THANKSGIVING FOR 150 YEARS OF STARVATION OF INDIAN PEOPLE?

The "death sticks" was a body count of Blackfeet people starved to death during the famine of 1881-1887 requested by Congress to survey the progress of the campaign to force another land cession of 17 million acres of Blackfoot Confederacy lands held by the 1855 Treaty with the United States, a treaty of peace, friendship, and amity duly ratified by Congress. Chief White Calf, Principal Chief of the Blackfeet Tribe was aggrieved to see his people suffering and wanted to know why his people could not get more food promised by the treaty, and why the Indians in Canada receive seeds and rations to live on, and he wants to be treated as the tribes in Canada. United States Indian Agent Allen reported the conditions of the Blackfeet people in 1884, three years into the tribal famine, "The Indians offer themselves to work for food, and where ten are called for fifty will appear, but while there are many ways where the agent could employ them, he is unable to because they must be paid in rations and there are none to spare. The Indians try to plant. For example, a patch of ground was seen where they had cut the ground with an axe, and scratched the ground with their fingers in order to plant some potatoes. None of their ponies are strong enough to break the soil, and what seeds and potatoes were furnished, they immediately ate. Everything about them indicates their poverty. They have not a fur or skins for moccasins and there is nothing in their lodges except for the people themselves. The Chiefs are very desirous that some of them should be allowed to go to Washington to represent their hardships to the Great Father, but their applications to that effect has been denied by the Indian Office on the score there is no money to pay the expenses of their trip. At present there is an abundance of berries, but they will soon be gone, and there will be nothing but meat and flour. In May and June there were times they stripped the trees and ate the inner bark to keep their souls and bodies together. In a very short time the carpenter will be kept busy making burial boxes. The Indians vital forces are so weakened by the famine of the past three years that the winter now approaching will find them unable to endure its severity, and still more dreadful suffering will occur. The Piegans are slowly starving to death, but in order to convince the government that an unnatural and inhuman state of affairs exists here, it would seem necessary that these Indians should break out in open revolt and all die at once. The Texas cattlemen refuse to sell any beef to the agency and provoke the Indians to start a range war. The conduct of affairs here is exceedingly unpleasant and unless matters can be remedied there will probably be bloodshed. The dissatisfaction is constantly on the increase and unless something can be done to alleviate the suffering of these people the employees at the agency will be in danger of losing their lives. Their physical condition is that of a slowly starving people, all of the people being very gaunt and thin, and shockingly emaciated. Scrofula prevails to a great extent among them, aggravated by lack of nourishment and a large number are suffering from consumption. Their systems are so impoverished that very slight hurts develop into serious complications. Of the births and deaths nothing is known by the Department of the Interior who are totally ignorant of the numbers of Indians it pretends to care for and feed. Last month the agency carpenter built 17 coffins while doctor Gillette reported only 6 deaths. Many Indians are buried without coffins and sometimes two Indians are placed in one coffin. The Indians prefer to bury their own dead by tying them in trees or placing them in high hills and the ridges and hills around the agency are dotted with these ghastly objects." In 1881 Father Prando wrote, "The injustice of the white man is the cause of suffering among the Indians. The Blackfeet are sunk in want and misery and in my opinion, they will have trouble getting through the winter without dying of hunger." In 1884 he wrote, " There was so much talk and so much noise in the newspapers about the deplorable conditions of these poor creatures, but till now they received no help. And, this year the effects of the famine are making themselves felt so horribly and the savages are dying rapidly. Each day there is someone dead. Indeed, we can say two-thirds of the tribe are diseased now. What a pity it is to see little boys and girls, with their small faces pale and emaciated, with languid eyes, and at an age when they should be happy, experiencing sorrow and consumption." In the middle of winter the United States Treaty Commissioners arrived in Blackfoot Country, in forty degree below zero weather, stayed a week, and completed a land cession of 17,000,000 acres of Blackfeet Treaty Lands for $1.5 million to be paid in ten annual installments for the purchase of cattle, equipment, supplies, rations, and improvements to their cattle ranches. By 1893 the Blackfeet cattle ranchers had built a self-reliant cattle industry of 500 tribal brands, 25,000 cattle, shipping steers to Chicago Stockyards, building ranch homes, fences, barns, vegetable gardens, and cash for all needful things. By 1904 the Montana border-whites and Blackfeet Agent George Steel robbed the entire Blackfeet cattle herd to build up their herds off the reservation. It is a history of border-whites robbing the Indians in complicity with the United States Government. Today the final blow of permanent poverty is contained in the water compacts awarding the border-whites stolen property and water rights within the reservation boundaries. Psychologist Edwardo Duran wrote, "Most Indians deal with issues of injustice, conquest, dishonored treaties, land thefts, and a common thread that weaves across much of the pain and suffering found in Indian communities in the United States and much of the Western Hemisphere. The common thread image is the concept termed the "soul wound." He states, "If one accepts the terms soul, psyche, myth, dream, and culture as part of being in the world in their particular reality, then one can begin to understand the soul wound. The notion of soul wound is one which is at the core of so much of the suffering of the Indigenous peoples have undergone for centuries." Anthropologist Ruth Hill Useem stated regarding the Indian people's relation with the American Government; (1) That over the years the Indian people can expect no consistency in policies regarding him; (2) That the interests of the dominant society will take precedence over the interests of Indians in any policy decision; (3) That the Indian can do little to affect decisions concerning Indians; (4) That whatever the policy enacted the Indian will be told that such policy is in his best interest; (5) That the stated goals of a policy may be and usually are quite different from the consequences with the goals being more favorable to the Indians than the consequences." Robert J. Hamilton, the great Blackfoot lawyer and interpreter for Blackfeet Chiefs testified before Congress; "In view of the principles enunciated and adopted by your highest judicial tribunals, the fact can not be controverted or questioned that the Blackfeet Indians have been unconstitutionally and unconscionably deprived of their vested rights under the 1855 Treaty by Executive Orders and acts of Congress of 1873 and 1874, and that the Government of the United States is answerable therefor. The property of these people has, as a matter of fact, been confiscated by the United States and diverted to purposes for which there is no warrant under the Constitution, and which upon grounds of good faith and fair dealing can not be defended. Horatio Seymour, a great apostle of democracy, in regard to the treatment of Indians, once said, "Every human being born upon our continent, or who comes here from any quarter of the world, whether savage or civilized, can go to our courts for protection except those who belong to the tribes who once owned this country. The cannibals from the islands of the Pacific, the worst criminals from Europe, Asia, Africa, can appeal to the laws and courts for their rights of person and property, all save but our native Indians, who, above all, should be protected from Wrong." Robert Hamilton testified to Congress that "We strongly protest the opening of any part of our reservation because we know it would be a mistake, therefore we ask the Blackfeet be permitted to hold our lands intact." Chairman Cohen of the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs stated in 1983, " On the one hand the Indian claims were originally founded in a breach of contract and a title claim, but the fact that the state has been in wrongful possession of Indian lands for the past 112 years in a trespass against the Indian's interest and therefore lies in tort rather than contract, and is not precluded by the statute of limitations. There are countless Indian people and Indian tribes whose potential claims have not yet been given a fair opportunity to be reviewed in terms of their validity. The remaining question that both Congress and the Executive Branch must face is whether there is continuing exposure to the United States Government in the unresolved Indian claims and violations of tribal sovereignty and the loss of Indian property." The white ranchers are living our lives on our reservations on white-apartheid territories called "reservation/counties" enacted by state legislatures to provide void patent-in-fee titles to border-whites sanctioned by the secretary of the Interior and General Land Office of the United States in approving the fee patents of Indian property. President Reagan rejected two centuries of Indian treaty-making begun with President George Washington and founder Thomas Jefferson. That is why I have spent 35 years fighting for my great-grandmothers lands stolen by white men and the 17,000 individual Indian landowners cited in the Class Action Suit filed in the Covelo Indian Community v. James Watt, Secretary of the Interior, Defendant, who lost in federal court. The Reagan dictatorship stonewalled the Indian claims, still unresolved, but soon to end in the water compact settlements. None of the 17,000 Indian landowners heirs were allowed to testify or to object to the water compacts. The Bureau of Indian Affairs that starved the Indians has completed the genocides by approving neocolonialism and white apartheid on Indian reservations. I no longer believe justice is available for Indians in the United States. That is why I need a sponsor to the United Nations Genocide Convention and to petition the World Criminal Court for justice outside of the United States. The State of Montana is in an illegal trespass and possession of Blackfeet property since 1919. I have all of the evidence needed to win if I can find a lawyer for billions in torts and  claims for 17,000 individual Indian land claims to 100 million acres of stolen Indian property.
   Bob Juneau Sr. Blackfeet patriot.

AMERICAN APARTHEID IS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

The United Nations Security Council unanimously accepted that "Apartheid is a crime against the conscience and dignity of mankind," refers to genocide and institutionalized discrimination on racial, ethnic, or religious grounds. In South Africa President DeClerk apologized for apartheid after the rebellion of Africans stating, "Apartheid was wrong. I apologize to the millions of South Africans who suffered the unending disruption of forced removals in respect to their homes, businesses, and land and prevented from exercising their full democratic rights in the land of their birth." But, the whites and corporations were allowed to keep their ill gotten gains produced from the stolen lands of the victims and the Africans are in an economic depression once again.
        In the United States there are exclusive white territories planted on Indian reservations called "reservation/counties" enacted by state legislatures to give the border-whites a void title called patent-in-fees on stolen Indian land allotments within reservation boundaries without any consent of the Indians or the prior approval of Congress as required by treaties. The United States Government is complicit in the massive unresolved land frauds of 17,000 individual Indian land allotments covering 100 million acres. The Organic Acts of states all contain "disclaimers" any right or title to any Indian land or jurisdiction over any treaty Indians. Public Law 96-217, section 2 was passed by Congress in 1982 to provide justice for a century of unresolved Indian land claims, but President Reagan refused to follow the rule of law and cancelled the Indian claims.
        South African and Soviet Union leaders taunted President Reagan by stating the United States maintained white apartheid territories on Indian reservations. Imagine that! In the past 35 years I have used my efforts to bring a measure of justice for both of my great-grandmothers robbed by the border-whites on the Blackfeet Reservation who established Glacier and Pondera Counties on stolen Blackfeet lands. I found records of government complicity in the forced fee patents claims and evidence of genocides of hundreds of Blackfeet landowners frozen in the agency jail when they refused to sign the forced patents to sell their lands. while the county officials and whites filed liens on the Indian lands in county courts where the Indians could not defend their property. People think the Indians were backward as President Reagan called Indians in Moscow when Russian students asked about his ill treatment of Indians, but he did not mention the pending Indian land claims. Nobody in the world is fooled by the empty rhetoric of the United States, but who is going to confront the bully of the world. There are treaty protests of the Blackfeet Indians to Congress beginning in 1870 when the Indian women and children were massacred by the United States army instigated by lies of Montana border-whites to force Indian land cessions. We can back up no further with our backs to the Rocky Mountains and Canada on the north, Montana on the south and east, where do we go from here. The United States is in violation of the United Nations Security Council Genocide Convention and the International Criminal Court but we, the Indian victims, cannot reach the United Nations Justice. There are 17,000 original forced patents cases robbing 100 million acres of Indian land by the border-whites and their white apartheid territories called "reservation/counties" on Indian reservations. Congress passed legislation forcing Indian tribes into state courts to settle water rights, and to extinguish all past, present, and future Indian claims, forever in the water compacts. In this way apartheid will be a permanent parasite on the Indians, forever. I welcome any legal assistance to prepare a human rights case to present to the United Nations Genocide Court and the International Criminal Court to prosecute the border-whites and states and corporations who got away with genocide in America. I have the documented evidence, I need the legal help to proceed to international courts since we won in federal courts and in Congress but Reagan struck us down and the water compacts extinguish all of our century old claims. Please read, THE SACRED BUFFALO VISION, available on Amazon.Com a history of genocide of the Blackfeet people. Bob Juneau Sr.