In 1934 the Blackfeet Chiefs met with Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier at the Indian Congress to discuss adopting a tribal constitution and charter. The commissioner stressed the bill in Congress, Wheeler-Howard Act intent was "To cut out the middleman's profits" meaning the white ranchers leasing tribal and allotted lands through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The tribal constitution and charter mandate was to establish a Blackfeet cattle ranchers association and an arts & crafts association for traditional Blackfeet to sell to tourists in Glacier Park. The first Blackfeet Tribal Business Council was elected in 1936 with 13 members and ten of the council members had incomes over $100,000 while chairman Wright Hagerty had an income over $500,000 in his first term of office by leasing tribal oil rights to Louis Hill owner of the Great Northern Railway. That is $1.5 million to tribal council members under the "Preference Clause" of the Blackfeet Constitution in 1936 and it has gotten worse until today we have a communist style tribal council that has made us poor and oppressed. Did Joe McKay advocate extinguishing the preference clause for elected tribal council members in his constitutional reform, or offer to return the McKay 100 year lease of the west end of Browning that still has 60 years to run or council members advocate ending sub-leases to white men of tribal grazing and farm lands as outlawed in the Wheeler-Howard Act? What will these politicians do with $470 million of water compact money? There is nothing in the water compact for traditional Blackfeet or cattle ranchers or to fund the credit program to loan money to individual business owners. All you see in their leaflet is tribal council initiatives and nothing for allotted landowners or traditional business enterprises. It is a plan to reduce us all to tribal serfs as we are today. The tribal charters were supposed to be organized for tribal communities and districts for self-government, and establish credit unions for tribal districts. The tribal council members feared Blackfeet cattle ranchers association and arts & crafts association would put tribal political families out of business exploiting tribal money. Instead of developing individual cattle ranching operations Wright Hagerty developed a million dollar ranch for himself and eight tribal council members owned all the cattle in partners with white ranchers. Today, we have a communistic style tribal council that owns all tribal enterprises and reduces tribal members to minimum wage slaves of Sayeh Corporation. The implied threat in the leaflet mailed to tribal members is that the tribe will lose $470 million if the water compact is rejected by tribal voters in April, 2017. The Blackfeet claim losses are $1.6 billion dollars for stolen allotted lands and a billion dollar loss of tribal oil rights due to tribal council embezzlements with oil companies. The water compact extinguishes all past, present, and future Blackfeet claims, forever! How do they know there will not be embezzlements in the future? We have had nothing but stolen tribal property by white men in complicity with the tribal council for 81 years now. We are giving up our treaty rights and trust property to a water board made of state, federal, and tribal council representatives. Where is the Blackfeet cattle ranchers and traditional crafts associations representatives? I do not want the tribal council to have authority over my allotted lands or water rights! The Secretary of the Interior is vested by Congress to carry out our treaty rights and water rights, and if we go to state court the Attorney General and Senate Indian Affairs Committee will fulfill our treaty rights. That is the law! Any unlawful decision made in state court will be appealed to federal court where treaty rights are superior to state laws. That is our Treaty rights! Vote no on the tribal water compact, please! trust landowners know the fault of tribal poverty lies in the council.
Bob Juneau Sr. let us meet and discuss our allotted landowners issues before we vote on the compact.
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