DISPOSSESSED BLACKFEET HEIRS NEED HELP TO RECOVER 1,200 ORIGINAL BLACKFEET ALLOTMENTS

Blackfeet Tribal Business Council Resolution Number 224-2001 passed 15 years ago by the tribal council and signed by Chairman Old Person requests the return of all allotted Blackfeet lands taken under the "Forced Fee Patents Cases on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation" compiled by the Blackfeet Agency of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1982 as required by Congress per the twin bills titled "Ancient Indian Land Claims Settlement Act of 1982" which provide for the "retroactive validation" of Indian land transfers and "extinguishment" of Indian claims arising from transfers not previously approved either by Congress or the Executive Branch Officials. In 1982 we had a tribal delegation to Washington D.C. which met with the Senate Indian Affairs Committee on the Blackfeet allotted land claims and were successful in getting a senate approval to bring our claims to the committee on the requirement that we get a tribal council resolution requesting a senate investigation of hundreds of forced patents of Blackfeet allotments in 1919-1922 when Glacier and Pondera County Courts severed 1,200 Blackfeet original allotments for illegal tax and liens of white men. The BIA officials and Secretary of the Interior are defendants in Covelo Indian Community v. James Watt, Secretary of the Interior, for complicity [partners-in-crime] in the Blackfeet allotted land frauds. The local white men also robbed the successful Blackfeet cattle industry and a billion dollars worth of oil from allotted lands through county courts. None of these losses were part of the Cobell Case Settlement and that is why the Indian landowners got chump change for billions of dollars in losses since 1919; per land frauds of the Blackfeet land allotments. The void Patent-in-Fee lands of white men cover every township of the reservation and are exclusive white territory [white-apartheid] of white men since the Blackfeet were not allowed to vote in elections or hold public office in Montana. Now the door is being closed on our century old claims by the Blackfeet/Cree Glacier County Commissioners. Arthur Lazurus, an expert in Indian claims says, Many Supreme Court Decisions emphasized that "Legislative or executive branch "retroactive validation" of Indian land transfers should be preceded by a determination that "no fraud or imposition had been practiced upon the Indians from whom the deed was originally purchased." The Supreme Court also ruled that "Just and equitable title, not title obtained by fraud, may be retroactively validated" and that "A deed conveyed by an incompetent Indian would not be effective." My only hope left is the "new" tribal council help Blackfeet victims of ancient land frauds. We need a tribal delegation to Washington D.C. but I wonder why the tribal council never mentioned unresolved allotted land claims in the water compact? Bob Juneau, patriot