The "Survey of Conditions of Indians in the United States" is a survey of all Indian reservations by the Senate Subcommittee on Indian Affairs, United States Senate published by the Government Printing Office as a volume in 1931, and available to the public. The Blackfeet Original Allottees were subjected to 805 Forced Fee Patents covering 248,020 acres of the most productive lands of the reservation including rich buffalo grass grazing lands that produced a superior beef cattle and was the foundation for the successful, self-reliant Blackfeet cattle ranchers industry developed by 1893. The Indian cattle ranchers were targeted for special attention by the "competency commission" made of the agency trader, agency clerk, and superintendent who drew up the list of Indians targeted for fee patents on their family lands without the consent or knowledge of the Blackfeet landowners. The Senate Subcommittee Field Hearings were held in Browning on the Blackfeet Reservation in 1928:
By Senator Pine. When condemnation proceedings were taken against Indians who were wards of the Government, What action, if any, was taken to protect the Indian's rights?
By Superintendent Campbell. We took no action.
By Senator Pine. Mr. Campbell, when an Indian who is a ward of the Government is sued in State Court, or in Federal Court, don't you, as superintendent of the reservation, see to it that his rights are protected in court in some way?
By Superintendent Campbell. We report it to the United States Attorney.
By Senator Pine. I am asking you what action you took or what the bureau [Bureau of Indian Affairs] took when they [border-whites, county attorney] brought suit against the Indians to condemn their property?
By Superintendent Campbell. We took no action.
In 1914 Senator Harry Lane of Oregon, of the Joint Committee to Investigate Indian Affairs, Congress of the United States, arrived on the eastbound train at Browning, the agency town of the Blackfeet Reservation, and proceeded to travel the reservation and consult with any and all persons who desired to present their views regarding their ideas to improve the Indians. Senator Lane found the conditions of the Indians "pitiable" reporting there were "Families of six to eight persons living in one room shacks, on beds made on the floor with bedding of old rags and sacks, families without food, a mother had given birth the day before our arrival and was up and around, but fled to her bed of old rags on the floor on our arrival, her six children almost without clothing in the subzero weather in old cabins and nothing on their bare feet but accumulated dirt. The Indians said they were being starved in order to force them to agree to a tribal land sale of 156,000 acres of irrigated farm lands and newly discovered oil fields desired by the Commercial Clubs surrounding the reservation"
The Field Reports of Charles Ellis in 1920 "Clearly indicated that the effects of wholesale fee patenting were disastrous." Last winter the food trucks were needed in Browning while the good people of Missoula and Great Falls sent winter clothing for poor Blackfeet children. There is no hearing for the dispossessed Blackfeet Heirs who are impoverished by rich 1 % border-whites on their plantations on the reservations got by land frauds on illiterate Indian wards of the United States.
Bob Juneau Sr.
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