The Bureau of Indian Affairs and Blackfeet Tribal Business
Council land leases defraud individual Indian landowners of the value of
allotted grazing and farm lands by approving leases of $5 per acre to Blackfeet
leasers; who sub-lease hundreds of trust allotments for hundreds of thousands
of dollars to white ranchers. That is why your Individual Indian Money Account
is always broke! Your lease money, accrued to your personal property, managed
under the trusteeship of the Secretary of the Interior, Rian Zinke, is being diverted
by the tribal council and BIA employees to Blackfeet middlemen who sub-lease to
white operators and pocket the money your trust allotment earned while the
landowner gets $5 per acre lease payment. It is a violation of the constitution
and the federal laws protecting Indian property, theft from a tribal
organization is a federal felony. It is no wonder we landowners are always
broke and the tribal politicians and BIA employees are so rich and fat leasing
tribal and allotted lands. Some of these are tribal political families and many
are related in the BIA agency and tribal government, but all of them are
enrolled Blackfeet Indians subject to tribal and federal laws. There are
practically none of the old time Blackfeet ranch families still ranching
because they get no support from the BIA or tribal council, who are colluding
to enrich themselves and the white man on our tribal and allotted lands. The
white man is rich! For instance, Pondera county has 542 farms, and 944,486
acres in farmlands; crop sales of $48,379,000; livestock sales of $26,730,000;
and $9,108,000 in federal government agriculture department subsidy payments.
TOTAL MARKET VALUE OF PRODUCTS SOLD IN PONDERA COUNTY-$75,108,000. In GLACIER
COUNTY there are over 500 farms & ranches, over 900,000 acres of land in
farms & ranches; crop & livestock sales of $61,000,000; and over $7,000,000
in federal government subsidy payments to white farmers & ranchers. TOTAL
MARKET VALUE OF PRODUCTS SOLD IN GLACIER COUNTY-$67,000,000. The average farmer
market value of products sold is $138,576, and each farmer collects an average
of government subsidy payments of $23,819. INDIVIDUAL COUNTY FARMER OF PRODUCTS
SOLD-$168,385. Glacier County farmers and ranchers profit three and one half times
the average of neighboring counties because of its location coincident to the
Blackfeet Indian Reservation and the cheap leasing of Blackfeet tribal and
allotted lands. CROPS AND LIVESTOCK ITEMS SOLD IN GLACIER AND PONDERA COUNTIES:
grains, oil seeds, dry beans and peas, potatoes, sweet potatoes, hay, cut
Christmas trees, poultry and chickens, cattle and calves, milk and dairy
products, hogs and pigs, sheep and goats, horses, burros, mules, aquaculture,
animal products, wheat for grain, barley for grain, forage for hay &
grasslands, layers, pullets, broilers and meat type chickens, turkeys. A
farming colony recently signed a $38,000,000 contract to produce organic
“free-range” chicken eggs to a national grocery food chain store. The Blackfeet
ranchers and farmers, and dairy producers, are nearly all gone and with them
goes our endangered ranch families, and our self-reliant cattle industry,
successful by 1893 with over 500 Blackfeet cattle ranchers, 25,000 head of
cattle, cash for all needful things, groceries equipment, supplies, rations,
and the people were well-fed, well-housed, successful, self-reliant ranch
families. The success of the Blackfeet ranchers is recognized in the 1896
Agreement/Article Five, which reserves tribal grazing lands for the exclusive
use and occupancy of the Blackfeet Indians. Chief White Calf protested the
government making the Blackfeet Reservation into a “white man’s cow pasture.” The
lease policy of the BIA and tribal council allows white ranchers & farmers to
profit on our trust lands. It is a system of economic apartheid whereby
Blackfeet landowners, ranchers, farmers, dairy producers, egg producers etc. are
kept out of the ranch and farm economy. I have requested a Secretarial Review
of Blackfeet Agency, Bureau of Indian Affairs Lease Policy. E-Mail protests to
Rian Zinke, Secretary of the Interior.Gov., Request an investigation of the Bureau
of Indian Affairs, Blackfeet Agency, Lease Policy.
