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 Canada
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 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
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
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
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