BLACKFEET RANCHERS & LANDOWNERS REMAIN POOR UNDER WATER COMPACT SETTLEMENT

In the past century the Park Saddle Horse Company owned by James J. Hill owner of the Great Northern Railway leased the entire St. Mary Valley for ten cents an acre ruining hundreds of Blackfeet cattle ranchers operations grazing reserved tribal lands in the 1896 Agreement. The Portland Land & Cattle Company owned by the meat trust Swift & Armor conspired with agency trader Joe Sherburne and county attorney to forge hundreds of Blackfeet allotted land titles in complicity with federal agency Indian Bureau officers approved by the Secretary of the Interior of Indian land titles transferred to white men in county courts by void patent-in-fee titles which now make up the land base of Glacier and Pondera counties within reservation boundaries. These are the allotted land claims that will be extinguished, forever, if the Blackfeet vote to approve the water compact in April, 2017. There is no money in the compact to "make whole" Blackfeet heirs to original allottees robbed by the BIA and white men or to re-establish the self-reliant Blackfeet cattle industry. It is a gross insult to our ancestors murdered by the hundreds by Joe Sherburne and the Hills et al for their land. In 1979 the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs testified to Congress that the United States Government would have to sue itself on behalf of the Indian wards who they robbed, a public spectacle of government sponsored murders of Blackfeet landowners. The tribal council, Indian crooks, corporations, companies and the United States are defendants in the forced patents cases, so that is why the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council, federal and state governments are so in a hurry to extinguish the allotted claims of the Blackfeet landowners and cattle ranchers. The Blackfeet ranchers who work their own land and whose income comes from selling cattle are rare because they are squeezed out by the BIA and tribal council lease policy of third-party Blackfeet who sub-lease to white ranchers who profit $67,000,000 while the Blackfeet cannot stay in business. Blackfeet trust landowners lands are leased for $5 per acre to third-party leasers who sub-lease to white ranchers who get the profit from our reserved grazing lands. Think of yourself! What do you get out of the water compact? Did any tribal or BIA official ever ask you what you want out of your land and water resources? They are there to serve your interests not the white man's interests. I think we should vote no on the water compact and elect a tribal council that will follow the treaty and protect our interests instead of the white man. I propose a payout of $50,000,000 per capita payment, a $50,000,000 payout to Blackfeet cattle ranchers and a $50,000,000 payout to allotted landowners to improve their trust lands and build a business enterprise and cooperative to capture the profits for ourselves. We need a meat-packing plant and food processing manufacturing to sell grass-fed, free-range beef products to global markets, as well as bottled water, and food processing plants to create jobs for tribal members on the reservation. Let us get rich instead of the white man on our own reservation! The tribal council is looking to get rich and piss away our money, that is their history, it is true. I have zero faith in their ability to carry out any type of economic program that they do not end up robbing and bankrupt the tribe. I think this is our last chance to get back on our feet, off our knees to the council and white man, after all it is we, the people, who own the reservation by the allotment. Go to the meetings and ask the tribal council who will help the Indian landowners and poor to develop?Bob Juneau Sr. There is no plan in the water compact to help the cattle ranchers or landowners.