ATTENTION TO BLACKFEET CATTLE RANCHERS AND LANDOWNERS

ATTENTION TO BLACKFEET CATTLE RANCHERS AND LANDOWNERS

By Bob Juneau Sr. a trust landowner on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.

I have been protesting the forced patents land frauds since the Blackfeet Chiefs asked me to help the people with their land problems in 1980 when I was director of the Blackfeet Natural Resources Department. We brought the claims to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and got approval to hold hearings in Browning but the tribal council shut it down. In the water compact meetings with federal, state and tribal council we were told to shut up by the tribal attorney and I was tossed out by Chairman Old Person. The water compact is the last chance “forever” for trust landowners and cattle ranchers to get their issues heard but even that is gone because the tribal council approved it without participation or testimony by tribal landowners and cattle ranchers. It is just a big gob of money to bail out tribal council debts of millions of dollars. Chief and Chairman Old Person has never testified to Congress on behalf of tribal landowners or cattle ranchers. We placed our trust in electing him for 66 years and he stabbed us in the back, even joining whites in denying our water rights in the water compact which ends our land claims, forever. A land fraud is in process right now by tribal council leasing valuable grazing land to third-party tribal members who sub-lease to white ranchers leaving out tribal landowners. The Cobell Case is being used to concentrate land ownership under the tribal council so individual landowners have to compete with white men to lease their own property. I am working on financing for tribal landowners and cattle ranchers to get them back in business and provide cash for leasing trust lands at market value. There is no reason to cheat the tribe and trust landowners out of a proper lease payment except the greed of tribal grafters. It is an old corrupt system that destroyed the original self-reliant Blackfeet cattle industry successful by 1893 to replace the buffalo economy. The Blackfeet are excellent cattle ranchers and ranch children are endangered people due to tribal graft and BIA graft in denying the treaty rights and federal laws designed to bring the people to self-support by cattle ranching. White ranchers in Glacier County profit $61,000,000 in sales of crops and cows, and get $7,000,000 in federal subsidies, much of it on leased allotted and tribal lands. We are getting beat on every front on our own reservation. The Indian Reorganization Act provides for landowners cooperatives “ to cut out the middleman” meaning the white man and third-party tribal members exploiting us all. This is our last chance to get control of our own land and cattle economy. We must demand “Institutional Equity” that is a Congressional requirement that all parties to the settlement have an equal voice in the hearings and the division of money. I cannot do it alone because the tribal council throws me out every time I try to change things for our people. Earl is still around spreading lies and rumors saying nothing can be done, we must accept the water compact. It is a lie! But if we do not organize and protest, we are done. I tried to get a seminar at the college to bring people together but that was denied. Please help any way you can to get us a hearing before the tribal council to voice our issues. I will be there if someone can get a meeting with the tribal council. Let me know soon and I will bring the evidence! Bob juneau Sr.