STARVATION AND HUNGER IS A WEAPON USED TO CONTROL INDIANS By Bob Juneau

STARVATION AND HUNGER IS A WEAPON USED TO CONTROL INDIANS

                                                            By Bob Juneau

Introduction: Genocide is a term used in the United Nations to describe, “Any policy undertaken with the intent of bringing about the dissolution and ultimate disappearance  of a targeted human group, as such.”

There are several types of genocide such as physical genocide like the massacre of Chief Heavy Runner’s band including babies, children, women, and elders murdered by the Montana Militia led by Governor Meagher, a drunken Irish racist who fell off his floating command post on a riverboat on the Missouri River while drunk at Fort Benton and drowned. They never did find his corpse. Montana Governor Martin Magginnis tried to deport the Blackfeet to Canada to get the remaining Blackfeet treaty lands.  

Glacier County border-whites invented, “Slow Death Measures” genocide defined as, “Subjecting a people to conditions of life which, owing to lack of proper housing, clothing, food, hygiene, and medical care are likely to result in debilitation and [early] death of individuals; deprivation of the means of livelihood by confiscation, looting, curtailment of work, denial of housing and supplies otherwise available to other inhabitants of the territory concerned; to discredit the culture, religion, history by rationalizing  and legitimizing past atrocities [like the Baker massacre]. Public Schools in Montana still teach the “savage Indian” history curriculum to keep the Indians from “remembering” the holocaust against Indians. That is how the white man got Blackfeet Reservation lands and established a white-apartheid territory like Glacier County.

History of white man genocides and trespasses on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation:

Inspector C. H. Howard warned the Indian Office in 1881 there were already Blackfeet Indians starving, “It was my first experience in witnessing actual starvation. I have never before visited an agency where there was so complete destitution. Children and adults are dying for want of proper nourishment when sick. There are thousands of cattle roving over the hills and valleys of the reservation, but does anyone suppose that these cattle will be safe in this vicinity while these Indians are starving? At the same time the cowboys do not hesitate to use arms in protecting the cattle. How long will it be before these Indians will begin to retaliate by arms and we will have another Indian war?

            Agent Young reported in 1882, “Complaints of Choteau County Stock Growers Association against Indians, who they state set prairie fires is absolutely untrue; stockmen are prone to lay all their losses from any cause to Indians. A white man named Jackson killed two Indians on border of reservation-40 miles away-when he opened fire on them when they came to discuss stolen horses. They returned fire and he was killed. Four Indians arrested for killing white men’s cattle on reservation. Report of cattle dying off-reservation during severe weather led [starving] Indians to leave reservation for cattle carcasses. White cattlemen complained to Gen. Brockie, who led guard and compelled Indians to return to agency, Indians sent to lodges and told not to leave again. The Indians are eating the inner bark of the cottonwood trees out of desperation.”

            Inspector’s Report in the spring of 1883, “I find here about twenty five hundred Indians in almost starving condition. I am credibly informed that many have died in the past six months from want of food. The Indians must depend on the government for everything they eat, there being no game in the country for them, it is highly important they should be given all that is estimated for and even this amount will not prevent suffering among them. The Indians are orderly and wonderfully patient, all things considered; fewer offenses than common among them this winter-they must not be allowed to starve.” Agent Allen reported in 1884, “I have the honor to report that I have taken up and issued the [maggot-infested] bacon and spoiled corn that was condemned by my predecessor. I felt it was absolutely necessary to do something to prevent further loss of life by starvation.” Agent Allen visited the Indian tents and found provisions in only two, reporting “all bore the marks of suffering from lack of food, but the little children seemed to have suffered the most, so emaciated that it did not seem possible for them to live long and many of them have passed away. Their wretched appearance evidenced their suffering as well as the books of the agency. The rations last for two days barely, the rest of the week the people live on wild berries and air until Friday evening when they again flock to the stockade and receive the entrails of the beeves butchered and disgusting contests occur for the possession of the entrails etc. Every part of the refuse is eagerly sought and eaten except for the paunch and gall, which they give to their dogs. The Indians complain they are starving and their children dying. Their appearance is that of a slowly starving people, the people being very gaunt and thin and in some cases shockingly emaciated, many of them dying in the immediate vicinity of the stockade. Last month Dr. Gillette reported only six deaths while the agency carpenter built 17 burial boxes and sometimes placed two corpses into one box. Indian deaths are estimated at one per day but of the births and deaths nothing at all is known and the Dept. of Interior is totally ignorant of the numbers of Indians it pretends to care for and feed. The Indians still prefer to dispose of the bodies by tying them in trees or placing them in high places and the hills and ridges around the agency are dotted with these ghastly objects. It is supposed that one half of the deaths are indirectly recorded at the agency through the application for boxes in which to place the corpses. In May, the agency carpenter made sixteen rough coffins, some of the coffins contained two bodies, and once he made six in one day.” The Commissioner of Indian Affairs requested the chiefs make “death sticks” to prove body counts of the dead Indians. Chief White Calf reported of his family of 15, that 4 died last year, Running Crane’s family of 14, six died, Little Bull’s family of 9, he lost 3, Skunk Cap’s family of 10, he lost 3, Big Plume’s family of 15, he lost 3, Shorty lost two out of 10, and Bear Chief lost 4 out of 8 in his family and so on to the 600 deaths from starvation officially reported, but from the chiefs “death sticks”  it was much higher.

 Agent Allen reported, “It is impossible to buy beef locally. The white cattlemen are trespassing on the reservation by thousands of their cattle but they refuse to sell any beef to the agency and wonder why the Indians do not break out and start a war”

Father Prando wrote, “The injustice of the white man is the cause of the suffering among the Indians. The Blackfeet are sunk in want and misery and they will have trouble getting through the winter without dying of hunger. There was so much talk and so much noise in the newspapers about the deplorable condition of these poor creatures, but they received no help. The effects the famine are making themselves felt so horribly and the savages are dying rapidly. One would have to have a heart of stone or none at all, not to have compassion on them in entering their dwellings. Indeed, we can say two-thirds of the tribe are diseased, between those who die of hunger related diseases and erysipelas that makes the throat and face swell up and in four or five days they die. What a pity to see little girls and boys, with their small faces pale and emaciated, with languid eyes, and at an age when they should be happy, experiencing sorrow and consumption.”  

On February 7, 1887, in forty degree below zero weather in deep snow, United States Treaty Commissioners John W. Knight, Dr. Daniels, and Major Larrabee arrived at the Blackfeet Agency to treat with the Blackfeet Indians for reduction of their reservation; they remained one week and consummated the treaty, ratified by Congress, opening 17,000,000 acres of Blackfoot Confederacy lands, to public lands for settlement, leaving the Indians a strip of land forty miles wide. The Indians will receive $1.5 million over ten years to be paid in cattle, implements, equipment, supporting the cattle ranchers.

By 1893 the Blackfeet cattle ranchers had created an economic miracle! They are now self-reliant, successful cattlemen with 500 tribal brands, nearly everyone owning cattle, 25,000 head of cattle, shipping steers to Chicago Stockyards, building ranch homes & barns, fences, vegetable gardens, root cellars, chickens, chicken coops, eggs, milk cows producing milk, cream, butter, gathering berries and cash for all needful things.

In 1896 White men forced another land cession of the western reservation lands for gold mining, the chiefs “sold the rocks” but reserved the grazing lands and timber for their cattle industry. Once again the Indians received $1.5 million in cattle in installments of $150,000 per year for 10 years, to purchase more cattle but by 1904 the Indians cattle were robbed by border-whites and the “agency ring” employees robbed their money.

In 1919 the border-whites began another genocide campaign murdering hundreds of Blackfeet landowners to force the Indians to sign Patents-in-Fee on their trust lands, but the Indians starved to death instead of surrendering their family lands, so the white man and BIA forged fee patents and Glacier County issued tax deeds on Blackfeet allotted lands and created Glacier County on the stolen lands of the Blackfeet allottees.

The tribal council’s welfare/empire economy building tribal businesses that require cheap labor of tribal members for profitability is fueling the “Slow Death Measures” genocides and tribal members early deaths from hunger and malnutrition related diseases. Pilfering of federal poverty grants by the council causes federal audit exceptions year after year and debt in paying back missing federal grant money eats up scarce tribal revenues and the poverty cycle deepens in the community. Poverty sickness caused by an inadequate diet are the juvenile diabetes epidemic spreading across the reservation among our children, who are not getting enough quality food and nutrition to maintain a healthy diet. Doctors can advise us to eat healthy foods but food stamps and poverty grants make it impossible to purchase quality food and fruits and vegetables.

The multi-million dollar nine tribal council members costs us $5.800,000 for a four year term and spends all of our tribal lease money, welfare funds, and profits from the casino on high salaries and travel costs. In the welfare economy on the reservation. we the people, are victimized and disrespected by the tribal council’s NO HARDSHIP! SIGNS AT THE TRIBAL OFFICE! I SAY CUT COUNCIL SALARIES!

  Nobody is safe from council antics. A civil war broke out among tribal council members causing tribal employees to go without their paychecks for months and tribal member’s welfare assistance money was held up, and the people had to live in cars in the cold winter to keep warm. They could not pay their electric bills and Glacier Electric shut off the juice leaving them in the dark in the cold with their children and elders in frigid winter. Food trucks from Missoula and Great Falls came in to relieve the people’s hunger. Tribal court could do nothing to enforce tribal laws because there is no separation of powers in the tribal constitution, and the tribal treasurer could not issue checks without council approval. It was a perfect storm of tribal council incompetence causing hardship.

In 1893 Government Inspector C.C. Duncan reported, “I have the honor to report that I have this day completed the inspection of this Agency. It is one of the best managed agencies under the Department. I made mention of the system of irrigation that was completed at very little expense to the Indians. The allowance of one thousand dollars will be able to complete the work to build lateral ditches as are necessary for the purpose of utilizing the lands alongside the main ditches, and there will be plenty of land and water to furnish a sufficiency of hay for all needful purposes. It is useless to expect any results from farming on any portion of this reservation except a few small valleys favorably located. This is purely a grazing country, one of the best sections in the west for cattle, especially to fatten cattle. Some of the winters are hard on the young cattle, but with proper attention and feed for two months they will survive until spring. I find the Indians here are doing well in cattle, it is important they raise good stock. They were enabled to put on the government contract something near a half a million pounds of beef, besides shipping six hundred head to Chicago, they now own twenty five thousand head of cattle. They will be self-supporting if they continue to raise cattle. Most of these Indians live in houses and have twenty thousand acres under fence. Their principal sources of income is from their cattle, and from freight, cutting wood, and selling hay. They own a sufficiency of farm implements for all needful purposes.”  

PASS THE BISCUITS: White farmers and ranchers on the reservation get federal agriculture department subsidies on Indian lands leased through third party Blackfeet leasers who “ranch” at the tribal office and BIA herding Indian land leases. White ranchers and farmers get federal price supports for crops of wheat, corn, barley etc. And Department of Agriculture Programs: Market Loss Assistance Program, Loan Deficiency Payments, Hard Winter Wheat Incentive Program, Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payment Program, Hail Drought Insurance, Livestock Indemnity Program, Emergency Assistance Program, Livestock Compensation Program, Livestock Feed Program, Wool Subsidies, Milk Income Loss Contract Program, Dairy Product Economic Loss Assistance Program, Sugar Beet Diversion Program, Sugar Beet Disaster Program, Wetlands Reserve Program, Livestock Forage Disaster Program, Federal Marketing Support, Ag. Research Stations, Conservation Security Program, Counter Cyclical Payments, Marketing Loan Program, Export Subsidies, and Risk Management Agency. The white farmers and ranchers “subsidy” economy on the Blackfeet Reservation is built on leasing Indian lands in connection with patent-in-fee lands generating $61,000,000 per year and $7,000,000 in federal agriculture subsidies.

BLACKFEET SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC RECOVERY PLAN FOR RANCHERS

The cattle industry is the proven industry to help ourselves out of poverty as our ancestors did in 1893, by a self-reliant cattle industry. The council wants a gob of money but we want that Water Compact Settlement Money to re-establish our self-reliant cattle industry with federal subsidies, and a beef processing plant to employ hundreds of Blackfeet in high paying jobs and government guaranteed markets to sell beef to the Department of Agriculture food subsidy programs generating mountains of cash for us.

Vote for tribal council candidates who will help the Blackfeet ranchers and farmers, it takes ranchers and farmers to know how to help ranchers and farmers.

LET US END HUNGER AND POVERTY AS OUR CHIEFS DID IN 1893    

   

A SUCCESSFUL ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RECOVERY MODEL FOR TRIBES By Bob Juneau

A SUCCESSFUL ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RECOVERY MODEL FOR TRIBES

                                                By Bob Juneau

Law Professor Ray Cross is an Indian lawyer who has won three Supreme Court Decisions for his tribes, the Three Affiliated Tribes-Mandan, Arickara, Hidatsa. That is impressive for any lawyer, but he has gone on to set the legal precedent of “Institutional Equity” meaning that all stakeholders, tribal, state, federal, are to be treated on an equal basis for settlement of claims. His tribes had “borne a disproportionate share of the social and economic costs of construction of Garrison Dam & reservoir on tribal homelands.” He stated, “The Indians had suffered devastating economic, cultural, and social losses due to the federal government taking their most productive agricultural lands.” It was then found that Congress had failed to justly compensate the Indians in 1949 for their losses arising from flooding their bottom lands along the Missouri River by Garrison Dam. Congress then appointed a ‘Joint Tribal Advisory Commission’ to look into the taking and to come up with a plan to make the Indians “whole” for their economic losses.

The Commission hired Dr. Ronald G. Cummings, a leading natural resource economist to do an assessment of the Indians economic losses He was instructed to use known and accepted valuation standards that required the Government to provide Indians with in-kind replacement of their taken lands, “lieu lands” now under 200 feet of water in Garrison Dam reservoir. Expert testimony by anthropologists also included the taking’s devastating effects on the social and economic life of the Indian people caused by loss of tribal property.  These Indians were successful cattle ranchers prior to the taking and one of the few self-reliant tribes in the nation. The other successful, economically self-reliant tribe was the Blackfeet Tribe of Indians by their cattle industry successful in 1893.

The Commission decided that destruction of these Indian lands could only be measured by the “capitalized values of the expected future incomes that would have been generated by the Indian’s lands had they not been taken.” Ray Cross got his tribes $149 million cash and a share of the revenues of Garrison Dam “forever” and “lieu lands” to replace the flooded tribal lands under Garrison Dam and restoration of the successful tribal cattle industry.  Restoration of the cattle ranching economy would seem to provide just compensation for a social and economic recovery plan. Mr. Cummings stated, “A mere cash payment for their losses would not be adequate to compensate the Indians because the Indians had a cultural, religious, and economic attachment to their homelands where their creation stories, sacred sites and cattle ranches were located. The white ranchers were content to move onto state lands and purchase lands with their Government Condemnation Payments provided by Congress for their losses in leaving the reservation.

Further, the tribes were required to come up their own plan for economic and social recovery of the Indian people in spending their claims money. The Three Affiliated tribes came up with an economic and social recovery plan that deposited the claims money and revenues from Garrison Dam into a Treasury Account on behalf of the tribes. The council would have access to the interest on the principal amount of the claims but would not be able to spend the claims money down to nothing, and be left broke in a few years. The Indians would be able to decide the best use of the distributed interest income for their economic and social recovery plan as a tribal people. The council would have to submit an economic recovery plan to the Secretary of the Interior to draw down money.      

Where is the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council Economic Recovery Plan?

The Blackfeet Tribal Business Council has resisted every attempt by tribal members to be included in the water compact settlement. Blackfeet allottees own one million acres and are the largest “stakeholders” in the water compact. The tribal council “settled” without considering losses by trust landowners and cattle ranchers who had their allotted lands stolen and cattle industry stolen by white cattlemen, Glacier and Pondera County, oil companies, Great Northern Railway, Swift & Armor Meat Trust, and Joe Sherburne.

The tribal council violated the “Institutional Equity” clause against Blackfeet landowners.

BIA patents-in-fee were issued to trust landowners as part of a racketeering scheme to rob the Indians causing loss of allotted grazing lands, cattle industry, water rights and economic opportunity “guaranteed” in the 1896 Agreement/Article Five.

Blackfeet cattle ranchers were self-reliant, successful in 1893 by their cattle industry, far more successful than Blackfeet ranchers today, who have no council support, no financing, no loans, no credit, and no grazing lands, leased to white men through third-party Blackfeet leasers, who sub-lease to white men for cash and cattle.

The tribal council is a complete failure in addressing future social & economic needs of the Blackfeet people; instead opting for a gob of money to continue to build the tribal welfare economy and tribal businesses that pay minimum wages to be profitable like the hotel/casino. Several businesses owned by tribal members have been taken by the tribal council monolith corporate giant “Sayeh” that was invented by the tribal council to usurp all economic opportunity. The hotel/casino fiasco has cost $9,000,000 for the casino/hotel/race track and has taken $9,000,000 from the pockets of tribal poor, offering a million to one chance of winning enough to get out of poverty. The tribal council  suppresses tribal member’s economic opportunities for cash for their high salaries and they use every tribal dollar and economic opportunity to build the council welfare empire.

The truth is they have no social and economic recovery plan for the tribal landowners and cattle ranchers except more minimum wage jobs in the hotel/casino. The council stonewalled every attempt by tribal members to offer any of their own plans to recover economically, especially Blackfeet cattle ranchers, the only successful business.

 Think of $9,000,000 invested in purchasing cattle for Blackfeet cattle ranchers, providing financial support, credit, loans, and markets for their cattle by building a beef processing plant facility to increase profits by 40% for cattle ranchers and provide high paying jobs for tribal members. Quality beef products, jobs, and increased incomes for trust landowners will solve our hunger problem for impoverished tribal members and solve the epidemic of juvenile diabetes among our children. Indian Health Service doctors told me the diabetes epidemic is caused by an inadequate diet. Our children are not getting enough nutrition to maintain their health. Ain’t that a damn shame on the tribal council’s greed for more money for themselves and “NO HARDSHIP” signs at the tribal office. That is what they think of your poverty, too bad except at election time!

Pilfering of poverty programs by the tribal council leads to more tribal debt and more poverty as the tribal council pays back the federal government audit exceptions for missing funds with millions of tribal dollars leaving less for “the poor people.” Why do not the tribal council go to prison for their embezzlements of tribal and federal dollars? Earl Old Person went to federal court and testified in the loss of $3.2 million Department of Labor funds, offering to pay back the money with tribal dollars. He is the problem.         

WIND & PUMPED-HYDRO SITES ON THE BLACKFEET INDIAN RESERVATION

            In 2007 Montana Public Service Commissioner Ken Toole wrote, “The Blackfeet Tribe has a long-standing interest in wind power, and is critical to approving the St. Mary’s project. Blackfeet involvement in a pumped-hydro system would bring numerous economic benefits to the area and assure that the tribe sees concrete benefits from the use of waters originating on the reservation. The Montana Public Service Commission approved one of the biggest public works projects Montana has seen in the rehabilitation of the St. Mary’s canal. The St. Mary canal takes water from high in the mountains of the Blackfeet Reservation to the Milk River drainage to Highline communities and irrigators. This project is vital to the economic health and well-being of communities across the Highline. Most people think of St. Mary’s canal as a water project for irrigators and municipalities. There are potential benefits to the project as well. We can solve problems with a simple technology called “pumped hydro storage” Build two reservoirs connected by a big pipe and put power generating turbines in the pipe. When the wind is blowing and you don’t need the power, use it to pump water from the lower reservoir back up to the upper reservoir. When the wind isn’t blowing, release water from the upper reservoir and let it flow through the power generating turbines into the lower reservoir.”  

   In 1931 the traditional Blackfeet Chiefs “reserved” the streams and rivers for the future use of the Blackfeet Tribe. An agreement was approved for Glacier Electric Cooperative to use Two Medicine Reservoir and Dam to generate electric power for the Government buildings and Cut Bank. Glacier County Commissioners conceded the Blackfeet Tribe owned all of the hydro-power generation sites on the Reservation.

            There is also a new technology called “mini-hydro” that generates electric power by laying the turbines in the creek bed, which would be ideal for tribal cattle ranchers and the Indians that live along the creeks and rivers to be energy independent, no light bills.

The Blackfeet Tribe already owns a legal right in the Two Medicine Power Generating agreement negotiated by the traditional Blackfeet Chiefs in 1931, to collect all surplus revenues from power generation on the reservation streams and rivers.

We cited the reserved water rights of Blackfeet allotted landowners in the water compact meeting when state and federal officials were in Browning to hear the concerns of the Blackfeet Indians on the water compact. The tribal council’s crazy NARF water attorney screamed “You people don’t own any water rights!” and she was loudly “booed” by tribal members. Earl Old Person, wearing his shades, nodded to the gigantic council security man, who pushed me to the wall. The Native American Rights Attorney got in front of me at the podium and she screamed at us to shut up! I gave our research to the council’s “one man water dept.” but he was in a hurry to get to a high school rodeo.  

The State of Montana televises all state legislature meetings, and all meetings are open to the public, unlike the communist tribal council, who meets in secret, to pass the biscuits back to themselves.  The Montana Legislators laughed when the state water attorney told them about the Blackfeet Tribe’s “one man tribal water department.” He said Earl Old Person was so broke he was waiting for a travel check from the state to go down to Helena to sell our water rights to the State of Montana and border-whites.

The Crow Tribe got $550 million dollars for lost revenues in the construction of Yellowtail Dam on the Crow Indian Reservation. The Salish & Kootenai tribes get $2.3 billion dollars in their water compact settlement, half of Flathead Lake and Kerr Dam.  

In 1982 as director of the Blackfeet Natural Resources Department, I hired the Honorary Council, our traditional chiefs. They showed us the incorrect survey of the Western Boundary of the Blackfeet Reservation from the International Boundary at Canada over to Heart Butte. Glacier Park had taken 13,000 acres in the mountains from the Canadian border to Divide Mountain by removing rock monuments surveyed in the 1896 Agreement down the mountain to the present park boundary at St. Mary Ranger Station, and Sherburne Dam and Reservoir. They are inside the reservation boundary. The Blackfeet Tribe owns Sherburne Dam and Reservoir, and the St. Mary Canal. 

 A 1931 survey of the western reservation boundary from Divide Mountain over to Heart Butte robbed 43,000 acres of Blackfeet land inside the Lewis & Clark National Forest. Great Northern Railway robber baron Jim Hill did not want to locate his rail lines on the reservation, fearing taxes and fees required for railroad rights-of-way across the reservation. He stole the East Glacier hotel sites. Joe Sherburne and BIA robbed the teenage Monroe sisters allotted lands located at the St. Mary entrance to Glacier Park. Blackfeet cattle ranchers were removed from their summer grazing tracts to make room for Jim Hill’s Park Saddle Horse Company. Hills employees transported tourist from East Glacier to St. Mary on horseback to Jim Hills hotels inside Glacier Park. The BIA leased the whole St. Mary valley to Jim Hill’s Park Saddle Horse Company for ten cents an acre. The lease price was set by a former Montana governor appointed to Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. Mrs. Mabel Monroe Bond said, “It was cheaper than stealing it” and she said “Joe Sherburne didn’t even bother to wear a mask” when robbing the Indians.

In 1944 tribal chairman John Sharp told a House of Representatives Committee “White men, real estate sharks, professional traders, and Louis Hill, son of Jim Hill owner of the Great Northern Railway got the Blackfeet oil fields patented through his lobbyists in Washington D.C. He robbed an allotment that produced $3,000,000 in oil that he paid $250 in tax deeds issued by Glacier County. It is estimated the whites got a billion dollars in stolen oil from the Blackfeet Reservation. The Cobell Case did not research the actual losses of the Indians nationwide, but only estimated the losses.

A natural resources economist estimated the Blackfeet losses at least $2.5 billion dollars in oil, cattle, water, and lands since the border-whites robbed the successful, self-reliant Blackfeet cattle industry, allotted lands, oil, and water. The valuation formula for just compensation could only be measured by the “capitalized values of the expected future incomes that would have generated in the future.” Compare that with the State of Montana paying Earl $150 million for all the water taken from the drainages of the western reservation lands. Tourist progeny of Jim Hill’s robbery of the tourism industry in the St. Mary valley and Glacier Park spend $168,000,000 each summer for lodging, beverage, gas, souvenirs etc. Blackfeet landowners just compensation requires restoration of the successful, self-reliant Blackfeet cattle ranchers industry. Glacier County whites profit $61,000,000 in sales of crops & cows, and $7,000,000 federal subsidies in Glacier County living on stolen Blackfeet Indian lands. I tried to get the tribal council to give me one of those $10,000 business grants to gather our research, as I live on a $618 a month social security. I promised the Blackfeet Chiefs to help the people with “land problems.” It bought me trouble with Chairman Old Person. One of us will win, it is up to the people.                  

Blackfeet Poverty Is Caused by White-Economic- Apartheid

BLACKFEET POVERTY IS CAUSED BY WHITE-ECONOMIC-APARTHEID

            Glacier County white ranchers and farmers profited $61,000,000 in 2006 and collected $7,000,000 in subsidies from the Department of Agriculture in livestock indemnity programs, crop insurance, price supports, and a myriad of other cash payments in subsidy checks sent to their rural mailboxes. There are at least 50 farmer and ranchers programs that provide subsidy “welfare” payments to white ranchers and farmers.  

Glacier County “welfare” ranchers & farmers oppose welfare assistance for the impoverished Blackfeet Indians. Glacier County border-whites usurped Blackfeet treaty rights, stole Blackfeet allotted lands, and robbed Indian economic opportunity. Glacier County border-whites established political and economic apartheid over the Blackfeet Indians. In Montana, farmers and ranchers received $5.8 billion dollars from 1995 to 2010. Blackfeet Indian landowners get a pittance from the BIA in leasing their lands to border-whites through Blackfeet “middlemen” who use tribal preference to lease allotted Indian lands cheap and sub-lease allotted Indian lands to whites for cash payments or cattle for themselves, while the Indian trust landowners live in poverty.

Economic apartheid is possible through white ranchers & farmers monopoly on Indian reservations. Chief Rides At The Door opposed white ranchers entering the reservation in 1922 testifying to the senate committee, “This reservation belongs to the Indians. I want to ask you honorable gentlemen, why I do not have the full say of our lands. The white man comes in and he has the full say of what is to be done with our lands. You realize my belief is, and my forefathers belief is, I raised you. The white man came here and I gave him the land [Montana] and I raised him in this country. Now you should give me the full power to say about my own land in my own country.”

After the Baker massacre Montana Governor Martin Magginnis tried to deport the Blackfeet to Canada, “The Blackfeet will be more difficult to deal with-all their blood and kindred are in British America where they really belong themselves. It might be a matter of International arrangement to settle these Indians permanently [in Canada].”

Interior Department officials wrote, “The Blackfeet Indians are active, intelligent, progressive people and are unusually polite and sociable people. It is well known that this is a stock raising country, the Indians recognize this and are devoting their time and energy to making hay and raising cattle.”

Chief White Calf traveled to Washington D.C., “We wish you would give us some key to lock up the reservation; we think Congress will cut this reservation down again. We want to lock it, so nobody can get in there. White men are running their stock cattle on our reservation. We haven’t much more land than we can utilize ourselves.”

 Bear Chief said, “The Piegans wish to keep our own ground. It is not large now. We ask you to keep the envious whites away. The whites are always bothering us. They drive their herds on to our land to steal our grass.”

 Inspector McCormack investigated trespass of white men in 1903, “This reserve, being fairly watered, is well adapted to stock raising. The Texas cattle kings, appreciating the desirability and advantages of it for grazing purposes have thrown their cattle on it for years, and have eaten up and trampled the grass and hay meadows. At this writing fully twelve thousand head of cattle owned by these white cattle owners are roaming over this reservation. During the round up season, when these cattle are driven off to be branded by their owners, they drive off cattle belonging to the Indians. I have but little doubt there is an “agency ring” at this place and it can readily be seen the damage they do”

Agent Monteath reported, “Prosecutions under these sections would most likely come before a jury of cattlemen. I would not presume to say that exact justice would not result, but I believe good judgment would seek to avoid such a course. I venture the assertion that if a tract of land, situated as is this reservation, were in the hands of a white man, not one moment would be lost in throwing a fence around it. I believe a fence on the north, east, and south sides of this reservation to be a primal necessity to that proper care. The Indians must have something to eat, if cattle are issued this summer, they will either eat them or sell them to the trader, or if they keep them and take good care of them, they will not receive any return for three or four years. What do they do for food?”

The Glacier County Sheriff came to the reservation and removed Indian cattle for what he called “bad debts” and said, “The only good use to put Indians is to hang them” and told the agent he “did not hold with the treaty” and would “do as he pleased”

Chief White Calf protested, “These stock barons are compelled to seek new pastures for their cattle and sheep, and they look with covetous eyes on our land-our only inheritance and our only possession. The past summer we had our reserve fenced, at which we labored faithfully with the hope that we would see the last of the hordes of range cattle of whites, but our hopes were dashed to the ground by the government turning our country into a white man’s cow pasture.”

In 1921, James Willard Schultz and his son Hart Merriam Schultz wrote the Secretary of the Interior to report that Joe Sherburne, Swift & Armor, and the Great Northern Railway, through their subsidiaries, the Portland & Cattle Company, and The Park Saddle Horse Company were starving hundreds of Blackfeet landowners to force them to sign forced fee patents on their lands. J.W. Schultz reported Joe Sherburne had 212 Blackfeet allotments taken by forced patents in Glacier County for taxes and liens.

Hart Merriam Schultz wrote, “Well, the Blackfeet are about finished, except a few old people, they get no rations, they have no grain crops, no cattle and very little hay and the worst is yet to come, the dreadful winter. Yesterday an old woman came up to see me, walking all the way from the forks of the Two Medicine River. She was in rags and starving. I gave her a meal, and bought coffee, sugar, and meat for her and she was so affected by this she broke down and cried. I tell you, by God, it makes me so mad all the time to see the conditions these Indians are in! They are plumb out of food and have turned gray from hunger. Many Guns and Dog Gun came away up here to see me, and said they were so hungry they had to ask me for help. Tuberculosis is rapidly killing off the Indians, but it serves the interests of whites who are after this “big grass country.”

 Charles Reevis spoke to the Senators; “You look at the Indians here. The biggest part of them have not got their land anymore. The only way you can help them is to see they get their land back. Give their land back! When the President issued these patents here, he was very wrong and very crooked at the same time for doing that. If I ask you to become an Indian, then I can beat you out of everything you got because you do not know what I am talking about. The people here cannot even write their names.”

 I have worked on forced patent claims since 1983 when Willie Running Crane and Joe Bear Medicine, asked me to help the people with their “land problems.” I got the senate committee to hold field hearings, but it was blocked by Chairman Earl Old Person and Vice-Chairman Archie St. Goddard, who had 35,000 acres of tribal land leased. I was ordered to cease investigating the BIA and fired by Chairman Earl Old Person, who is a chicken shit traitorous dog hiding in plain sight protecting the white man who exploits us.     

BLACKFEET CATTLE INDUSTRY SUCCESSFUL IN 1893, A "BUST" IN 2016

In 1893 Inspector C.C. Duncan reported, "I have the honor to report that I have this day completed the inspection of this Agency. I made mention of the system of irrigation which has been completed at very little expense to build lateral ditches, and there will be plenty of land and water to furnish a sufficiency of hay for all needful purposes. This is purely a grazing country, one of the best sections in the west for cattle, especially to fatten cattle. I find the Indians are doing well in cattle, and were able to put on the Government contract something near a half million pounds of beef, besides shipping six hundred head to Chicago, they now own about twenty five thousand head and if they continue their present effort in raising and caring for cattle they will be on a self-supporting basis. Most of these Indians live in houses and have about twenty thousand acres under fence. Their principle source of revenue is cattle and freight, cutting wood and selling hay. They also own a sufficiency of farm implements." In 1896 the Blackfeet "sold the rocks" and reserved grazing rights in the ceded strip which later became Glacier Park and the Lewis & Clark National Forest after gold was not discovered. President Teddy Roosevelt vetoed Montana Senator Walsh's surplus land bill on the grounds that, "The Indians will derive no funds from the sale of their surplus lands, I think a large part of the waters of the reservation will be appropriated by white settlers, and when the time comes for the Indian allottee to use his land the water will be completely appropriated and fully used by white settlers."  Congress passed a bill that included a provision for total allotment of the reservation leaving the white man on the reservation borders looking in; "The Secretary of the Interior shall make allotments under existing laws to any living children of said Blackfeet Tribe, who have not heretofore been allotted, so long as there remains any un-allotted lands." HOW DID THE WHITE MAN GET ON THE BLACKFEET RESERVATION? There are 1,200 Forced Fee Patents Cases on the Blackfeet Reservation covering 312,250 acres of the reservation robbed from the Indian allottees. The latest robbery occurred in 1985 when a BIA employee got away with Annie Rides At The Door's allotment. The BIA employee got 320 acres and the family got her 80 acre homestead allotment. We got the tribal council to pass resolution #224-2001 in August of 2001 but Chairman Old Person told the senate lawyer the Indians did not want to pursue their land claims, a lie of course. So, there it is, the only business that ever worked for the people, the cattle industry, robbed along with 1,200 Blackfeet allotments. I wonder if "Chief" Old Person whispered to Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewel in Browning last week to keep the stolen Blackfeet allotted land and give our claims money of $600,000,000 to the council. That is what is in the Blackfeet Water Compact, the whites get our stolen allotted land and the council gets our money, and our forced patent claims are extinguished forever! Earl has never testified in Congress for the 1,200 Blackfeet familes who had their land stolen like Mrs. Rides At The Door, and if he is re-elected to the tribal council things will stay the same for the rest of us, more poverty and ruin. We cannot win our just claims when our elected politicians sell us out to the white man for money for themselves. Earl Old Person will never help us get our family lands returned with compensation of $600 million to be paid directly to the original allottee heirs.
I am an heir to my great-grandmothers allotted lands robbed by white men in Glacier County.
Bob Juneau Sr.

BACK TO CATTLE RANCHING FOR THE BLACKFEET INDIANS

The only successful industry on the Blackfeet Reservation is cattle ranching! In 1893 Blackfeet cattle ranchers brought the people out of a tribal famine from 1881-1893 by negotiating a treaty to sell land for a living, meaning we traded 17,000,000 acres for $1.5 million to be spent on purchasing cattle, horses, equipment, material, and support for cattle ranchers. By 1893 the Blackfeet people were self-supporting meaning that we had developed an economy that brought enough money for all to prosper in the new economy. The Blackfeet cattle industry had hundreds of Blackfeet cattle ranchers and 25,000 cattle, and ranch homes, barns, fences, and improvements that the inspector reported the Indians were self-supporting by the cattle industry. What happened to the successful Blackfeet cattle industry? Glacier county and white men coveted the successful Blackfeet cattle industry and were in a position to trespass on reservation grazing lands by bribing the Blackfeet agent and the Secretary of the Interior and the President. That is a powerful coalition of thievery! Everything the white man and Glacier county has on the reservation is stolen from the Blackfeet Indians. The claims to recover those stolen lands were killed by Chairman Old Person and Vice-Chairman Sassy Running Crane in the water compact as they sold the Indian heirs down the river to receive the money from the water compact which kills all Blackfeet claims, forever! The white man and Glacier county got a free pass by the tribal council in approving the water compact and they now have clear titles to the stolen Blackfeet allotments denying the heirs any chance of recovering their family lands. That is the situation concerning our allotted land claims, and you, the voters, will either approve or reject the water compact by a tribal referendum after Congress approves it or rejects it, but the tribal council is like a meth addict needing that MONEY! What about us? The cattle industry and water is our only industry left but once again Chairman Old Person sold the Indians to the white man for a gob of money for his personal use and entourage. The enemy is hiding in plain sight and if you re-elect him it will be more of the same for his 60 years on the tribal council-poverty for you and cash for him. The 1896 Agreement/Article Five is the law of the tribe though violated by the tribal council in usurping the treaty rights of Blackfeet cattle ranchers to tribal grazing lands and water rights to build up cattle herds of Blackfeet landowners. The third-party Blackfeet "middlemen" who lease allotted land for a pittance and sub-lease the same land for cash or cattle from white men are the enemy and the BIA is complicit in their exploitation of Blackfeet allotted landowners. Get rich on the Indians land is the history of the white man, Glacier county, tribal council, and third-party front men for white men. This is a critical time for the next generation of Blackfeet heirs to allotted lands. Do you want to be the next victims of the tribal council and white men? Cattle ranching will bring many Blackfeet out of poverty and get rid of white men and their Blackfeet middlemen who exploit the Indians and their lands. The water compact also takes your individual water rights to your land and subordinates your water to tribal water rights under the control of the tribal council. In the reign of Old Person the tribe has gotten impoverished as even the poverty grants do not reach the poor and every attempt by the tribal members for reform of tribal council failed because the council tossed it in the trash can and laughed at you. Our only hope is a new beginning and to do what we are good at, and that is cattle ranching! Back to the future for the Blackfeet landowners and cattle ranchers!
Bob Juneau Sr. Blackfeet Patriot

GREED KILLS "SLOWLY" IN THE MODERN DAY INDIAN GENOCIDES

In 1913 members of the Blackfeet Indian Tribal Council and members of the Blackfeet Tribe sent a delegation to Washington D.C. to the Secretary of the Interior "To explain to you the deplorable conditions of our reservation and the destitute and starving conditions of the Indians. It has since been brought to our attention an effort made by our agent to discredit the statements of our delegates in this respect; and his reports convey in substance that idea, that our people are not in a destitute and starving condition, but prosperous. We believe that if a representative of the Indian Office would make a tour of the homes of these Indians and a personal inspection of their present deplorable condition, a more truthful report of such conditions would be obtained by your office. We most urgently request some action be taken at once which will relieve our present pitiable conditions."
My understanding of the water compact and the land settlements ended all tribal and allotted claims forever, so we had better have a plan to bring the Indians to self-support. This is the settlement of all times and forever ends our claims to get paid for our stolen lands and billion dollar oil industry robbed by Glacier County border-whites on the Blackfeet Reservation. To end tribal poverty forever, we must look back to see what helped us and what destroyed us in past economic systems to bring the Indians to self-support. The Blackfeet cattle industry brought prosperity to all tribal members and it created a class of Indians who could and did bring us out of poverty. It was the border-whites who robbed the cattle industry owned by the Blackfeet Indians. I propose to spend the claims money on purchasing cattle for all tribal cattle ranchers, and that the tribal council concentrate upon the cattle industry as the vehicle of tribal prosperity as our ancestors have shown us. We are good at ranching and have family traditions of cattle ranchers that go back to 1890 when the cattle ranchers brought the tribe to self-support ending the tribal famine of 1881-1890 when thousands of Indians starved to death. Our reservation was literally created for cattle ranching in the 1896 Agreement and we own grazing rights in the Lewis & Clark National Forest for cattle owned by the Blackfeet Indians. We have a treaty right to take lodge pole pine for domestic uses of the tribe and collecting and gathering plants. Our ancestors are telling us to follow their moccasin tracks for success. We are the dumb ones who do not know or use our existing treaty rights to bring us to self-support. The tribal council is addicted to welfare funds and cannot see anything but more federal funds to bring themselves to self-support so long as they are re-elected to the council, and have to settle for $10,000 severance pay, a long drop from a king's ransom of $500,000 for a four year term. What do you think they are going to do with $100,000,000 in settlements? The last tribal land purchase program employed tribal council relatives until the money is gone and leased the land purchased to themselves, a preference right in the tribal constitution. Do we know what happened to $35,000,000 in tribal claims money? A cattle purchase program giving at least 100 cattle to each rancher as a starter herd will bring back our only successful industry, the cattle industry which the reservation was made for by Blackfeet chiefs in 1896. The whites took the gold and the Blackfeet took the grass and timber with which to build a new tribal buffalo, the cattle industry! Money is gone in an instant, but cattle will bring you money forever, to pass on to your children and to keep your family lands forever. The land contains rich buffalo grasses that will raise beef cattle on grass-fed and clean waters of the reservation. It is only a short step to processing our own beef and other livestock for sale on global markets. I was in the tribal council meeting a few years ago when Chinese Government Purchasers were asking the tribal council what products China could purchase and they called us their "relatives" and were very friendly. Why not get a Blackfeet Tribal Trade Mission to China to offer our products to the Chinese Government? A few years ago the Montana Governor and the senator from Browning took a trade mission to China on behalf of Montana farmers and ranchers but no Indian products were offered and the governor returned with a stink bomb-a pork plant which pollutes and nobody wants on their lands. We have to promote our own business interests! At the boarding school I had many ranch kids who know how to take care of cattle and have family lands to manage cattle but they have zero support in getting cattle to run on their own lands. They are adults now with families of their own but are having a hard time like the rest of us. Using our ranges to produce superior beef steaks that the Chinese said  cost $100 in China. When we are using our land & water for processing beef, bottled water, beverage and food processing plants that will produce high paying jobs for tribal members instead of the slave wages in existing tribal businesses. Think big and think prosperity! Otherwise, there are no more claims forever and existing on tribal poverty grants only addict tribal council members to lazy and dumb existence until we kick them back into the street where they came from prior to council elections where any old fool can rule us. Tribal landowners and cattle ranchers unite! This reservation was made for cattle ranchers. our only hope and all we have left to bring us to self-support as our ancestors have done showing us the way back in 1893. Our only successful business people were cattle ranchers!  Tribal council members in 1913 were Robert Hamilton, Curley Bear, Little Dog, John White Calf, Medicine Owl, Long Time Asleep, Lazy Boy, Wolf Plume, John G. Ground, Dick Kipp, Virginia Billedeaux, Chief White Calf, Black Weasel, West Wolf, Joe Bull Shoe, First Shoot.
I appeal to the Blackfeet people to speak up now and demand the settlement money to bring us all to self-support instead of foolish tribal enterprises that enslave tribal members in slave wages for profit.
Bob Juneau Sr. Blackfeet Patriot, I care about our people and know how to bring us out of poverty.