Robert Hamilton, Piegan, Carlisle Indian School
graduate and tribal interpreter testified in Hearings before the COMMITTEE ON
INDIAN AFFAIRS, UNITED STATES SENATE, Sixty-Fourth Congress, First Session: “I
shall endeavor to lay before you briefly a history of the Blackfeet Tribe of
Indians, setting forth the area of the estate we once owned, showing how it has
been diminished in area and value from time to time, as shown by historical
data and directing your attention to our present condition. This, I am loathe
to admit, is deplorable, and I ask your honorable body to take immediate steps
to remedy the same, so far as it lies in your power, and to relieve us of the
trials, troubles, and tribulations that beset us on every side. We have in the
allotment of our lands reached the transition period from tribal and communal
owners to individual ownership of what was common property of the tribe. It
seems well known and understood that in the allotment of lands and the selling
of the surplus the Indians have been too rapidly placed in changed conditions
and for which they were and are wholly unprepared. We are mindful of these
changes in observing the condition of many Indians who are beset with the
difficulties of an intense civilization that they do not understand. We are not
fitted to compete with a highly developed individual or private ownership of
property, as it is held, bartered, exchanged, sold, or grafted in accordance
with modern business methods.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau
pg.86
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