BLACKFEET SOLDIERS "DOUGHBOYS" MURDERED FOR LAND UPON RETURN TO THE RESERVATION

In July, 1921 the National Indian Memorial Association appealed to General of the Armies John J. Pershing to help his Blackfeet soldiers. The Blackfeet veterans of World War One had fought on the fields of France in World War One and of 150 Blackfeet soldiers "doughboys" who went to war only about 20 returned to the reservation, wounded and in a bad way, only to find their aged parents starving by the roadside. Blackfeet veterans became victims of a genocidal attack by Montana border-whites to starve the Indians into selling land to whites in complicity with Commissioner of Indian Affairs Cato Sells, and Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane, who both denied the Indians were in a starving condition. The National Indian Memorial Association appealed to General Pershing to use his influence to seek a remedy for this deplorable condition: "One hundred and fifty Blackfeet Indians had fought on the fields of France and only about twenty came back, not one of them sound, and many of them wounded; that these Indian veterans are 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 pre-empted and their land filched." The Honorable Senator Harry Lane of Oregon, Chair of the Joint Commission of Congress to Investigate Indian Affairs had issued a Report of the starving conditions of the Blackfeet Indians in 1916; that the Indians told him they were being starved by border-whites to force a land cession of 156,000 acres of their irrigable lands and newly discovered oil fields, and that the Indians were starved into eating skunks and prairie dogs to keep alive and that over one hundred Blackfeet people of all ages were starved to death during the winter of 1913 although there was plenty of food available at the agency paid for with Blackfeet land cessions to the United States. Senator Lane held a tribal council and only eight of the Indians voted to sell their lands which contained the irrigation system built with $942,413.58 of tribal dollars. The Commercial Clubs usurped Blackfeet reclamation projects after construction and operation and maintenance were charged to the Blackfeet accounts in Washington D.C. Senator Lane reported, "The Indians asked me if I would protest against the passage of the surplus land sale bill of Senator Walsh of Montana, supported by the Commercial Clubs surrounding the reservation. I said I would object to the bill for them, and the senator from Montana has said I have hurt his feelings that I reported the awful conditions of the Indians. These Indians are human beings. The white man might take a lesson in kindness from the Blackfeet Indians, he is a man who divides his food with you to the last bite of food, but I say that as long as I am in the Senate I am going to keep on protesting every time there is an opportunity, without fear of God, man or the devil, for I will not stand for that kind of game." We lost a battle but not the war, thanks to patriotic and Christian legislators like Senator Harry Lane, Oregon can be proud of this man of integrity.Thanks also to the National Indian Memorial Association and all of the white people who played roles in saving Indians from genocides of the greedy, who have no bounds in their pursuit of dollars. The descendants of the victims carry on the fight to get their grandma's lands back in the family homesteads. We love our homelands too. Please read the Sacred Buffalo Vision. Bob Juneau Sr.

BLACKFEET TRIBE-STATE OF MONTANA WATER COMPACT "UNEQUAL" TO INDIAN LANDOWNERS

Dispossessed Blackfeet Original Allottees and their heirs have unresolved land and resource claims to recover stolen Blackfeet land allotments on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Institutional Equity is a requirement by the Congress of the United States to treat all governments equally-federal, state, tribal, county, municipal in the settlement of all water claims. The state-tribal water compact hearings held in Browning on the Blackfeet Reservation did not allow testimony from tribal heirs to the original allottees who had their lands stolen during the allotment period 1907-1922. Hundreds of original Blackfeet landowners had their family lands robbed by a "Deliberate conspiracy" to defraud hundreds of allottees of 312,250 acres by 1922, which became the land base of Glacier County on the reservation, which has grown to 529,000 acres, and is growing each year like a cancer on the Indians. Glacier and Pondera counties are white-apartheid territories transplanted on the reservation to cover up massive land frauds of Blackfeet allotments in 1918-1922 that generate $850 million for the white landowners living on stolen Blackfeet allotments. The Blackfeet survived physical genocides of 6,000 of their tribal population of 7,800 at contact with Montana border-whites in 1860-1890, and today remain under political/economic attack of whites for the remaining Blackfeet lands and resources. I was thrown out of the meeting at Browning in 2010 by the state-tribal-federal officials who all have something criminal and shameful to hide from Congress and the American people. We brought our claims to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in 1903, 1922, 1928, 1944, 1966, 1976, 1981, 2001, 2005, and many times over the past decade, but our claims are sitting on the shelf at the committee in Washington D.C. We are the poor Indian people who have been robbed by federal trustees who represent the American people. Is this your Government? We have been denied a fair hearing before Congress for a century, and the water compact is just another example of government neglect. The irony is that it is the Blackfeet people who have provided clear titles to the United States of America in sacred treaties, so that the United States enjoys a status among nations of the world as a fair and just nation, and would never cheat a helpless and dependent treaty people and side with a band of crooks who robbed the Indians land and soiled the honor of the United States in treaty. We only ask to be treated as an equal before the law as every American is entitled by birth and tradition. I am a poverty dispossessed treaty Indian, living among deceitful, crooked white men living on grandma's cattle ranch on the reservation, who didn't even bother to wear a mask. Bob Juneau Sr.

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.177

These are the people who must be taken care of, honorable Senators.” Most of the Indian world was gone-physically, socially, politically, economically, spiritually, and culturally. It was as though the Great Spirit had abandoned them, and an evil power had replaced him, and there was no way out. The Sacred Vision appeared in the sky as the sacred hoop of the nation is broken and the people are imprisoned in tribal housing slums. The Blackfoot vision appears in the afternoon daylight; looking West, clouds appear swirling in a clear blue sky, the spirit buffalo appears, blowing lightening out of his nostrils, tossing his head, snorting, agitated-angry, ready to fight; two Blackfoot warriors appear horseback, painted for war, each carrying a long lance, tipped with lightening, the two warriors charge upon the sacred buffalo; one on each side, guiding the sacred buffalo, down to Earth, faster, faster; down, down, they come, to strike the earth, counting coup; the buffalo vision fades; then, out of the North, the Sacred Pipe appears, and travels slowly over the mountains, blowing puffs of sacred smoke, the Sacred Vision Prophecy announces the purification of man and earth.  You can see it in the fight between the destroyers of the earth and the saviors of the earth. A tiny group of billionaires has seized control of the fate of all Americans, and all of us are hurtling toward human extinction. The history of enslavement of Africans, the genocide of Indians for land, laborers born under corporate totalitarianism is economic in purpose, and it is before us today. It is not too late to change our common fate, but it is however, incumbent upon us to learn our common history. The separation of Church and State is exceeded only in importance by the crisis of separation of corporations from our government. We share a common fate after all.  
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.177 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.176-177

To say the least shall it not make good to them its own promise given in the treaty of 1855? So, gentlemen of the committee, we strongly protest the opening up of any part of our reservation, because we know it would be a mistake. Therefore we ask that the Blackfeet be permitted to hold the lands intact, and these agricultural possibilities, the coal lands, the oil and gas-those three put together-are things that will bring enough revenue to the tribe so that they will not have to part with the lands. Then they will have lands for the coming generations.”

Chief Charles Reevis spoke to the senate committee: “You look at the audience out here. The biggest part of them have not got their land anymore, and that the only way you can do to see that these people get back on their feet again is to get their land back. Give their land back to them. When the President issued these patents here, when they issued them, I think he was very wrong and I think he was very crooked at the same time for doing that. Where you are sitting if I ask you to become an Indian there, and then I can go ahead and beat you out of everything you got because you do not know what I am talking about. The people sitting here cannot even write their names.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.176-177

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.176

The property of these people has, as a matter of fact, been confiscated by the United States and diverted to purposes for which there is no warrant under the Constitution, and which on grounds of good faith and fair dealing can not be defended. Horatio Seymour, a great apostle of democracy, in regard to the treatment of the Indians, once said “Every human being born upon our continent, or who comes here from any quarter of the world, whether savage or civilized, can go to our courts for protection except those who belong to the tribes who once owned this country. The cannibals from the islands of the Pacific, the worst criminals from Europe, Asia, Africa, can appeal to the laws and courts for their rights of person and property, all save our native Indians, who, above all, should be protected from wrong.” Outside of the legal obligations imposed upon the United States by treaty and statutory enactments, and outside of the guarantees contained in the ordinance of 1787, there is an ever-existing moral obligation imposed by the law of good conscience to deal fairly and justly with its Indian wards. That obligation is best stated by the honorable Commissioner of Indian Affairs in his annual report for 1872, beginning on page 10, but which is of too great length to be quoted here. The Blackfeet Indians are the wards of this great Government, Shall it not account to them faithfully for its stewardship?
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.176

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.175-176

Anthropologist Ruth Hill Useem stated regarding the dominant assumptions that govern the federal government’s relations with the Indian people’s: “(1) That over the years, the Indian can expect no consistency in policies regarding him; (2) That the interests of the dominant society will take precedence over the interests of Indians in any policy decision; (3) That the Indian can do little to affect decisions concerning Indians; (4) That whatever the policy enacted, the Indian will be told that such policy “is in his best interests” or is “for his own good”; and (5) That the stated goals of a policy may be and usually are quite different from the consequences, with the goals being more favorable to the Indians than the consequences.”

            Robert Hamilton, the Piegan lawyer, made a mighty defense of the Treaty Rights of the Indians before the Congress of the United States: “In view of the principles enunciated and adopted by your highest judicial tribunals, the fact can not be controverted or questioned that the Blackfeet Indians have been unconstitutionally and unconscionably deprived of their vested rights under the treaty of 1855, by the Executive orders, and acts of Congress of 1873 and 1874, and that the Government of the United States is answerable therefore.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.175-176

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.175

“Slow Death Measures” genocide implemented by white-apartheid county government and border-whites point to economic exploitation of Indian reservations whereby historic Indian land frauds documented in this book led directly to today’s lack of essential survival economy of housing, medical care, food, clothing, employment, continued looting of tribal and allotted resources, and lack of economic opportunity for Indian survivors of the physical genocides of the past.

The Indian descendants cannot make up for the loss of their productive family allotments on the reservation, and have no means of lifting themselves out of poverty. The stolen Blackfeet allotments provide approximately $67,000,000 for the white ranchers and farmers occupying the 1,200 individual Blackfeet allotments.

The western reservation lands given to James J. Hill for his train stations and hotels produce $168,000,000 in revenues for the Glacier Park tourism businesses on the reservation at the eastern entrance to Glacier Park at St. Mary Village, such businesses located on Mabel Monroe’s allotment robbed by J.L. Sherburne.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau
pg.175 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.174-175

Eduardo Duran dealt with these issues in his work with native people as he posed these questions to the Indian community; “Most Indians responded with issues of injustice, the conquest, the dishonored treaties, land thefts and other long term problems of Indians.” He found a common thread that weaves across much of the pain and suffering found in the Native American communities across the United States and perhaps the entire western Hemisphere. The common thread image which became most binding and meaningful to the authors and to some of the other people working in other Native American communities is the concept termed the “soul wound.”

 Dr. Duran stated: “If one accepts the terms soul, psyche, myth, dream, and culture as part of being in the world in their particular reality, then one can begin to understand the soul wound. The notion of soul wound is one which is at the core of much of the suffering that indigenous peoples have undergone for several centuries.” Indians are generational survivors of physical genocide and victims of white apartheid political oppression and economic exploitation systems on Indian reservations today.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.174-175 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.174

Secretary of the Interior James Watt and President Reagan in 1982 blocked the Indians class action suits against the white apartheid settlers occupying Indian trust lands on Indian reservations. President Reagan displayed his willful ignorance of the Indian treaties and sovereign status of the Indians by telling the Soviets and South Africans Indian reservations had been gifts of the government in “humoring” the Indians.   

“Slow Death Measures” genocide on the reservation  

In the book, Native American Post Colonial Psychology by Eduardo Duran and Bonnie Duran, the authors propose that “without a proper understanding of [Indian] history, those who practice in the disciplines of applied social sciences operate in a vacuum, thereby merely perpetuating this ongoing neocolonialism.”

Alcoholism is high on the list of Indian ills, a grim reminder of the massacre of Heavy Runner’s band and small pox outbreaks salved with whiskey peddled to the dying Indians by Fort Benton merchants. Indian teenage suicide rates are the highest in the nation and on the increase and K-12 Indian student’s public school dropouts are rated as high as 70% in state-run public schools on Indian reservations. Unemployment rates run as high as 80% on Indian reservations caused by whites usurpation of Indian lands.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.174

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.173-174

The Indian reservation is the private property of the individual Indians not public lands of the United States. The century old border-white political and economic apartheid goals are to occupy all the productive lands of the Indians, and extinguish the Indian treaties lest they be enforced at some point in Congress and border-whites removed from the reservation. The systems of white apartheid are imbedded in federal Indian policy and practice, and carried out openly in the Montana Legislature enactment of the legal hybrid anomaly of “divided sovereigns” applying to “reservation/counties.” They pirated Indian lands by such legal racketeering and government complicity.

There was no prior approval of Congress or the consent of the Indians or compliance with President George Washington’s bill submitted to Congress in the 1790 Indian Trade and Non-Intercourse Act. There was insufficient will in Congress “to hold with the treaties” to counter balance President Reagan’s total rejection of two centuries of American Indian Constitutional Law and all the history of Indian treaties in the United States. The United States Government still has not held the border-white ranchers, farmers, and energy corporations responsible for white apartheid political and economic exploitation of the Indian allotments on Indian reservations.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.173-174 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.173

White treaty Indians?

The white ranchers are living our lives on our reservation. The white ranchers might as well as donned their cowboy hats and chaps and rode in the sovereign Indian nation’s parade at the White House, with President Reagan looking on, waving their pirate flag of white apartheid territory “Glacier County” on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, so sure they are of escaping justice. White supremacy groups like the National Cattlemen’s Association have a national goal of extinguishing Indian treaties and tribal sovereignty; it is their final solution to the “Indian problem.” White apartheid state government on Indian reservations is not merely political oppression; its aim is economic exploitation of the Indians and their lands and resources.  

The treaty-Indian’s “emancipation” into state law is “dirty tricks” like President Nixon’s Indian Self-Determination Program, which intends to continue the inherited morphology of economic-apartheid Indian exploitation structures of white apartheid transplanted onto the reservation. The continuation of white apartheid political and economic monopoly of Indian land and resources on the Indian reservations violates Indian treaties, tribal sovereignty and human rights. It is economic apartheid.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.173

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.172-173

They are experts on the condition and location of Bureau records. BIA records are stored all over creation. Some of them are not in very usable condition. Each one of the claims has to be prepared separately because each claim may involve title to different land, which means a separate abstract, and may affect different Indian heirs. It means a great research process as well. Many of the claims will not or have not litigation reports to reach the Justice Department before the administrative deadline because they need an abstract of title, factual research, or legal research. On the one hand the Indian claims were originally founded in a breach of contract and a title claim, but the fact that the state has been in wrongful possession of the Indian lands for the past 112 years in a trespass against the Indian’s interest, and therefore it lies in tort rather than contract, and is not precluded by the statute of limitations. There are countless Indian people and Indian tribes whose potential claims have not yet been given a fair opportunity to be reviewed in terms of their validity. The remaining question that both Congress and the Executive Branch must face is whether there is continuing exposure to the United States Government in the unresolved Indian claims and violations of tribal sovereignty and loss of Indian trust property.”
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau  and Robert C. Juneau    
pg.172-173

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.172

The Heirs to the Indian claims are thousands of Indian descendants of the original Indian Allottees and Trust Patentees. The United States still has a trust responsibility to these Indian Heirs just as it does to recognized tribes, bands, or groups. The Indian claims have been ignored since the time Robert Hamilton and Chief Rides-At-The-Door testified to the Senate Indian Committee in 1920 and Peter Tail Feathers claim is among those forced fee patent claims thrown out by President Reagan in the 1980’s.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs blamed the fog of history, missing Indian records and documents stained with rat shit. Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Forrest Gerard waxed poetic in 1980 when requested by the Congress to assess the extent of the problem: “You can hear stories that there are thousands upon thousands of claims out in the misty mountains. On the other hand, we knew of about 1,000 but we also knew there might be more. We did have people who were trying to tell us. We also had problems with BIA records. We had claims that had frankly grown stale, and to dig them up took a lot more effort than if you were trying to find current claims. We have gone to the extent, even, of hiring historians because we have found that their assistance has been instrumental in helping to solve some of these problems.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.172 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.171-172

Secretary of the Interior James Watt had called the Indian reservations bad examples of Socialism while President Reagan lost his composure in Russia in defending the United States ill treatment of the Indian people. It was a pathetic extension of 1800’s confederate propaganda for the leader of the free world to deny the roots of political apartheid and economic graft sown during the invasion of border-whites on Indian treaty lands. The Indian Claims were rejected by President Reagan except as to where the land titles of whites, states and corporations were in jeopardy.

The Eastern Indian claims were quickly settled by agreement and compensation, but 10,000,000 acres of individual Indian private-property was unresolved for the preservation of Patent-In-Fee void land titles of whites living on stolen Indian lands.

Indian extermination is looked upon as a failure in the eyes of the Montana border-whites who still have covetous and envious designs toward remaining Indian land to the last acre. They looked over the border, crossed the border, and settled on the stolen Indian trust allotments and called it home on the range in Blackfoot Country.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau
pg.171-172 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.171

The Sampsel Report threw out 17,000 Indian claims to 10,000,000 acres of pre-1966 claims restoring Indian trust titles, and kept only 50% of the Old Age Assistance Claims and the Interior Dept. is still unaware of the scope and number of Old Age Assistance claims nationwide.  If anyone has been guilty of foot-dragging in pursuing this matter, it has been President Reagan and Interior Secretary James Watt.

The fact is that the overwhelming majority of the remaining Indians/heirs do not have the personal financial resources to identify, research, and prosecute the claims in their own behalf and the federal trustee Bureau of Indian Affairs knows it.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs is the federal agency trustee complicit in the robbing of the Indian allotments in criminal racketeering that has gone on for over a century now, with no end in sight for the aggrieved Indians. A century of Indian economic exploitation was swept under waves of mindless, racist rhetoric generated by President Reagan’s slick ad campaign blaming the “backward” Indian crime victims for the Indian ills of tribal poverty and high unemployment on the reservation.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.171

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.170-171

President Reagan and Secretary of the Interior James Watt buried the 17,000 Indian claims to 10,000,000 acres of private-property of the Indians stolen by whites; thereby stonewalling the Indian claims out of existence and memory. At his last desperate measure for abrogating two centuries of established Indian law and Congressional acts, representing the sacred word of the American people in treaty; President Reagan claimed as a final argument for dismissal of Indian claims that the Indian plaintiffs’ action is barred by Laches. The President of the United States and Secretary of the Interior James Watt claimed that deceased Indian claimants or crooked federal trustees of the Interior Department had had enough previous knowledge concerning the Chief Executive and Secretary of the Interior decisions not to litigate and not to propose legislation to institute a lawsuit much earlier in time, therefore the actions are barred by the passage of time.  

This specious argument by President Reagan is blaming the crime victims, and lacks merit on moral grounds since my illiterate grandmothers, who they robbed, passed away in the 1930’s, landless and in poverty, robbed by Joe Sherburne. The Secretary of the Interior did not make public many of his final decisions until the Congressional Oversight Hearings held September 16 and 23, 1982. Moreover, the Sampsel Report, which the Executive Branch contend satisfies their obligations under Section 2 of P.L. 96-217 was not submitted until October 21, 1982, making this case truly ripe at that time.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.170-171 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.170

The patented Indian lands were subsequently lost by the Indians for failure to pay state taxes or through land frauds by agency traders and local white men. Secretarial Sales of Indian Allotments in Heirship Status whereby sales of inherited Indian trust allotments were approved by the Bureau of Indian Affairs without the consent of  beneficial heirs required by 25 U.S.C. Unapproved Rights-Of-Way whereby road and utility line rights-of-way were granted on tribal and allotted lands without the approval of the Indian owners or Secretarial approval. Damages for lost mineral rights and water rights are still undetermined and unresolved.

 Covelo stated “Interior and Justice Depts. Lawyer’s contention that the Executive Branch’s discretion as to whether or not to propose legislation can never be constitutionally limited in light of Article 11, Section 3 is simply erroneous. By signing P.L. 96-217, President Reagan authorized and approved the requirements of Section 2. If the Executive’s discretion was thereby restricted, it was done by his own hand and is, therefore beyond a charge of constitutional infirmity. U.S.C. Sec. 702 provides: A person suffering legal wrong because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant statute, is entitled to judicial review.”
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.170 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.169-170

The Indian plaintiffs felt the statute imposed a mandatory duty owing to the Indians and to Congress and that the Interior Department had deliberately breached a mandatory duty imposed upon it by Congress when President Ronald Reagan made the decision to stonewall the Indian claims. 1,200 Blackfeet Indian Original Allottees claims are identified which fall into the relevant categories: trespass, harmful use of Indian property, breach of contract and wrongful transfer or alienation of Indian property against states, counties, local governments, and private individuals. The land frauds have led to over 500,000 acres of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation under border-whites void patent-in-fee ownership, and it is growing by 6,000 acres each year.

 The Blackfeet Tribe and 1,200 Original Blackfeet Allottees and thousands of heirs have claims under categories of: Old Age Assistance whereby the State and local subdivisions were reimbursed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs from the trust accounts of deceased Indians because of state old age assistance rendered to those deceased Indians; as well as the requirement by the county to force the Indians to sell all of their trust property to qualify for welfare assistance; and the failure of the BIA to defend the Indian claimants. Forced Fee Patents claims whereby the Indian Trust Patents were converted to unrestricted fee status by the Bureau of Indian Affairs without the prior application or the effective consent of the Indian allottees.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.169-170 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.169

A decision to waive a claim for damages on the grounds that the claim for title to land is not barred does not do justice to either the Indian claimant or the non-Indian who is occupying the land in good faith and under color of title. A decision to administratively resolve rights-of-way claims in a manner that waives a claim for past damages without notification to the Indian whose claim is affected does not reflect the good faith owed by the trustee. Also, a waiver of past damages on water rights claims and claims for degradation of the environment resulting in destruction of fish stocks will almost certainly adversely affect the bargaining position of the United States and the tribes in attempting to reach settlement of these claims. I feel the dispositions that have been made by the Department of the Interior and the Department of Justice of these claims falls far short of the intent of Congress in enacting Public Law 96-217.”
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.169 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.168-169

Secretary of the Interior James Watt argued that the Sampsel Report submitted October 21, 1982, some 15 months late, satisfied Interior and Justice Depts. obligations under Section 2 of Public Law 96-217. Secretary Watt’s Sampsel Report contained only one legislative proposal which relates to approximately 50% of the total number of one class of claims-the Old Age Assistance claims, which remain unknown and unresolved.  

Senator Cohen noted: “If the Reagan Administration Interior and Justice Depts. are allowed to succeed in their plan, as set out in the Sampsel Report, the remainder of 17,000 Indian claims covering 10,000,000 acres of allotted Indian lands, minerals and resources on Indian reservations nationwide will be willed out of existence by the Interior and Justice Depts.” Unidentified unresolved Indian claims in mineral rights, water rights and pollution of Indian lands and water are not mentioned in the Sampsel Report.

Senator Cohen Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs in his remarks introducing legislation to extend the statute of limitations yet another time stated: “I do not agree with the conclusion of the Department of the Interior in its communication to this committee on June 25, that legislation to address the old-age assistance category of claims will bring the Government into substantial compliance with the requirements of P.L. 96-217; that the Department of the Interior in consultation with the Department of Justice submit to the Congress legislative proposals to resolve these outstanding Indian claims.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.168-169 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.168

Referring specifically to the amendment adding Section 2, the Congressional Conferees stated: “The language of the House amendment requires a report to be submitted to the Congress by the Secretary of the Interior, after consultation with the Attorney General, by June 30, 1981, which details legislative proposals to resolve those Indian claims that they feel are not appropriate to resolve by litigation. The Conference Report adopts the language of the House amendment. This language was agreed to by the Conferees to ensure that these claims are expeditiously and equitably resolved.”

Senator Cohen, Chairman of the Select Committee on Indian Affairs, U.S. Senate, concluded that Section 2 of P.L. 96-217 imposes a duty on the Secretary of the Interior and the Attorney General to propose legislative solutions for all those claims they decide not to litigate: “It is clear from the legislative history that Congress wanted assistance from the Interior and Justice Depts. in the form of carefully considered legislative proposals designed to resolve those claims deemed inappropriate for litigation in order to bring about a swift, yet equitable conclusion to the 2415 Indian Claims Program. It is also clear that from the stipulated facts, however, that the Interior and Justice Departments have not complied with Section 2 of P.L. 96-217.”
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.168 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.167-168

Congress was also acutely aware that litigation in many instances would be unfair to void title holders who had purchased Indian property many years ago without the knowledge of the Indian claims, although they are chargeable by law with knowledge thereof. The Congressmen were also troubled by the serious problem of complicity on the part of the federal government in bringing about many improper transfers and encumbrances of Indian land (e.g., Secretarial transfer, Forced fee and Old Age Assistance claims): including 10,000,000 acres of trust allotments, the private property of the Indian claimants, who were the victims of the forced patents conspiracy.    

In Oversight Hearings on Statute of Limitations Before the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs, 96^th Cong., 1^st Sess. 3-13 (1979) Statement of Forrest Gerard, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs: “Litigation was thought inappropriate in these cases because the government would have to sue itself on behalf of Indian claimants.” Congress reacted to these concerns by adding Section 2 to Public Law 96-217 so that innocent Indian claimants would be given thorough consideration, even though judicial resolution of their claims might be ruled out.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.167-168 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.167

The identity of many hundreds of thousands of Indian claimants nationwide is unknown since they are the undetermined heirs of deceased Indian allottees. The Indian claimants were not told of the decision by Interior officials not to litigate or to submit legislative proposals to Congress were made. Interior officials threw out all categories of claims including secretarial transfers, unapproved rights of way, forced fee patents, old age assistance, while other identified claims such as welfare assistance, water rights, pollution of Indian allotments and loss of mineral rights claims were not even mentioned by the Interior officials.

Secretary of the Interior James Watt notified Congress that the Interior and Justice Departments opposed any further extensions of the statute of limitations, and firmly believe that the 2415 Indian Claims Program will be adequately completed by December 31, 1982. This view was not accepted by members of Congress who submitted legislation to extend the statute of limitations once again.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.167 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.166-167

Individual poverty-stricken Indians do not have the resources to identify, research, and prosecute the claims on their behalf, nor do Indian tribes have the resources to prosecute their claims. The BIA maintains land records, survey maps, contracts, and original allotment documents which are not available to the Indians due to BIA policy. The Indian claims may represent millions of acres of Indian trust property and billions of dollars in compensation for lost revenues.

In 2007 the Blackfeet Agency Superintendent refused to provide Blackfeet heirs to original Blackfeet Allottees critical information needed to pursue their claims for forced patents. These Blackfeet claimants are listed as eligible for compensation under the 1982 Indian Claims Litigation Act. The Blackfeet Agency Superintendent refused to provide the information claiming he needed specific detailed information not available to the Blackfeet heir because the needed records containing the information requested were under lock and key in his office. He was “stonewalling” the Indian claims and it was a continuation of a century of BIA oppression of the Indian wards under BIA supervision as well as moral failure and conspiracy to cover up the land frauds.  
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.166-167

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.166

The claims include trespass, harmful use of Indian property, breach of contract and wrongful transfer or alienation of Indian property against states, counties, local governments and private individuals. Most of the claims have been rejected by the Departments of Interior and Justice as inappropriate for litigation. The Secretary of the Interior has also rejected legislative resolution of most of these claims as well.

The majority of claims identified by the BIA involve the wrongful alienation of individual Indian lands held in trust or restricted status, and the wrongful alienation of other Indian trust interests. The Indian claims also involve trespasses on Indian trust and restricted land that will amount to substantial monetary awards to Indians.

State Welfare Department officials told the Indians that the sale of their trust allotments was a necessary prerequisite to qualify for state welfare assistance. In their applications to the federal government for approval to sell their allotments, the Indians recited that they were selling their lands to qualify for state welfare assistance. This erroneous belief was not corrected by Bureau of Indian Affairs officers and the allotments were sold.

BIA Area Office officials determined that these claims did not present any basis for litigation or resolution by legislative proposals to Congress. No attempt was made by the Interior Department to ascertain whether similar sales occurred nationwide and Interior Officials are still unaware of the scope of the Old Age Assistance category of pre-1966 Indian claims.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.166 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.165-166

It would also be a suit by the federal trustee against the United States Government, and the “public spectacle” of the United States Government suing itself on behalf of its Indian wards.”

This is the executive-branch-cabinet-level Indian Department that cannot keep its collective head on straight. Mr. Forrest Gerard, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior testified to Congress that “In my view, most of these claims go to history. It appears to be a type of claim that has been ignored or not dealt with to date. We appreciate that the Indian claims program has, or will affect a significant number of [white] citizens in this country because, in many cases, we are looking at the prospects of regaining title to property, and many of these individuals-the defendants-through no fault of their own, are holding void titles. In many instances, the defendants are corporate entities.” Approximately 17,000 pre-1966 Indian claims have been identified by Interior.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.165-166 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.165

The Indian Bureau officials let the sales go through without informing the Indian recipients of the illegal prerequisite, and dozens of claims which can be characterized as unapproved rights of way easements across the private-property of Indians.  

The Blackfeet Tribe itself has interests in a number of claims characterized as trespass, and unapproved rights of way. Indian claimants left out of legitimate Blackfeet claims are the thousands of Blackfeet heirs of deceased Original Indian Allottees.   

In 1979 the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, Forrest Gerard testified under oath to Congress; “We are unable to locate many of the Indian heirs. The United States, of course, has a trust responsibility to them just as it does to recognized tribes, bands, or groups. The title issues in Indian land claims on Indian reservations are not subject to the federal statute of limitations. If the Indian claim does not survive the statute of limitations, there would be a suit against the United States Government as trustee for failure to carry out a fiduciary obligation, a breach of the trust obligation to bring an action on the Indian Claimants behalf.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.165 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.164-165

The Indian plaintiffs complaint alleges that federal defendants have violated the mandate of Public Law 96-217, Section 2, which provides: “Not later than June 30, 1981, the Secretary of the Interior, after consultation with the Attorney General, shall submit to the Congress legislative proposals to resolve those Indian claims subject to the amendments made by the first section of this act [Extending the statute of limitations period] that the Secretary of the Interior or the Attorney General believes are not appropriate to resolve by litigation. “

 Plaintiffs contend as a class, all Indians and Indian tribes that have pre-1966 money damage claims affecting lands held in trust or restricted status, have been materially injured by this wrongful, unlawful agency action.

Plaintiffs No. 30 in the suit, are the members of the Blackfeet Tribe of Indians, who have interests in a number of claims identified by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on the Blackfeet Reservation including approximately 605 claims [400 acres each] which can be characterized as forced fee patents claims, 37 claims [400 acres each] which can be characterized as secretarial transfers of deceased Indian lands, and many [unknown] old age assistance claims, whereby old people, and dependent Indian mothers were told by county officials to sell their trust allotments to qualify for county welfare services.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.164-165 

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.165

The Indian water rights study, tied to unresolved allotted Indian land claims were a Trojan horse wheeled into Indian affairs by President Reagan to extinguish Indian land claims and reduce Indian water rights across the nation for the benefit of States and corporations; who are the defendants in the pre-1966 Indian Money Damage claims.

 Chairman Old Person stated, “It is un-American, un-constitutional, and anti-human for the bureaucracy to be permitted to run roughshod over my tribe and other western Indian tribes. Yet, it is manifest here that that is the practice and procedure now on-going in the Justice Department, using the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a front.”

In November of 1982 the Covelo Indian Community sued the Secretary of the Interior James Watt in the United States District Court For The District Of Columbia in Civil Action No. 82-2725, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to secure rights and duties they claim are owed to them, and all others similarly situated, by the defendant federal officials.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau
pg.165

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.163-164

No claims were filed for any future uses of the Milk River for the Fort Belknap Tribes. All water of these streams was instead claimed by the Bureau of Reclamation for the use of the State of Montana and downstream water users. It is a national disgrace to reduce the water rights claims of the tribes and Indian farmers and ranchers; for the political goals of the Justice Department over the Indians.”

Chairman Old Person of the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council protested the reduction of tribal water rights, “The tribe charges that the Department of Justice seeks to drastically reduce the Blackfeet water rights for the benefit of the Secretary of the Interior, whose interests are diametrically opposed to the Tribe’s interests, but whom the Department of Justice seeks to represent while simultaneously forcing the Interior Department’s [trusteeship] representation on the Blackfeet Tribe; and to force upon the Blackfeet Tribe the jurisdiction of the [courts] of the State of Montana. The Blackfeet Tribe rejects out of hand both of those objectives. Their plan is to give the Bureau of Indian Affairs a contract for “new” land classification “studies” which contract is fraudulent, meant only to reduce the tribe’s water rights, and is part of Secretary Watt’s Indian “termination” policy.”
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.163-164 

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

On water quantification testified on the need for a new study of the Blackfeet irrigable acres intended by Secretary of the Interior James Watt and President Reagan to reduce the existing amount of Blackfeet water rights: “I was shocked and outraged at the conduct of the United States Justice Department, Department of the Interior, and Bureau of Indian Affairs toward my firm. The charade being developed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Department of Justice is government at its worst. The Blackfeet Tribe, supposedly the beneficiary of the actions of the Government, strongly oppose the actions being forced upon it. The work proposed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Department of Justice is unnecessary. I am convinced that the primary objective of the Bureau of Indian Affairs is to reduce the water right claims developed by my firm for the Blackfeet Tribe and to protect the Secretary of the Interior from confrontation over the conflicting water rights of the Blackfeet Tribe and the Milk River Federal Reclamation project. A review of the claims filed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and by filings of the State of Montana disclosed no claim for waters of the St. Mary or Milk Rivers for the Blackfeet Tribe. These are principal streams of the Blackfeet Reservation that are being used exclusively by the Milk River project.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.163