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.