Blackfeet Trust Landowners request Investigation

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.