ECONOMIC-APARTHEID WAS CREATED ON INDIAN RESERVATIONS BY CONGRESS

ECONOMIC-APARTHEID WAS CREATED ON INDIAN RESERVATIONS BY CONGRESS

In 1979 the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, Forrest Gerard, testified under oath to the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs that: The Department of the Interior has identified approximately 17,000 individual Indian land claims on Indian reservations across the United States, and there would be a suit against the United States Government by the federal trustee [Secretary of the Interior] on behalf of its Indian wards, creating the “public spectacle” of the United States suing itself on behalf of its treaty Indians. President Reagan was taunted in Russia for maintaining white apartheid systems on Indian reservations and the South African leaders called him to account for the reservation “townships” created by Congress and the western states of a minority of white landowners robbery of productive Indian lands and the establishment of “reservation/county” territories on Indian reservations sucking the wealth from Indian reservation economies. The reservation/county is still in existence today and is protected by western states congressmen and eastern states legislators as the source of Wall Street wealth in processing resources from under Indian lands. Today it is water that is the big prize for Wall Street firms and investors who lobby Congress to get access to Indian water rights without consulting Indian landowners. In time I suppose the Indians will bring suit and the United States will pay century old prices for stealing Indian water rights and corporate interests will gains billions of dollars worth of Indian water resources. There is no plan to pay market value for Indian water resources, nor were Indian landowners consulted prior to approving water compacts with states to transfer Indian water to use of states and corporations. Can you imagine the worth of 17,000 Indian land claims to water rights on Indian reservations to millions of acres of land in today’s prices for water markets globally? Overnight the Indians would be and should be as rich as any Saudi Arabian oil company. Individual Indian claimants do not have the personal resources to identify, research, and prosecute their own claims. The federal trustee, Secretary of the Interior maintains Indian land records, survey maps, contracts, and original allotment documents. There is a room in the Bureau of Indian Affairs building at the Blackfeet Agency where the documents are stored and ready for prosecution whenever the United States Government decides it is time to provide a measure of justice to treaty Indians and restore their family lands robbed by the United States Government. The Sampsel Report is a disgusting example of the racism and neglect of the federal government in protecting Indian lands and resources held by treaty with the United States that date back to 1855. The Sampsel Report tossed out 17,000 Indian land claims and was prepared by Secretary of the Interior James Watt, who called Indian reservations examples of socialism. President Reagan called the Indian people “backward” and a Montana senator called the Indians “Prairie niggers” and entertained his fellow rednecks with racist stories and jokes. Senator Cohen of Maine noted: “If the Reagan Administration is allowed to succeed in their plan as set out in the Sampsel Report, the remainder of 17,000 Indian claims will be willed out of existence by the Interior and Justice Departments. “ Senator Cohen stated in the Hearings Before the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs, “I do not agree with the conclusion of the Department of the Interior in its communication to this committee on June 25 that legislation to address Old-Age Assistance category of claims [whereby county welfare officials helped to rob elderly Indian women of their trust lands as a prerequisite to receiving welfare] will bring the Government into substantial compliance with public law 96-217, Section 2; that the Department of the Interior in consultation with the Department of Justice to submit to Congress legislative proposals to resolve these outstanding Indian claims. A decision to waive a claim for damages on the grounds that the claim for title to the land is not barred does not do justice to either the Indian claimant or the non-Indian who is occupying the land in good faith and under color of title. A decision to administratively resolve rights-of-way claims in a manner that waives a claim for past damages without notification to the Indian whose claim is affected does not reflect the good faith owed by the trustee. A waiver of past damages on water rights claims and claims for degradation of the environment resulting in destruction of fish stocks will almost certainly adversely affect the bargaining position of the United States and the tribes in attempting to reach settlement of these claims. I feel the dispositions that have been made by the Department of the Interior and Department of Justice falls far short of the intent of Congress in enacting Public Law 96-217, Section 2.”

The Blackfeet land claims were originally brought by Blackfeet Chiefs Wolf Plume, Young Man Chief, Black Weasel and Robert Hamilton, interpreter and lawyer for the Blackfeet Tribe before Congress in 1933. Robert Hamilton stated to Congress; “In view of the principles enunciated and adopted by your highest judicial tribunals, the fact cannot be questioned that the Blackfeet Indians have been unconstitutionally and unconscionably denied their vested rights under the treaty of 1855, Executive Orders and acts of Congress of 1873 and 1874, and that the Government of the United States is answerable therefore. 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 on which grounds of good faith and fair dealing cannot be defended. Horatio Seymour, a great apostle of democracy, in regard to the treatment of the Indians, once said, “Every human being born upon our continent, or who comes 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 courts for their rights of person and property, all save our native Indians, who, above all, should be protected from wrong.” So, gentlemen of the Congress, we, the Blackfeet Indians, strongly protest the opening of any part of our reservation because it would be a mistake. Therefore we ask that the Blackfeet be permitted to hold these lands intact-the agricultural-coal lands- oil & gas-grazing- water resources will give us a chance to live.” Instead of upholding the treaty promises made to the Blackfeet Indians by an act of Congress, the United States Government has made itself a defendant in the Indian land claims. The Blackfeet people are suffering “Slow-Death Measures” genocide whereby the Indian land frauds led directly to lack of proper housing, food, shelter, medical care, income, jobs, looting of tribal resources by corporations, and early deaths of Indians compared to white citizens.

Psychologist Dr. Duran says the Indians suffer from psychological problems related to the conquest, “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 which is at the core of much of the suffering that indigenous peoples have undergone for several centuries. The soul wound is a common thread that weaves across much of the pain and suffering found in the Native American communities across the United States. The common thread image which became most binding and meaningful to the author and some of the other professional people working in other Native American communities is the concept called “soul wound.”

As for myself, I have fought all of my adult life for the return of my great-grandmothers lands stolen by the local border-whites and Bureau of Indian Affairs. I have brought our land claims to Congress and lobbied the Senate Indian Affairs Committee since 1980 to no good. I must apologize to my grandma’s for failing them in my quest to get justice for them. I have no excuse. Bob Juneau Sr.

BOOK REVIEW, ‘THE SACRED BUFFALO VISION’ AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM.

BOOK REVIEW, ‘THE SACRED BUFFALO VISION’ AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM.

I am a Blackfoot Indian, a veteran, and an American patriot who believes the subjugation of all Americans is today’s reality wrought by corporate rule over the economy and the political systems. The roots of Blackfoot sorrow go deep into American history. The Sacred Buffalo Vision is an account of the courage and intelligence of the Blackfeet people, who are holocaust survivors. United States Indian Agent Henry Reed wrote in 1862, “There are many whites who are here and throughout the mountains because they cannot be tolerated in any civilized society. They need care and attention.” Agent George B. Wright wrote in 1866, “A party of eleven Piegans [Blackfeet] desirous of crossing over to the Benten side was seen, whereupon a body of twenty whites, residents of Fort Benton, and returning miners to the States, ran up to the bend in the river, and as the Indians touched the shore, these men fired into them, wounding three and killing six. The Indians left for the opposite shore, leaving the dead ones who were immediately scalped for the $50 bounty on Indian scalps. It might be argued that in a repetition of Indian wars, the race would not only in name, but in fact, be exterminated, and there would be no further need for agents or agency buildings. Yet, practically it would meet with embarrassments, for experience has thus far proven, unless there be an uprising of the people, sanctioned by Congress, the Indian would maintain his existence and the tradition of his death in Montana Territory would seem an absurdity.” The small pox epidemics, massacres, whiskey trade, starvation and famine caused by extermination of tribal buffalo herds could not exterminate the Indians. Father Scollen wrote in 1884, “Formerly, they had been the most opulent Indians in the country, now they walked without horses, clothed in rags, as the survivors of the small pox epidemics, massacre, and famine went more and more for the use of alcohol to drown their grief in the poisonous beverage, sold their horses and robes for whiskey and had begun Killing each other under the influence of whiskey.” Agent Young wrote in 1886, “The starvation of the Indians should make this nation blush with shame. The Indian tents contained food in only two, all bore the marks of suffering, but the little children seemed to suffer most; so emaciated it did not seem possible for them to live long, and many have passed away. The rations last for two days, barely, the rest of the week the people live on wild berries and air, until Friday evening when the Indians flock to the stockade to receive the entrails of the beeves butchered for Saturday issue of beef, and most disgusting contests occur for possession of entrails. Their physical appearance is that of a slowly starving people.” Inspector Howard reported, “It was my first experience witnessing actual starvation, yet the cattle herds of white men were trespassing on the ground owned by these Indians, and could be seen and heard but these Texas cattle kings would not sell any beef to the agency to relieve the Indians suffering.” The agency “pimp” trader S.P. Horr was found to be operating a brothel at the store, admitting squaws to the store at night to trade sex for food for their starving children. The Sacred Buffalo Vision is a story of a treaty people entrusted to the care of the United States Government and robbed and abused by officers of the government, corporations, and border-whites. It is also a story of intelligence in securing a place in American politics that defies the age old savage stereotype promoted by those who exploit. I fear the rest of Americans are caught in the political-corporate trap that robs the labor of mankind for not a living wage but a starving wage and a slow death type of genocide of the spirit and body. The Blackfeet Indians live in poverty, but it is a poverty that is built into the fabric of America, insoluble.  I fear separation of corporate oligarchs from Congress is more important than separation of church and state. The history of the Blackfeet people may be the future of the American people-more poverty.

WHY DO MAJORITY OF BLACKFEET PEOPLE SUFFER INSULAR POVERTY?

WHY DO MAJORITY OF BLACKFEET PEOPLE SUFFER INSULAR POVERTY?

The causes of Blackfeet poverty are characteristics of “insular poverty” which is defined by economist J.K. Galbraith as “forces, common to all members of the community, which restrain or prevent participation in economic life at going rates of return.” The majority of Blackfeet people have become “islands of poverty” amidst general prosperity. The people are “frustrated by some factor common to their environment.” The Blackfeet reservation has the “best grazing lands in the state of Montana” and is a well watered land with timber reserves, oil & gas reserves, millions of tourists passing through Browning, who spend $168,000,000 each summer, and the reservation receives $192,000,000 in federal treaty obligation money for tribal government, public schools, BIA and IHS, but still poverty remains, and it is growing. The Blackfeet people live in a shared sense of hopelessness as the tribal council has resisted every attempt at reform of tribal government, including a forensic audit that showed corruption in tribal council expenditures of tribal and federal poverty funds. This is why the people live in rural slums. The resulting demoralization causes disintegration of family life exhibited in the drug and alcohol abuse among the youth and young families causing the grandparents to raise their grandchildren. There were over 90 deaths since January, and even facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg noticed the poverty of the Indians and pointed to local corruption as the cause of tribal poverty. Think of the $192,000,000 of federal and tribal dollars lost to corruption in tribal government. The truth is that the tribal poor are the product of the political families who control tribal council elections, and see the tribal poor as “gold” in maintaining the poor in “mining federal poverty grants”. I had an investment firm meet with the tribal council, who told the tribal council the Blackfeet Tribe should be producing revenues of $500,000,000 per year on resources, and the tribal council said, “that would look bad when we go for our poverty grants.” There could be a billion dollars of federal poverty grants and there would still be a majority of tribal poor. HOW DOES THE BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS ROB THE BLACKFEET LANDOWNERS? The Blackfeet agency lease policy for the “best grazing lands in Montana” are leased for $5 per acre which violates every guideline of the Interior Department for leasing public lands. Yet the local BIA, who are enrolled Blackfeet members, require no public bidding for the allotted lands, no automatic renegotiations clauses in raising the lease fees, no percentage of revenues produced by allotted lands, and a system of collusion between the tribal council-BIA-and third party Blackfeet lessees who defraud the allottee trust landowners of millions of dollars every year. The drought is causing a rise in the value of grazing lands to the highest prices for the “best grazing lands in Montana” but the owners of those lands, Blackfeet allottees, will not profit from their own lands because it is a crooked leasing system. We have met the enemy and it is our Blackfeet Agency Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council, all enrolled members of the Blackfeet Tribe. That is a fact! The Blackfeet landowners need to E-Mail Department of the Interior Ryan Zinke to investigate the criminal conspiracy conducted by the BIA officers to defraud the Blackfeet trust property owners of their lease money. We are helpless under the tribal council dictatorship, but President Trump would love to prosecute Indian crooks, since he hates the Indians. Attorney General Sessions will bring federal investigations if we demand justice. I have already E-Mailed Secretary Zinke about BIA corruption at the Blackfeet Agency and so should you if you want to end the poverty of the Blackfeet people. Our water rights are the next to be stolen if we sit back and let the same tribal council and BIA collude to defraud us of billions of dollars in allottee water marketing leases. The saying, “if it is to be, it is up to me” IS THE TRUTH!! Bob Juneau Sr. a Blackfeet patriot.

FOLLOW THE MONEY, CATCH THE CROOKS, SEND THEM TO PRISON

FOLLOW THE MONEY, CATCH THE CROOKS, SEND THEM TO PRISON

In Glacier county there are over 500 farmers & ranchers who generate revenues of $67,000,000 while in Pondera county there are over 500 farmers & ranchers who generate $75,000,000 in sales of cows & crops with another $15,000,000 in federal subsidies. The Blackfeet ranch families have been destroyed by the tribal council and Bureau of Indian Affairs criminal conspiracy to lease and sub-lease tribal and allotted lands to white men through third-party Blackfeet fronts who use tribal preference to lease up tribal and allotted lands and sub-lease to white ranchers while trust landowners get $5 per acre. Chief White Calf went to Washington D.C. and protested the government turning the reservation into a “white man’s cow pasture” and ended leasing to white men in the 1896 Agreement/Article Five which reserves tribal grazing lands for the “exclusive use and occupancy of Blackfeet cattle ranchers.” In 1896 there were 500 tribal brands and the Blackfeet Indians owned 25,000 cattle, shipping steers to Chicago Stockyards, and had cash for all needful things, as well as equipment and supplies. The people were self-sufficient by cattle ranching while tribal members got cash for leasing their lands to Blackfeet ranchers. “Citizenship of cattle” is the issue and the key to developing the Blackfeet cattle industry in a full market integration of processing beef in plants owned by the cattle ranchers and trust landowners and selling “choice cuts of beef” to special markets to gain the highest return on investment. That means the development of a Blackfeet Cattle Ranchers Association as required by the constitution and charter under the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act requirement to “cut out the [white] middleman” from exploiting the vast grasslands of the reservation. In 1910 the Bureau of Indian Affairs leased the entire St. Mary Valley for ten cents an acre to James J. Hill, owner of the Great Northern Railway, while agency trader Joe Sherburne robbed the Monroe teenage sisters of their allotments that make up the township of St. Mary Village and a right-of-way from the highway to the entrance to Glacier Park. The Blackfeet ranchers and trust landowners live under an economic apartheid system created by tribal politicians and Bureau of Indian Affairs officers. Freedom to the old time Blackfeet Indians was to avoid white rule on the reservation. The tribal constitution allows the people to vote in tribal elections but denies civil liberties in tribal courts allowing tribal council members to rob with impunity. It is a federal felony to defraud trust landowners of their revenues managed in individual Indian Money Accounts by the Bureau of Indian Affairs that are diverted to the perpetrators of this massive lease fraud. In economic terms, the tribal council has reversed the economic gains made by Blackfeet cattle ranchers by 1896. The tribe and allotted landowners “profit” for leasing their lands under this fraudulent leasing system is ½ of one percent while third-party Blackfeet fronts and white men get the remaining 99 and ½ percent of revenues generated by allotted lands and tribal lands under the current lease policy of the Blackfeet Agency, Bureau of Indian Affairs. That is a fraud upon the Blackfeet people and trust landowners.

Bob Juneau Sr. Blackfeet patriot