe has unlimited power to break away from the federal government under it’s treaties etc. That they can more or less write their own ticket as to eventually becoming independent probably with one exception that they cannot sell the land and it cannot be mortgaged. It is ridiculous that you have government personnel here and they do nothing.”  

Give their land back

President Nixon’s Indian Self-Determination Policy was merely political theatre by the executive branch to stifle national Indian protests of Indian land frauds and treaty violations. The tribal economy and private-property of the Indians was pirated by white men on the reservation but Nixon’s self-determination policy did not transfer titles back to the Indian owners. Glacier and Pondera Counties political apartheid territory and border-white corporate economic-apartheid on Blackfeet Indian land and resources; on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation has continued unabated.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau
pg.160-161 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.160

Not only that, but to really make some money at it. It is all here. I have never seen such an opportunity to build a financial empire all accumulated in one spot. It is going to take a lot of money to do it. It is a vast proposition and is going to have to be organized on a vast scale. You have so many phases. In other words, if you do not do it on that scale, well, it is like trying to cut down a Sequoia tree with a pocket knife. It is a challenge and is going to take a lot of hard work and sweat to put it over. We have studied it in our minds and have come up with this idea. We do not feel that any of the present income of this reservation should be touched in any way. We feel that if we are to develop this reservation, we should take care of that ourselves. Understand too, that from an oil and gas standpoint, wouldn’t think it right for any one to say that we should get any part of that. I understand most of the oil companies give one-eighth. It should go to the reservation, to the tribe. Any efforts on our part should come over that one-eighth. We would like to get a starting point and get it boiled down to something concrete. But, take for instance this Reagan Field. It is ridiculous that that field is being developed at the rate it is. We know definitely how to build a fire under the companies and get that field developed.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau    
pg.160 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.159-160

They can make it almost valueless to you. Also in that permit would be a selection clause. Another danger in your seismic work, is that a company will take a picture and it is common knowledge that these oil companies are always trying to scout each other so sometimes a company will go into an area and shoot it and will very conveniently allow a doctored picture to slip out of their office and into the hands of their competitor. So they will say “It does not look too good to us and we are not going to drill it”, and so they are trying to get their competitor out of that area and probably get their lease for little or nothing. So that is why I say you should have a man on the seismograph crews at all times so that cannot happen. Of course, there are a lot of other things you have to look out for. As I say, we have been over the reservation. We have seen what can be done, what the problem is, about what it is going to take to solve it and have more or less arrived at what we think should be done and would like, or in other words, want, to make a proposition to the tribe to work with them to put the reservation on a sound financial basis.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau
pg.159-160 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.159

I am trying to also point out the fact that it is going to be quite a complicated and quite a monumental task to develop the reservation. There is no doubt about that. It is a vast monumental task and is going to take tremendous energy, efforts and money to weld this thing into a vast operating and profitable organization so that everyone will profit by it. Getting back to the oil and gas phase of it to give you some idea about some of these detailed ideas of developing. I noticed in going over the reservation the last few days the shooting crews, or seismographic crews, running helter and skelter. When a shooting crew wants to do any seismographic work, they have to get a permit. You all know that. It is usually customary for them to pay something for that permit when they ask for a permit. If a man had 300,000 acres and they wanted to shoot 100,000 of it, he would make them pay for that and would make them stay within that. He would require a picture of it. He would probably have a man with them and when he got through, he would have a 100% picture of it. He would probably have a man with them and when he got through, he would have a 100% true picture of all the work they have done. An oil company will say “yes, I will give you a picture”, but they do not give you an accurate picture.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.159 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.158-159

You have a timber and lumber resource here that could be developed into quite a lumber industry. A pulp mill could be developed on this reservation. There is no telling what natural resources you have in the foothills of the mountains that with proper and systematic mining could be developed. You have farming that could be developed on a vast scale. Still comparing with the King Ranch, they had two things to build on, ranching and oil and gas. You have natural resources and minerals. You have farming and timber, five or six known things you can do that the King ranch will never be able to do.

I am trying to show you the vast development you can do. It would take a great amount of work to even develop one of those phases if done on the scale it should be done on. It is a great enterprise in itself. What I want to say and boil it down to is that you have unlimited possibilities in natural resources on this reservation. I understand that the Government is trying to put more or less a squeeze play on the Indians and take this away from you one way or another. It would be a terrible tragedy for the Indians to lose what, in my opinion, is a financial empire to be developed here. To give you some idea of the problem. When I was first speaking of this in Houston, of this Indian reservation, I got it into my head that the Indian tribe owned all of the surface and a certain percent of the minerals. The rest is patented land which will greatly complicate the development. In other words, it is going to be a problem of reassembling it and bringing it together before you can get into the developing of it. I understand that the tribe would like to reacquire some of the lands in the south part of the reservation.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.158-159

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.158

They have several oil fields on that ranch today and would say roughly and conservatively are worth several hundred million dollars. What did they do it with? Ranching and oil and gas. Let us compare that with this reservation. The reservation is larger in acres, in resources. You have vast grazing lands very superior to the ranges in that ranch. You have an abundant water supply. The grass is better. You have natural grasses here, where the King ranch has spent thousands of dollars to develop the grass. Now, your oil and gas resources. There are about eight prospects on this reservation. If only one of those prospects proves productive to any extent, your financial worries would be ended. It is quite possible that two or three or four of those prospects will prove productive in dollars and cents. In estimating, even with your oil in place, that could amount to a billion dollars in all value. That isn’t considering either what could be done with that crude oil in the way of developing your own refinery. There is a great profit in the refining of oil. If the Indians could reserve enough lands in these lease blocks to develop their own land, do their own drilling, they would have enough oil reserve to warrant a good sized refinery.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.158 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.157-158

You can never grasp the magnitude unless it is seen with your own eyes. That is why we came here to see what it would take to do it. I would like to give you a comparison. We have a ranch in Texas which in size is about the same as this reservation, about a million acres. What can be done with the proper financial setup on this reservation in comparison with a tract of land of similar size? The King Ranch is the largest ranch in Texas, privately owned by a family in South Texas. Probably the only resources that ranch can lay claim to is in the form of ranching and oil and gas. In the beginning it had nothing but its ranching and from that developed a multi-million dollar corporation. Ten or twenty million dollars would be nothing compared to its total value speaking only of its ranching. It has only been fairly recently that the oil companies went in there and took over the development of their oil and gas.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.157-158 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.157

The Blackfeet Chiefs had adopted Mr. Cullen into the Blackfeet Tribe in a tribal ceremony by giving him the traditional Blackfeet name of “Chief Medicine Talk.” Councilman Leo Kennerly opened the meeting by stating, “We want to treat this meeting as strictly confidential because as soon as some of these stockmen and others know there is a possibility of getting financial aid to do our own developing for livestock, oil etc., we know what will immediately happen. I want to thank you gentlemen for coming in here. They [Cullen interests] haven’t arrived at any particular program but [we] have asked them what they think about it and what the possibilities are. I am going to begin by asking Mr. Cullen what his observations are.”

Mr. Cullen: “Gentlemen, we have spent several days now being conducted over the reservation, have seen practically all of it that can be seen in a short time and have quite closely observed what resources are available within the boundaries of the reservation. When I got to talking about this reservation while I was still in Houston, I was told by Mr. Chattin that they had tremendous possibilities which needed developing.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.157 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.156-157

The Blackfeet Indians transition from the buffalo economy to the private-sector American economy was successful by the 1890’s in the adaptation of the Blackfeet Indian cattle ranchers utilizing reserved treaty lands for grazing and the water holes and water courses to irrigate hay meadows for winter feed for their cattle herds. The government inspector documented their success and it is recognized in the 1896 Agreement/Article Five by the United States Congress.

The Senate Indian Affairs Committee documented the peculations of the Indians funds and private-property by border-whites and the “agency ring” a criminal conspiracy in 1929 in the “Survey of Conditions of Indians in the United States” but left the land frauds unresolved. The history is one of a century long defense of the tribal homeland.

                                    Chief Medicine Talk

On November 2, 1953, a special meeting (confidential) was held in the Council Room at Browning, with tribal council members and Lucien Hugh Cullen, oil man from Houston, Texas, who was called in to give his views on development of the Blackfeet Reservation outside of the racketeering interests of crooked tribal councilmen, oil companies, complicity of the Bureau of Indian Affairs “agency ring”, and various “border-white” speculators on the local level in Cut Bank, the Glacier County Attorney and other Glacier County Officials, et al.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.156-157 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.156

About one-third of the Indians have become landless with the exception of their 80 acre homestead which could not be alienated by an act of Congress. Many of these lands are valuable oil lands, one tract in particular consisting of 280 acres produced $3,000,000 in oil in the past 10 years, this allotment was mortgaged by the Indian for $2,000 and lost by reason of foreclosure. We have known of the Milk River anticline and conceded by Government geologists as one of the most promising oil structures on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. You will note that looking at plats of the reservation that nearly all of the lands lying therein are patented. Louis Hill of the Great Northern Railway Co. who was at that time one of the major lessees through his lobbyists in Washington was able to get that area of land patented in fee. We are asking to hold our lands in trust and non-assessable.”

In 1944 Judge Charles N. Pray ruled that the 1887 Indian Allotment Act reserved all of the minerals underlying the Blackfeet Reservation, but none of the oil & gas minerals were returned to the Blackfeet Indians. The defendants in U.S. v. C.E. Frisbee were the Texas Co. [Texaco] and J.L. Sherburne, the agency trader. The fee minerals [white owned] on the reservation have grown to 28% of the reservation minerals, while the oil companies directed J.L. Sherburne and C.E. Frisbee to the productive oil properties on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and the agency superintendent issued fee patents to the illiterate Indian owners as part of the larger conspiracy to defraud the Indians. State and corporate political and economic apartheid is built on the backs of the poor and exploitation of the resources of a nation and people.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.156 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.155-156

Blackfeet Tribal Business Council Chairman John Sharp wrote the Hon. James F. O’Connor, of the Indian Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives “In view of this situation, we Blackfeet Indians feel that our lands would remain in trust indefinitely.” Chairman Sharp reported that about one third of the Indians have become landless under these corrupt practices of the Indian Bureau and white men representing oil companies.

He wrote “Prior to the Wheeler-Howard Act patents in fee were issued to Indians as early as the year 1918, in many cases the Indian not knowing of the issuance of the patent in fee of his allotment. Some refused to accept the patent knowing they would be unable to pay the taxes assessed against the land. They were advised that they must accept the patent in fee from the office of the Indian agent and whether or not the land would be assessed and taxed, the taxes must be paid. This procedure was promoted by white Indian traders who were trying to get old accounts paid, and also to put the Indian landless. Under these conditions many Indians, both full and mixed bloods, lost their lands through taxes, loans, mortgages, and transfer sales, not knowing the value of their lands so eagerly sought by the avaricious white post trader, white men, real-estate sharks, and professional traders flocked upon the Indian reservation making land deals by way of a small loan, by the Indians mortgaging their lands and in due time were foreclosed of their interests, receiving as low as $250 for 320 acres of land.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.155-156 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.155

Honest tribal councilmen pointed to the “rat hole” of the Indian preference clause in the tribal constitution, written by Interior Department lawyers, which allowed elected Blackfeet tribal council members “preference” to obtain oil and grazing leases from the tribe for the benefit of outside oil interests and against the Indians beneficial interests. One oil tract produced $3,000,000 in oil revenue for the white man who had acquired the mineral rights by crooked deals with the tribal council and agency superintendent. Tribal councilmen who were ranchers used their powers to lease tribal grazing lands to themselves, and sub-lease the lands to white ranchers. The tribal council hired and fired tribal judges and tribal police officials. The Blackfeet Tribe now had an “in-house Indian ring” controlling the finances of the tribe. Tribal political families controlled the tribe.

Chairman Sharp cited Louis Hill, of the Great Northern Railway Co. who was one of the major lessees through his lobbyists in Washington D.C. and who corrupted Indian Bureau officials in Washington D.C, who had approved his oil lease over the protests of the tribal council. Louis Hill was able to get the entire Milk River Anticline, a major oil structure on the reservation patented, thereby removing federal protection and trusteeship of the minerals underlying the tribal lands. Taxes and liens of white men were used to acquire allotted oil lands by tax deeds issued by the county attorney and county courts.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.155 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.154-155

Louis Hill “bedevils” the Blackfeet Indians

The newly formed Blackfeet Tribal Business Council was organized in 1935 under the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act; the Blackfeet Constitution and Corporate Charter. The Interior Department and Montana border-whites were frustrated by traditional Blackfeet leadership in opposing tribal land cessions and exposing corrupt Indian Service practices and by the Blackfeet Chief’s ability to bring the peculations of Indian affairs to the attention of Congress, sparking investigations of misconduct and criminal racketeering on the reservation and outrage in the newspapers of the nation.

 On September 25, 1944 Chairman John Sharp wrote the Hon. James F. O’Conner, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Indian Affairs; on the subject of better administration and development of Blackfeet Indian Resources and Economic Welfare. Blackfeet Chairman John Sharp reported on several points of contention relating to the “dictatorial powers of the Indian Bureau which does not work for the Indians but for outside interests. Members of the tribe who cater to these dictatorial powers receive special privileges and they in turn, protect the officials in their nefarious activities. Any members of the tribe who, recognizing these corrupt practices and nefarious activities, attempts to expose such conditions to the tribe and tries to correct them are persecuted by these Indian Bureau officials, denied many privileges granted in the Wheeler-Howard Act, such as loans, leases, issuance of cattle; rehabilitation benefits and employment.” 
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.154-155

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.154

We are tired of Indian Agents who come here for the sole purpose of exploiting us. Give us a man who has his nest egg some where besides Indian Reservations, A man with noble purposes who has some insight, some principle, a teacher who will look after the interest of the ignorant and the illiterate ones. Some of us can read and write fairly well, but legal jargon goes way over our heads, such lingo we cannot hope to understand, and we cannot afford to hire lawyers to untangle such mystic wording. That is why we need an Agent with some ability and a few “scruples.” Give us a chance to buy cattle on the long time loan plan, say 5, 8, 10 years at not more than 5 per cent. 3 or 5 head of cows to each family is enough, with restrictions on the sale of young female stock, a dual purpose cow like the milking short horn would be best because its ruggedness could stand our harsh climate. This would give us a chance to get on our feet and to use the grazing for our own benefit, raise the grazing rent on sheep from twenty five cents to two dollars an acre, according to the grade of hay land, and raise the price of hay to nine dollars a ton in the stack. This will give us a chance to live.”  
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.154

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.153-154

Had no money to fight with in the civil courts, later on a lawyer told me it was outlawed, that was the first time that I knew “robbery” could be outlawed. There, that completes the Campbell’s Five-Year-Starvation-Program. When sifted down it amounts to this; starve us out, burn us out, kick us out. Most of our land is gone and it will not be long till the “owners” of this reservation will demand us to get out. Where shall we go from here, what can we do? Will there be a wholesale exodus of the Children of the Sun into the strange land of the white man to stand in bread lines, begging for bread, penniless, homeless, permanent objects of charity? If something is not done to change conditions here this will be our ultimate fate. Of course all of these wrongs were committed under the Old Order of things-under the Waste-Paper-Basket-Regime. But with the new order coming in we hope, because President Roosevelt promised every one some thing new, something better, and we have faith in his promises, and faith in those he picks to help him run the government. Wish we had a real principled man to be head of the public schools in Browning where most of the little Indian boys and girls are being educated for future citizens.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.153-154 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.153

If big companies are allowed to do this, it will soon be fashionable for small individuals to change their names in order to beat their debts. As to the methods that Joe Sherburne uses to acquire land for “nothing” will give an example my own case. The patent was forced on me by Horace Wilson, without my applying for it. I was young and ignorant. A command by the Agent of that day was a law not to be disregarded without disgrace and jail sentence, so I accepted the patent for the same reason that the rest of my people did. Soon the taxes began to pile up, I could not pay as I had no paying job, just keeping house for my widowed father on a ranch and helping him to raise his motherless children. The unpaid taxes made me frantic and no one made any effort to advise me, least of all my father. The minute I got my patent my father started in to make me pay his debts after two years he and Joe Sherburne succeeded in their conspiracy to beat me out of my land, two hundred and eighty acres. Did the two exert any influence to have the patent forced on me in the first place? Did I owe Joe Sherburne any thing? “Not a penny” I never bought any thing on credit at his store in all my life. A few years later he kicked me out of my home by force in the dead of winter the 2^nd day of February. I could do nothing, my father refused to pay.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.153 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.152-153

We make our complaint to the Office but what is the use. We cannot support these parasites much longer without going under ourselves. At last Campbell was removed and promoted by the powers that “were” to that of Supervisor of this district. Promoted because of work “well done”? The big sheepmen here on the reservation do not follow any rules. They do not have to, because they make laws. The State Legislature is over stocked with them and laws are made in their favor. Most western senators to Washington are elected by sheepmen. As a result they have their way here. Our forest reserves lie adjacent to Glacier National Park on the east, and in the summer time great bands come flocking in here to eat up the feed for nothing. I say “here” because I live near to both lines, and have a chance to observe their conduct at first hand. The herders secretly hunt, fish and trap, most herders are foreigners, but they all carry high powered rifles. At mid-day when the sheep are bedded down in the shade, from four to five hours the herders get out and hunt down big game in their native haunts. Little cubs are accused of killing sheep. The Office here sued the Frye Sheep Company for eighty thousand dollars on behalf of the tribe, but the Fryes immediately sold out most of their livestock reorganized their company and came out with a brand “new” name-The Poplar Sheep Company-They declared the Frye Sheep Company existed no more and that they were broke and could pay no damages.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau    
pg.152-153 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.152

We broke that gang up some what, but it made us feel pretty bad to think that our Agent is secretly prosecuting us, when in reality he ought to be our protector, instead of exploiting us. Still another feature of the Program was the Government money paid through this Office for educating Indian children in the public school at Browning, children that had been dead and gone or married for the last twenty-one years. The discovery was made two years ago. But I will not go into this as I am sure some one else will take up this matter with your Office. I just mentioned it because it was a part of the Program. Another part of the Program was the encouraging us to sell what few head of horses we had at canners prices, to clear the range for more sheep. Most of us have no more horses, but what few is left is chased from pillar to post by sheep herders. One herder chased my six head out of the valley shooting at them with a high powered rifle and it cost me lots of time and trouble to get them back. Another herder of the same company cut my garden fence and allowed his flock to eat up my vegetables and grain hay that I planned to carry me through the winter. This company never returned; the bank got it. Why do we not sue these trespassing sheep companies in the civil courts? Because we are broke and cannot pay the price against an organized racket.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.152 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.151-152

He is delighted to find himself the center of interest, a special entertainer is at his side chanting soothing bits of rhyme, bits of old Indians legends. A musical band of small boys would furnish music and song, what could be more perfect than a picnic like this. The next day a trip through Glacier National Park would complete the tour of inspection. What an inchanting time he has had. Why the Blackfeets are well off, they live in a beautiful land, who can be hungry with so much beautiful scenery to gaze upon? Marvelous! And he reports the same to Washington. The Great Falls Tribune take it up and tells how well we are prospering under Campbell’s Five-Year Program. Inspectors like this are no good. What is needed is an intelligent, practical man, who can herd sheep a year for the big companies. He would find out lots of things along the lines I have written, an Inspector incognito. Another feature of the Program about this time was the framing of innocent people in the courts. If the Fryes wanted a valuable piece of land and the owner refused to lease or sell, that person would be framed to get him into legal difficulty. He’d hire a lawyer to defend him and after the case is over, the land would be attached for legal debts, and the Fryes would step in and buy it for a small sum. Many were sent to the penitentiary on flimsy pretexts. Some of us sensed that a secret prosecutor existed, but it took us quite a while to figure out that this was part of the Program-it kept the public eye off the main issue.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.151-152 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.151

Kicks were made to Washington D.C., and inspectors would be sent from there to Browning. This Inspector would be met at the depot by the Agency cars and he would be dined and toasted by Campbell and his pets. Mr. Inspector would be motored out to see a prosperous looking rancher on Milk River (a handy tool of the sheepmen) but Mr. Inspector does not know that this ranch is mortgaged beyond redemption, that the cattle and sheep seen grazing on the hillsides belongs to the Fryes, but Mr. Inspector does not have to know that. The next day he motors out to Heart Butte district to look at the ranch of another pet, who has new machinery, ten or fifteen head of dirty looking sheep laying around the door yard, a five acre field of frosted wheat, and plenty of grub (sent by the Office the day before). A picnic would be held by the visiting on the banks of a mountain stream covered with a luxurious growth of wild grasses and flowers, the result of long cold winters and deep snows, but the Inspector does not think of that.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.151

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.150-151

The Blackfeet temperament does not run that way. Why force a mode of life on him that he despises. He cares nothing for mutton and he never would quit running in the other direction if he saw a sheep tick. He shakes his head, no good for a Blackfeet, too dirty, smell too bad, wool full of bugs. He dreams of the old buffalo days but they are gone forever. Cattle satisfy him because they are nearly the image of his dear beloved buffalo. They are clean, easily managed and one does not have to stoop to the ways of a buzzard to care for cattle. A few took sheep because they could not get cattle, but after a few years the sheep urge was discontinued, and one or two cows were sold to a very select few-the same was true of machinery. They want to force us to sell our hay for one, two and three dollars a ton delivered, which does not even pay the expense of cutting it, let alone delivering it. White farmers off the reservation get nine dollars a ton in the stack for the same quality of hay. Indians don’t know any better anyway so why pay them more. According to the purpose of the Program our resources gradually dwindled away. We could not replace or repair old machinery, our penniless condition prevented us from acquiring new herds of cattle or even one cow, our clothes became so ragged that the wind nearly whip us to death when ever we step out into the wind. Many members began to get hungry. Small credit bills were run at Joe Sherburne’s store and when the bill amounted to two or three hundred dollars, the Indian would lose his land. Joe Sherburne would own it by hook or crook to satisfy a small debt. Results, the Sherburne Mercantile Company owns much of the land on the reservation and if conditions continue as they are, it will not be very long till they will own most of our land, and the sheepmen will own the rest. Campbell’s Five-Year-Starvation-Program was doing its work well.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.150-151 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.150

Sometimes Joe Sherburne does not even stop to put on a mask. The sheep continued to graze on our land for nothing. Other sheepmen came in and tried to run the grazing bid up, but the Office always closed the bids one day ahead of the scheduled time. The un-favored bidders would arrive just one day too late. The bidders were supposed to appear in person, that means that higher grazing rent was not wanted by the Office and the two sheep companies named above. By this time Campbell inaugurated a policy what he called the Five-Year Program. He tried to make us sheep-minded and encouraged a few of his pets to buy sheep on the Reimbursable Loan, no doubt the Fryes and the Long and Clary had some old toothless ewes they wanted to get rid of and conceived the idea of us buying them. We protested against sheep and said we wanted cattle, but he told us that his program consisted of sheep and milch goats. A nice thing to wish upon us buffalo chasers, just imagine a dignified old former warrior herding sheep and pailing a milch goat, it cannot be done.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.150 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.149-150

We were grieved to know that such a wreck had been appointed to be our guardian. Not so long after he’s gone an article appeared in the Great Falls Tribune, where Horace G. Wilson, formerly of this country, was sentenced to ten years in the penitentiary in California for the Man-Act. F.C. Campbell now came to be our Agent. He had no personal bad habits but he was worse, because he was a political grafter and he became involved in Joe Sherburne’s political machine for by this time the latter was secretly running the county and the Office too. Who is Joe Sherburne, he is our local merchant for the last thirty-five years, and owns the First National Bank here, (that explains it). All the money for the Office goes through his bank; that is how he comes to exert so much influence over the Office. They are linked up like a log chain-Joe Sherburne, the Office, and the two Big Sheep Corporations; Long And Clary Sheep Company, and the Frye Sheep Company, the latter is owned (so I am told) by Swift and Armor and the Great Northern Railway. Results they have built up a nice little Tammany Hall Clique at Browning. Graft is a hard thing to prove where members are handy at padding up accounts, one can always put 2 and 2 together.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau
 pg.149-150  

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.149

Ninety per cent of us were totally ignorant regarding land laws, and it was a great calamity for us to have the patents forced on us against our wishes, because we sensed our short-comings and were left in the dark concerning the working order of things, until it was too late. It was not long until the taxes began to pile up so high that we could not hope to pay. None of us had jobs, and most of us was trying to eke out a scanty existence on our ranches, our cattle was gone, there was no work to be had, all jobs were held by white people. Road work on the reservation and in the park was done by imported help. We Indians were discriminated against on all sides as far as work was concerned, and still we were expected to pay taxes and keep body and soul together on nothing. And all this time the outside sheep were quietly grazing on our lands for nothing-ten cents an acre is “nothing” to receive for an acre of pasturage of the finest grazing in the world, and we will call it “Nothing” for convenience. Horace Wilson was here about two years, not very long but before he left we found out to our surprise and grief that he was a dope fiend.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau    
pg.149 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.148-149

About 1918 Cato Sells was Commissioner of Indian Affairs. He was from Texas and had no use for Indians. He conceived the brilliant idea of forcing all Indians on their own as soon as possible. A Commission of six men, called the Competency Commission, was appointed to pass on the competency of each individual Indian. How can strangers in Washington judge our competency? In our case those who owned valuable land, or owed Joe Sherburne a debt were pronounced eligible. Many received patents that never should have been called eligible. Illiterate old Indians, and some half-wits, who could not read, write, nor speak the English language, much less know anything about white man’s land laws, were picked as competent to receive patents to their land. One man told me here not long ago that he received his while a minor. A Commission of Chinese Laundry men picked to judge competency could have done as well. Many of us protested against getting our patents, but Horace Wilson told us that we had to accept them and no way out. In those days an Agents word was the law. None of us relished the idea of going to jail, so we grudgingly accepted the patents as we were sent for.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.148-149 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.148

Let me say right here that if the Interior Department is guilty of such a “ruling” of setting such a low value on our grazing rent, it is guilty of a gross injustice and a nice systematic way of reducing us to poverty and rags. [Former Montana Governor Joe Dixon was now Assistant Secretary of Agriculture who set the fees for the Indian grazing lands at ten cents an acre]. What we really do believe is that the big sheep men, Joe Sherburne, and Horace Wilson brought pressure to bear against the Department for the ruling of ten cents and they got it. A few years previous to this time, in 1910 to be exact, our land was allotted to us, and one far seeing Congressman kindly had a law passed, where by we were not to receive patents to our land until twenty five years had expired, or where one was eligible a patent could be procured by a written application with the consent of the Agent. This I guess he had in mind would give us poor ignorant savages time to learn the whitemans complex way of living, something about law, how to pay our taxes and why, and how to make a living from the soil, which is something new to us. This Congressmen’s intentions were good if they had been carried out as intended, but like most laws it was full of loop-holes, and it had no teeth for loop-hole “crawlers.”
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau    
pg.148 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.147-148

It is semi-arid in most places, that means that it takes a lot of land to support each family by stock raising. White wheat farmers just off the reservation are all broke. They cannot raise enough to get back their seed. How can Indians accomplish what trained white farmers fail to accomplish under bad weather conditions. So that wild hay and stock raising is our only resource. There came a killing winter in 1919-1920. Stock all over the State of Montana froze to death, and big cattle kings all over the state went broke. We Blackfeet Indians were no exception and we all went broke too. Even the horses died in clusters. That was the beginning of the disaster. At the same time a new Indian Agent came in to run our affairs, Horace G. Wilson, was the culprit. He immediately laid us open to the mercy of the big sheep corporations by putting our land up for rent, allotted and un-allotted at ten cents an acre. Sheep from all over the country came here on a dog trot, because they could get cheap grazing, cheaper than stealing it as they call it, and renting good grazing land was certainly cheaper than owning the land, when rent is “only” ten cents an acre. We were broke, hard up and many of us had to accept the ten cents an acre to keep from immediate starvation, others protested for a higher rent, but Horace Wilson said we could not expect higher rent as the U.S. Department of the Interior had set a value on our land and made a “ruling of ten cents an acre,” on our land, and we ought to be satisfied with that.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.147-148 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.146-147

The extreme distance east and west along the north boundary is 56 ½ miles, while the extreme distance north and south is through the center and is approximately 60 miles. The western boundary of the reservation runs, in general, along the foothills and talus slopes at the base of the continental divide and includes within the area a few of the extreme eastern peaks of the Rockies with altitudes of 8,000 to 10,000 feet. The extreme northwestern part of the area is drained by the St. Mary’s River which flows in a northerly direction to Hudson Bay. The Milk River drains a large part of the northern half of the reservation in a northeasterly direction and the balance of the reservation is drained by the upper tributaries of the Missouri River, flowing in an easterly direction.”

These are the tribal lands reserved in the 1896 Agreement for the exclusive use and occupancy of the Blackfeet cattle ranchers, and the Blackfeet cattle industry.

Blackfeet patriot testifies

Mrs. Mabel H. Monroe Bonds wrote John Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs on February 2, 1934, “I am one half Blackfeet and one half white. My mother was full blood Blackfeet. Not so long ago we were quite well off and contented. We had cattle, horses, and livable homes, and had only one natural practical resource, that is the wild grasses that grow here in abundance during the short summer seasons. Bunch grass grew knee deep in places and it made plenty of winter feed for stock. The early and late frosts, and short summer seasons make this country unfit for any thing but stock raising. A garden and small patches of grain can be grown in a few sheltered spots on each ranch, just enough to keep each family going, and that is about all that can be done in the way of agriculture. That means this is not an agricultural country.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau    
pg.146-147 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.146

The highly decentralized ownership of the lands of the Blackfeet Reservation is the obstacle against which any but the most elastic and readily adaptable plan of grazing management will shatter itself and become ineffective.

By Act of Congress of April 15, 1874, the entire northern part of Montana was set aside as an Indian reservation for the use and occupancy of five tribes of Indians, including the Blackfeet tribe. This area extended from the crest of the Rocky Mountains on the west to the west boundary of North Dakota on the east and was bounded on the north by Canada and on the south by the Missouri river, Marias River and Birch Creek.

A separate reservation for the Blackfeet Tribe was established by Act of Congress of May 1, 1888 and this tribe was restricted to a greatly reduced area in the western end of the original reservation. By an agreement with the Indians dated September 26, 1895, which was subsequently ratified by Congress, the area of the reservation was further reduced and the reservation established with its present exterior boundaries.

The Blackfeet Indian Reservation is situated at the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains immediately south of the international boundary. This reservation contains a gross area of 1,492,042.44 acres. It is bounded on the north by Canada; on the west by a meandered line forming the eastern boundary of Glacier National Park; on the southwest by a meandered line, which line is also a part of the northeast boundary of the Lewis and Clark National Forest. The southeastern boundary is formed by Birch Creek, one of the upper tributaries of the Missouri River, while the eastern boundary is formed partly by Cut Bank Creek and for 24 miles by a surveyed north and south line which includes four sections of Range 6 West, Montana Principal Meridian, within the reservation.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.146 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.145-146

Report of Percy E. Melis, Assistant Forester for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1931: “called to the special attention of the reader certain facts and conditions which so involve the problem as to make it largely one of business administration. The questions of technical administration from the standpoint of forage production and use are to a great extent obscured by the very pressing problem of the unified administration of a block of land which is divided by ownership into 3,600 separate parcels. The Blackfeet Reservation, with a gross area of 1,492,042.44 acres, contains 1,440,000 acres of allotted land, approximately 20% of which has been alienated through the process of issuing Patents in Fee to the Indian Allottees and through the sale of Indian Heirship Allotments.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that the 285,000 acres of alienated land, to an extent far out of proportion to the acreage involved, control the watering places for stock. This control of water is the most important factor in the stock business in relation to the utilization of range. In the livestock wars of the early west, the control of watering places was the principle point at issue and this control of water today is just as important and as essential to the efficient utilization of range lands. The Indian Service as an administrative organization has largely lost jurisdiction over the most potent natural factor [water rights] in the control of the use of the range.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau
pg.145-146 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.145

The Blackfeet Irrigation Project would cost the Indians over $1,000,000 of their ceded land funds, and by 1914 the Supervisor of Farming reported that not one Indian acre was under cultivation. The Interior Department in 1913 paid the tribe $10,937 for “just compensation” for damages and rights of way for 2863.93 acres of tribal land to construct the lower St. Mary Reservoir and Diversion Canal, and paid individual Indians $2,493 for damages and rights of way across individual allotments.

The Indians irrigated farm lands were forty miles from the agency where the Indians lived and their grazing lands chosen for their cattle ranch operations. The Indian Office provided no food, cash, training or equipment costs estimated at $2,000 to $3,500 to get a decent start in farming, nor did the canals and ditches bring water to the Indian farm lands, but instead transported the water to the border-whites and border-towns off-reservation. In 1904, the agency superintendent reported there were no records or documents to support the expenditure of over three million dollars of Indian money from 1887 to 1904, and there was less than $4,000 left in the Blackfeet account in Washington D.C. The Indians were once again facing starvation after the expenditure of their treaty money, their cattle herd had been stolen by the white stockmen and the agent, and their waters were diverted off-reservation, downstream to border-whites and border-towns.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau
pg.145 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.144-145

By 1904, a government inspector reported “For several years now, these Indians, unfortunate in their agents, having men who were inefficient, and who have held office for comparatively short terms. A few years ago these Indians had accumulated between 20,000 and 25,000 cattle, of which by this time they have lost four fifths or more, largely through the fault of their agent.” Indian Inspector William J. McConnell suggested that “those tribesmen living in the western reservation valleys along the St. Mary and Milk Rivers be relocated to the eastern reservation valleys because the level eastern lands could be made even more desirable than the western hay lands they now occupy.”

W.H. Code, Chief Irrigation Inspector for the Federal Reclamation Service held a large tribal council in 1903 with the Blackfeet Indians and only four half breeds spoke in favor of building a large Indian irrigation project. The Indians requested their ceded land funds be used to build up their depleted cattle herds instead of a large irrigation project.

The lower St. Mary Lake water storage facility and diversion canal were located on the western edge of the Blackfeet Reservation, and the eastern boundary of Glacier National Park. Agent Monteath had requested the U.S.G.S. to incorporate “as partial compensation for the tribe’s water rights and rights of way, whereby the use of water could be secured to the Indians as their needs might appear.”
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.144-145 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.144

 In 1917 the local agency officials announced to the Indians a new policy of force patenting competent Indian allottees and removing treaty rights to tax free lands, and exposing Indian property to state tax and speculators. All illegal, of course, but part of the agency ring’s “deliberate conspiracy,” exposed by senate investigator, Walter W. Liggitt, in 1920. Blackfeet Indian cattle ranchers had appropriated the St. Mary and Milk Rivers for domestic purposes of developing the tribal cattle industry after the famine years, 1881-1886, following the destruction of tribal buffalo herds by Montana border-whites.

By 1895 Indian cattle ranchers had constructed small diversions to irrigate mountain meadows to produce winter cattle feed and hay for sale to the agency. The low cost irrigation systems of the Blackfeet cattle ranchers watered native grasses and by 1895 there were 22.87 miles of small ditches both for public and private use. The St. Mary and Milk Rivers provided the foundation for a self-supporting tribal cattle industry permitting the tribal ranchers to produce hay for sale and cattle forage. The Blackfeet Indians by 1896 registered over 500 individual brands, and the 1896 Agreement/Article Five with the United States guaranteed the success of the Blackfeet Cattle Ranchers.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.144 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.143-144

In presenting this analysis of the economic aspects of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in relation to the livestock industry, we have in several instances taken data compiled for Glacier County and applied it directly to the reservation. The area of the Blackfeet Reservation and Glacier County is coincident except that Glacier County includes eight townships, comprising a narrow strip on the east, that are not a part of the reservation, and the reservation includes seven townships that form a part of Pondera County on the south.

In all statistics and other information pertinent to the range livestock industry, the county data will apply directly and quite accurately to the reservation. Stock raising is by far the most important, and the one outstanding industry of the region. The counties to the south and east produce a greater value of farm crops than of livestock, but Glacier County, probably on account of the available range lands on the reservation, is distinctly a range livestock county and as such may be considered as a “distinct economic territory.” The figures show the livestock industry of Glacier County to annually produce approximately three and one half times the income of its nearest competitors.”

[In 2007 the Census of Agriculture, County Profile, Glacier County, Montana showed the Market Value of Livestock and Crops Products Sold to be around $61,000,000 with another $6,000,000 in Government Subsidy Payments for a total value of $67,000,000 per year from former Indian allotments on the reservation.]
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau
pg.143-144

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.142-143

Glacier County-white apartheid territory

Mr. Melis described the colony of white patent-in-fee lands as a “distinct economic territory” made of stolen Blackfeet allotments: “To date of August 20, 1930 Patents in Fee had been issued covering 293,422.92 acres, and this acreage is increasing at the rate of 6,000 acres per year. This Patent in Fee acreage now represents very slightly over 20% of the gross area of Blackfeet Allotted Lands. This Patent in Fee land is scattered over the entire reservation, with every reservation township having two or more Patent in Fee Allotments. A study of the land status map indicates a pronounced tendency for the more valuable areas, particularly along water courses, to pass into a Patent in Fee status ahead of the less desirable, drier areas. This indicates a desire on the part of the white stock owner to acquire title to the watering places to be used in connection with the leasing of adjoining Indian range lands.

This condition must be given careful consideration in the formulation and execution of any range management plans. As is indicated by a study of the location of the Patent in Fee lands in relation to the areas under grazing lease, the white owners of alienated lands are in a position to greatly influence and in some cases to absolutely control the use of adjoining [allotted Blackfeet] range lands.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.142-143 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.142

This portion is ideal cattle range, gently rolling to the east and gradually rougher as it nears the mountains. The eastern portion is more of a short grass type, of sparser vegetation, a more level flat country and not as well watered as the western half. Cattle and sheep do well on it, however, putting on more hard lasting fat than do animals grazed on the more rank washy forage of the foothill country.

STATISTICAL REPORT-1929

Blackfeet Allotted Lands-Total Trust Allotments Acres-1,440,000

Blackfeet Allotted Agricultural-26,311.24 acres

Blackfeet Allotted Grazing Lands-1,128,265.16 acres

Tribal Trust Lands-Total Tribal Trust Acres-52,042.44 Acres

Tribal Agricultural-1,991.37 acres

Tribal Grazing-Timber-50,051.07 acres

Fee Patent Land [whites]-285,423.60 Acres

Grazing- [whites]-285,423.60 acres

Total Reservation Acreage-1,492,042.44 Acres

Number of Allotments-3,600

Area of each Allotment-400 Acres

The tribal land classified above as agricultural land consists of the three tribal reserves for reservoir sites, namely, Guardipee Lake, Four Horns Lake, and Two Medicine Reservoir. The balance of tribal land consists of the narrow and irregular timber reserve on the higher slopes and foothills along the western edge of the reservation.

The entire remainder of the reservation, consisting of 1,440,000 acres was allotted under Departmental instructions, to 3,600 Blackfeet Indians enrolled at this agency; the last allotments being approved in 1922. The allotments were made under a plan whereby each allottee was to receive forty acres of agricultural land and 280 acres of grazing land. It was then found that there was sufficient grazing land yet remaining to apportion each allottee an additional 80 acres. This additional eighty was granted to each Indian in the form of an Indian homestead.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.142 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.141-142

Contrary to the good judgment and broad understanding shown in the agreement above cited, practically the entire reservation has been allotted in severalty to the individual Indians. The resultant decentralization of ownership is now and in all probability will continue to be a very serious obstacle to efficient land utilization and effective grazing management. This condition, though lamentable, is not susceptible of correction at this time, but must be taken into consideration as a major problem in any land management program for the area.

The fact that this area, in spite of artificial handicap, is still used for the large scale production of livestock further denotes its high to this purpose. The early success with cattle on the adaptability reservation and the recent popularity of sheep indicates that the economic conditions within the livestock industry may vary the class of stock which will produce the highest net return on the area. However, the larger part of the area being an open plains type is generally considered as ideal cattle country. The narrow strip along the western boundary is more suitable for sheep as the terrain is rough and broken and the feed largely browse and weeds.

The magnitude of the livestock operations on the Blackfeet Reservation warrants more attention on the part of the Indian Service than has been given it in the past. It is very probable that a more detailed study of conditions on the Blackfeet Reservation, particularly in regard to the ownership of patent in fee land within the reservation boundaries will indicate the desirability of some digression from the customary procedure in leasing. The reservation is a high class body of range, particularly that part lying adjacent to the mountains, comprising a strip about sixteen miles wide by fifty or sixty miles long, all of which is in excellent bunch grass type and abundantly watered.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.141-142 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.140-141

The accessibility of the area to well established livestock markets, the natural production of wild hay, the ease of movement of stock to surplus feed or the transportation of feed to the stock all combine to enhance the value of this property for the large scale production of cattle and sheep.

To indicate the early recognition of the livestock possibilities of this region and to show the foresight of the early representatives of the Indians and the Indian Service in this regard, a part of an agreement between the Blackfeet Indians and the United States dated September 25, 1895, is presented herewith. This agreement was ratified by Congress under date of June 10, 1896 (29 Stat. 355). Article Five of this agreement is quoted in full, as follows: “Since the situation of the Blackfeet Reservation renders it wholly unfit for agriculture, and since these Indians have shown within the past four years that they can successfully raise horned cattle, and there is every probability that they will become self-supporting by attention to this industry, it is agreed that during the existence of this agreement no allotments of land in severalty shall be made to them, but that this whole reservation shall continue to be held by these Indians as a communal grazing tract upon which their herds may feed undisturbed; and that after the expiration of this agreement the lands shall continue to be held until such time as a majority of the adult males of the tribe shall request in writing that allotment in severalty shall be made of their lands: Provided, That any member of the tribe may, with the approval of the agent in charge, fence in such area of land as he and the members of the family would be entitled to under the allotment act, and may file with the agent a description of such land and of the improvements that he has made on the same, and the filing of such description shall give the said members of the tribe the right to take such land when allotments of the land in severalty shall be made.”
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.140-141 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.140

The Bureau of Indian Affairs manages “air”

                            

The Report of BIA Forester Percy E. Melis in 1931 detailed the original 1896 agreement for the exclusive use and occupancy of all lands on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation by the Blackfeet Indians: “The Blackfeet Indian Reservation, being located in the “short grass” country of the Northern Great Plains Region, is well fitted and adapted by nature to the large scale production of range livestock. The immense herds of buffalo that formerly grazed in this region indicate that for many generations this area has produced a large quantity of high quality forage. The large herds of cattle grazed on this area during the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early success of the [Blackfeet] Indian cattle industry bear further testimony to the adaptability of these lands to permanent grazing use. The frost-free seasons are too short and irregular to invite extensive diversified farming and the soil and moisture conditions over much of the area are not suitable to the production of small grains. The nutritive qualities and the production possibilities of the native forage plants are relatively high and the small amount of care required to sustain this production makes the natural cover superior in general to cultivated crops for livestock production.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.140

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.139

I have felt it for several weeks in my contacts with the Indian people, and just recently two of our oldest employees, one of whom has been in the Service here for fifteen years, and another one who has been here for a period of ten years, came to me and said that they had become very much discouraged in their efforts, and that a great many of the Indians with whom they had been working and encouraging along the lines of industry had apparently changed their minds and were giving a good deal of credence to the theory that they were being very much abused by the government, and that the various investigators were going to correct many of these things and see that their alleged rights were protected, along far different lines than the methods that are being used by the government. I am bringing these matters to your attention as matters of information. It would appear that the feeling of dissatisfaction and misunderstanding that exists among our Indians is too important a factor for your Office not to be fully advised on. There is little question but what if this feeling continues that it will carry with it a rather serious reaction on our efforts, and it has unquestionably weakened our administration and our influence with a great many Indian people.”
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.139

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.139

It is quite apparent that Mr. Liggitt carried certain information that was given to him by this Office to a Mr. Frank McCabe, the State Senator of our county, who has been very bitterly opposed to government administration of Indian affairs, and is a co-worker of Robert Hamilton’s. Mr. McCabe at one time was prosecuted by our department for illegally acquiring Indian lands, but was acquitted on the criminal charge, and the civil suit to clear the title of the land is still in federal court. The Office will realize that Mr. Liggitt’s position as representative of the United States Senate entitled him to pretty near any information that he desired from our Office, but it is surprising that his methods would permit him to carry such information to a total outsider, and especially a man in Mr. McCabe’s position who is actually opposed to the local administration. I do not know, of course, what the ultimate purpose of the Senate Investigating Committee is. It is presumed that the plan contemplates constructive measures and things that will be helpful in the government’s administration of the affairs of the Indians. The effect of the situation here, however, presents a very discouraging aspect.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.139 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.138-139

 In 1928 Blackfeet Agency Superintendent Forrest Stone became concerned enough about public exposure of the allotted Indian land fraud conspiracy to write to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Charles H. Burke a year prior to the pending investigations by the Subcommittee of the Committee on Indian Affairs of the United States Senate scheduled for 1929: “Enclosed herewith is a clipping from the Great Falls Tribune entitled-Senator Wheeler Informs Indians at Browning of Measures for Their Good-The Senator spoke at Browning last night, and while I did not attend the meeting, it appears that the enclosed is a fair synopsis of his remarks. He mentioned in his address that the Indians had been denied the privilege of presenting their claims before the Senate, and also commended very highly the efforts of Robert J. Hamilton in behalf of the Blackfeet Indians. The investigation that the Senator referred to is doubtless Mr. W.W. Liggitt who came to our reservation in the early part of August and spent three weeks with Robert Hamilton, and his particular faction, before coming to the Agency for any information. In this connection, I desire to enclose herewith a copy of a letter addressed to me by Dr. George S. Martin, former superintendent of live stock, and my answer Dr. Martin’s letter.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.138-139 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.137-138

In 1921, that law for the creation of a county was amended to provide that the voter must also have resided within the limits of the proposed county for at least 6 months prior to the election.

 In 1932, Montana amended its 1889 Constitution to provide that not only must a person be a “citizen” to vote, but in respect to the creation of any levy, debt, or liability, the person must also be a “taxpayer” unless that person had the right to vote at the time of the adoption of the 1889 Constitution.

 In 1937, the Legislature required voter registration lists to be purged after every general election to remove the names of individuals who failed to vote or who voted absent and further required that county clerks cancel any registry card when three qualified registered electors presented an affidavit challenging a voter’s registration.

 Blackfeet Indians were not allowed to vote in the Glacier County and Pondera County election incorporating county governments within the exterior boundaries of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in 1919. Incorporation of state jurisdiction on the Blackfeet allotments by whites was an inside job done by corporations and the agency ring to give the land thefts of Blackfeet Allotments the cloak of respectability of a legal title.

The State of Montana is referred to as the “Mississippi of the north” for its “Jim Crow” laws enacted against the Indians. There has been a history of Montana public school “cleansing” of Indian history curriculum since the days of Robert Hamilton and the Chiefs leading tribal delegations to Congress to protest treaty violations.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.137-138

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.137

For purposes of defining a “resident” of Montana for election precincts, the 1911 Montana Legislature excluded “any person living upon an Indian or military reservation.”

In 1913, a Montana Attorney General’s opinion declared that even Indians who owned land in fee but who took part in the transactions of the tribe were not entitled to vote. In 1914, the Montana Supreme Court ruled that the boundaries of a voting precinct should not include any territory other than the granted non-Indian lands.

 In 1919, the Montana Legislature enacted laws prohibiting the establishment of a voting precinct within or at the premises of any Indian agency or trading post. In 1919, the Legislature, in enacting procedures related to the creation of counties, required voters to be the “qualified electors of the county, whose names appear on the official registration books and who are shown to have voted at the last general election.”

This law disallowed the Blackfeet Indians from voting in the creation of Glacier and Pondera Counties on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution and Congress plenary powers over Indian land and sovereignty, to say nothing of establishing political slavery for robbery of Indian lands and implementing state jurisdiction and control over free treaty Indians.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau
pg.137

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.136-137

The only Indians considered United States citizens “by birth” under the U.S.  Constitution were those not born into tribal membership or whose tribe no longer existed as a distinct legal entity such as “extinguished” tribes of Indians. The Puritans had officially exterminated the Pequots by the 1600’s, and taken their lands, but the Pequot survivors who were overlooked in the massacre were found and “resurrected” in the 1980’s by a Congressional act for the purposes of federal recognition of the “Pequot Tribe” to build an Indian casino on the Pequot reservation in the State of Connecticut, with a 25% revenue share for the state. Connecticut needed funds to cover millions of dollars of state budget shortfalls. The state requested an increased share of profits to cover state budget needs in order to avoid welfare cuts. It seemed tribal sovereignty and federal recognition could be enforced in Congress if the right senators could be reached.

 The State of Montana had originally used these laws to exclude Indians from voting, but the State “emancipated” competent Indians from tribal sovereignty to state citizenship by the Indian Bureau issuing illegal fee “patents” to Indian allottees who owned valuable lands they desired. Montana “Jim Crow” laws were enacted by the Montana Legislature that began in 1906 when the Montana Attorney General issued an opinion that Indian reservations should not be included in a voting district and that Indian wards of the government were not entitled to vote on the reservation or in state elections.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.136-137 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.136

It did not have the prior approval of Congress or the consent of the Indians in violation of the 1790 Indian Trade and Non-Intercourse Acts and the 1896 Agreement. The Indians were not allowed to vote in any of the county elections. It is a prime example of political slavery existent on Indian reservations in the United States where the States and speculators usurped Indian land and tribal sovereignty in complicity with the Interior Department and Montana senators.

The issue of citizenship arises when subjecting treaty Indians to state jurisdiction and county courts for liens and tax deeds on their treaty held property prior to Indian citizenship in 1924. It vexed Glacier County confederate land pirates residing on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in 1919 to justify how state jurisdiction could encroach on the reservation to tax and alienate Blackfeet treaty lands. Prior to 1871 treaty Indians were considered to be members of separate political Indian nations and not part of the body politic of a state or of the United States; as in Article 9 of the original Articles of Confederation and Article 1, section 8, and Article V1, clause 2, of the United States Constitution. The 1855 Treaty designated the Blackfeet Reservation as a separate political territory from the Territory of Montana and from state jurisdiction over the Indians and their private-property. The fraud created “fee” land certificates which the whites foreclosed on in county courts creating “void” patent-in-fee land titles of whites.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.136 

BREAKING WHITE ECONOMIC-APARTHEID ON THE BLACKFEET RESERVATION

The border-whites on the reservation are parasites on the Indians, sucking the economic lifeblood of the reservation economy; operating without normal legal titles on stolen Blackfeet land allotments that are still unresolved since 1919-1922. Joe Sherburne and white men stole 312,250 acres of allotted Blackfeet lands, usurped the successful, self-reliant Blackfeet cattle industry which produces $85 million each year for a tiny group of white-supremacists. The stolen lands and waters in the western mountains of the reservation produce $168 million for the Glacier Park tourist businesses at St. Mary village on allotted lands stolen by Joe Sherburne from the Monroe girls who were underage children. Mabel Monroe Bond fought all her life to get her land back and left us a record of the massive land thefts. Now Blackfeet ranchers are forced into leasing their "dry" lands to white men who "own" the water holes, water courses, hay meadows, grazing lands; the whole cattle industry of the Indian ranchers stolen by white men who created an exclusive white territory on stolen lands called a "reservation/county" for which there is no legal definition. Glacier county is a bogus territory created by white men to cover up the stolen land titles of the Blackfeet original allottees with "void" Patent-in-Fee titles issued out of Glacier and Pondera Counties. It is a sham, a criminal racketeering syndicate, and a conspiracy to rob the Indians of their land and cattle and business opportunities. HERE IS OUR ISSUE: 1. The BIA made no claims in the 2015 state-tribal water compact for the Blackfeet original allottees/heirs to restore original Blackfeet allotted land titles or water rights although in 1979 before the Congress, the BIA Assistant Secretary, Forrest Gerard, "confessed" that the BIA was "complicit" [partners-in-crime] in the forced patents claims, old age assistance claims where Glacier and Pondera County forced tribal elders to sell their trust property before welfare was awarded, while BIA officials helped county officials to defraud the illiterate, elderly Indians, 3. secretarial sales of deceased Indian land allotments whereby BIA officials sold the deceased Indian's land to white men without the knowledge or consent of the heirs, 4. trespass and rights-of-way claims for a century of illegal trespass by the county, state and white men, 5. theft of oil wells, water rights, cattle rustling, illegal sales of Indian property and real estate, 6. pollution of reservation land, water, and aquifers by white farmers pouring pesticides and fertilizers on crops which drain into reservation streams and aquifers, and other undetermined claims for hydro-power sites, and loss of range lands for Blackfeet cattle ranchers. INSTITUTIONAL EQUITY is our issue! It means that our allotted land claims and water rights must be considered on an equal basis with federal, state, tribal, and county governments. The Blackfeet tribal council made no claims for the Blackfeet allottees to restore all Blackfeet trust land titles. We, the dispossessed Blackfeet heirs to the original Blackfeet allottees hereby demand, as a pre-condition to approving the water compact that all of the stolen Blackfeet allotted lands and water rights, oil wells, cattle ranches, cattle herds, horses, equipment, saddles, bridles, wagons, and even our clothes stolen by white men when the Glacier county sheriff threw them off their land and ranches. Glacier and Pondera counties are "off their reservation" [state of Montana] and are illegal parasites on the reservation who must be removed for us to live! Help me to file an injunction based on institutional equity, our claims have not been heard! I need legal help to file an injunction in federal court to stop the compact until all Blackfeet claims are settled and Blackfeet allotted lands restored to the heirs. Economic sanctions are the only weapon that has ever worked to end apartheid in South Africa. I am asking China to ban the beef products of Montana ranchers who are white supremacists on the reservation. Any ideas or help out there? Bob Juneau Sr.

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.135-136

But when Mr. Sells shut off their rations, they were obliged to begin selling off their livestock in order to obtain food, as they could not get work by which to support themselves. Then, when their livestock was gone, they began selling their allotments of land. When I was on the reservation last summer, one of the traders at Browning had two hundred and twelve of Blackfeet patents in fee to their lands, and other traders and real estate sharks had many more. This is their method of procedure; they make small loans of money to the Indians, secured by mortgage upon their allotments, and then foreclose when the mortgages become due, as the Indians never by any chance have money with which to repay the loan.”

                         plantation morphology on the reservation

In 1919 border-whites in Glacier and Pondera Counties grafted a white apartheid political and economic structure on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in the legal anomaly territory designated as a “reservation/county” whose entire land base rested upon hundreds of stolen Blackfeet Allotments within the Boundary of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. It violated the 1896 Blackfeet Treaty, Organic Act of the Territory of Montana and the Constitution of the United States.
The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau   
pg.135-136