LARGEST INDIAN LAND SWINDLE IN THE UNITED STATES

The Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs in S. 2222 to extend the statute of limitations for commencing actions on behalf of an Indian tribe, band or group, or on behalf of an individual Indian whose land is held in trust or restricted status. Funding of Statue of Limitations Project (2415 Project) was not included in the President's budget for fiscal year 1979 but Congress provided $6 million for this project for fiscal year 1980. In January of 1979, the Bureau of Indian Affairs had identified approximately 700 cases, but after contracting with Legal Services Agency and the All Indian Pueblo Council to conduct independent research on outstanding claims led to quantum leap in the number of cases to 9,500 cases. BIA thought there might be an additional 5,800 outstanding Indian land claims which has grown to in excess of 17,000 claims on Indian reservations nationwide. The number and nature of the potential claims identified in Committee hearings involve large numbers of "forced fee" cases involving individually owned trust allotments in which the Department of the Interior issued fee patents to Indian land without the consent or approval of the Indian owner, thus subjecting the property to state and local taxation, exposing the property to debt foreclosures or freeing it for sale without requirement of Secretarial consent. Many other claims arise from trespass over Indian owned property by utility companies or state or local governments. There are claims for improper pumping or diversion of water and significant claims for extraction of mineral resources. Individual Indians may have meritorious claims on large numbers of allotments, title to which may have been unlawfully acquired. Old Age Assistance claims in which tribal elders were forced to sell trust property to white men as a prerequisite to receiving welfare assistance by state and county government. Environmental damage claims arising from leasing of Indian lands in extractive industries and water rights claims from pollution of fish stocks and Indian waters.
STATEMENT OF FORREST GERARD, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR INDIAN AFFAIRS
 Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, it is a pleasure to appear before you to discuss matters relating to the statute of limitations program. Our plans called for an all out search for unidentified claims and referral of all worthwhile claims to the Justice Department no later than November 30, 1979, they needed four months to prepare and file the claims in court. The all out search was conducted in the summer of 1979, by the end of summer we had potential claims of over 4,500 and by December of 1979 the number of identified potential claims climbed to a grand total of 9,768. Our search experience leads us to believe that another 5,000 or more identifiable claims in the field may not yet be inventoried. Our claims program has affected a significant number of our citizens in this country. In many instances hardships may result as a result of our suits. In many of these claims we are dealing with regaining title to property under circumstances in which defendants are holding void titles. The title issues in these claims are not subject to the statute of limitations as are the tort issues. Many prospective defendants are Indians [tribal council members and BIA officials]. Other defendants are immune to suit such as Indian Tribes and the Federal Government. Some defendants are corporate entities. A great many of Indian claimants are heirs of deceased allottees or trust patentees. We are unable to locate many of them. The United States Government has a [trust] responsibility to them just as it does to recognized tribes, bands, or groups. The eastern land claims and smaller land title cases have tort damage aspects subject to the statute of limitations. These claims are included in our claims program.
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT BARS INDIAN TORT CLAIMS ON STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS
President Reagan stonewalled the Indian Money Damage Claims under the 2415 Indian Claims Program tossing out 17,000 unresolved Indian land claims defying federal court decisions and Public Law 96-217, Section 2, which he signed into law enacted by Congress ordering the swift and just completion of the ancient Indian land claims, a historical injustice. Congress passed laws in the 2415 Indian claims program as follows: (c) Nothing herein shall be deemed to limit the time for bringing an action to establish the title to, or right of possession of, real or personal property.
BLACKFEET WATER COMPACT SETTLEMENT ACT EXTINGUISHES INDIAN TITLES
The Blackfeet Tribal Business Council approved the water compact in 2009 despite our protests that it would extinguish our allotted land claims for forced patents and other claims mentioned above to get our allotted lands returned from white men void patent in fee titles forgeries in state and county courts and $300 million in just compensation. VOTE NO ON THE WATER COMPACT, IT IS A FORGERY AND CRIMINAL ACT BY THE TRIBAL COUNCIL AND BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS TO DEFRAUD US OF OUR ALLOTTED LANDS. Bob Juneau Sr. Blackfeet patriot  

United States Lawsuit Cancels Forced Patents in 1944; Decision No. 2947

In the District Court of the United States In And For The District of Montana, U.S., Plaintiff, v. Glacier County, et al, Defendants, Judge Pray Ruled; This is a suit in equity submitted to the court upon stipulation of counsel and documentary evidence. The facts may be briefly stated, likewise the theories of counsel for the respective parties. The lands of the [Blackfeet] Indian wards were described in the complaint are situated on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, were to be held by the United States under trust patents in favor of the Indians named therein for the period of twenty-five years and were to be free from taxation during that period. It appears that within two years after the issuance of these trust patents the government, under a statute hereinafter referred to, issued patents in fee to the Indians without any application therefor by the Indians and without their consent. Thereafter the lands were listed for taxation in Glacier County and the Indian owners were required to pay taxes. Some of the Indians defaulted in the payment of taxes and later the county obtained tax titles to their lands. Why the patents in fee were issued in such numbers and under such circumstances before two years of the trust period had expired does not clearly appear [forced patents conspiracy]. However, all of these patents in fee were later cancelled under the acts of Congress of Feb. 26, 1927 and of Feb. 21, 1931. The government contends that upon the issuance of the trust patents the Indians acquired vested rights to tax free lands for the period of the trust which could not be destroyed or impaired under the forgoing state of facts in any improvident or unauthorized manner, and that consequently the government is entitled to reimbursement on behalf of the Indians for the taxes collected. It is quite evident from the citations contained in complainants brief that the Indians lands were to be held for the Indians during that period, and that such period might be extended in the discretion of the President; and that any deed or contract for the conveyance of these lands during that time would be "absolutely null and void" It was well said by the Attorney General of the United States in 1888 "that the allotment lands provided for in the Act of 1887 are exempt from state or territorial taxation." That the lands covered by the act are held by the United States for the period of twenty-five years in trust for the Indians, such trust being an agency for the exercise of a federal power, and therefore outside the province of state or territorial authority." No authority exists for the state to tax lands which are held in trust for the purpose of carrying out its policy in reference to these Indians. There is no reason why the court should not hold here, as it has held heretofore, when the same question in substance has been presented, that the Indians possessed the right to have his lands free from state taxation for the period expressed in the patent, and that no act of Congress could disturb that right. Let a decree be entered as prayed for in the bill and in accordance  with the views of the court, to include the substance of the stipulation referred to in the complainants brief. Judge Pray, 1944
CHAIRMAN JOHN SHARP, BLACKFEET TRIBAL BUSINESS COUNCIL, SEPT. 25, 1944
Letter to Hon. James F. O'Connor, House of Representatives, Washington D.C.
Dear Sir: Patents in fee were issued to Indians as early as 1918, in many cases the Indian not knowing of the issuance of the patent in fee of his allotment. They were advised that they must accept the patent from the office of the Indian Bureau and whether or not they accepted the patent, the taxes must be paid. This procedure was promoted by white traders on the reservation to put the Indians landless. Many of these are valuable oil lands, one tract was taken from the Indian for a $2,000 mortgage and tax and produced $3,000,000 in oil revenues for the white man. Louis Hill of the Great Northern Railway was one of the major lessees through his lobbyists in Washington D.C. was able to get the Milk River Anticline, the most promising oil structure on the reservation patented in fee through the Indian Bureau. We find 275,578 acres alienated to white men by the issuance of fee patents to Indians and subsequently stolen by white men. We, the Blackfeet Indians, feel our lands remain in trust forever.
John Sharp, Chairman
Leo Kennerly, Councilman

FORGERY OF U.S. GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS ROBS THE INDIANS

Forgery is commonly used by criminals to authenticate false documents and land titles like the trust land titles of 17,000 trust patents of Indian allottees nationwide that were tossed in the trash can by President Reagan in 1983. Among the thousands of forced patents of individual Indian allottees are hundreds of Blackfeet landowners starved to death in 1918-1922 to "force" them to sign consent documents to transfer their land to border-whites in state courts in complicity with United States Government trustees of Indian property. In 1919 the Montana Legislature enacted land titles called Patent-in-Fees to transfer 605 Blackfeet landowners to border-whites in Glacier and Pondera counties created within the sovereign borders of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. These white-apartheid territories had neither the consent of the Indians nor the prior approval of Congress required by sacred treaties between the United States and Indian tribes. The white-apartheid nation of South Africa suffered economic sanctions until it ended apartheid with the release of Nelson Mandela but the state of Montana maintains white-apartheid territories called "reservation/counties" extending white rule over the Indians and maintaining jurisdiction over stolen Indian property held by treaty with the United States. The secretary of the Interior has approved the Blackfeet Water Compact Settlement Act which extinguishes all Blackfeet land claims including the forced patents of Blackfeet allotments, water rights, oil & gas, and resources stolen by border-whites and the state of Montana estimated worth of a billion dollars and 325,250 acres of the most productive lands of the Blackfeet reservation producing $67,000,000 in sales of cows and crops on former Blackfeet land allotments annually while the descendants of those original Blackfeet allottees live in poverty in tribal housing slums. It is a human rights issue. Our people never got a day in court or justice for over a century and the water compact extinguishes our claims, "forever." The 1896 Agreement reserves tribal grazing lands for the exclusive use and occupancy of Blackfeet cattle ranchers and Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 authorizes the Indians to form tribal cooperatives to "cut out the middleman" white ranchers who lease allotted lands for $5 per acre for the best grazing lands in the northwest. In the water compact free trade of the Indians is usurped by white landowners and border-towns awarded first right of refusal of any business deal consummated by Blackfeet landowners to market bottled water, beef, agricultural products to global markets. Chinese Government Purchasers were on the reservation offering to buy bottled water, beef, or any type of product produced by the Blackfeet Indians and called us Indians "relatives." Las Vegas Casinos are interested in our pure water resources flowing out of Glacier National Park, the last of millennium glacier water. The water compact subordinates our treaty rights to a group of border-whites who are in an illegal trespass on the reservation for over a century. It would only take a first year law student to win a massive tort claim against the state of Montana and the United States Government if Indians were not under white rule. Therefore, we must petition world nations and people to boycott Montana corporations and white ranchers and farmers who are responsible for this human rights violation. We, the Indian people, are not allowed to bring our grievances to the World Court, and remain under the trust of the secretary of the Interior. If the Indians do not get our stolen lands returned with just compensation for a century of loss of revenues, and are not allowed to sell Indian products in the global markets then why should white landowners and corporations be allowed access to global markets. We appeal for justice for a group of Indians who have not received justice in Congress or the courts of the United States and we are about to be annihilated economically for another century of starvation and epic poverty in the water compact forced upon us by the United States and state of Montana. In this world economy freedom equals "money power" and we have no money, it is stolen by white-apartheid in Montana and the United States of America. Bob Juneau Sr. Blackfeet patriot.

THE “BIG CLAIM” OF BLACKFEET FORCED PATENTS EXTINGUISHED BY WATER COMPACT IF APPROVED BY BLACKFEET VOTERS REFERENDUM

THE “BIG CLAIM” OF BLACKFEET FORCED PATENTS  EXTINGUISHED BY WATER COMPACT IF APPROVED BY BLACKFEET VOTERS REFERENDUM

Origins of Blackfeet Allotted Forced Fee Patents Fraud Conspiracy

Blackfeet Indian Reservation, July 26, 1926  

At the schoolhouse in Browning called to order by Robert Hamilton, Interpreter, and tribal lawyer for Blackfeet Chiefs White Calf, Wolf Plume, Black Weasel, Young Man Chief and others gathered in a general council meeting with Senate Indian Affairs Committee Investigator Mr. Walter W. Liggett with 300 Blackfeet trust landowners in attendance. Mr. Robert Hamilton then enumerated the following complaints, which he urged Mr. Liggett to investigate, 1. The right of the government to issue patent fee deeds to Indians when not requested by the Indians; also the right of state or local governments to tax such patent fees when issued until the trust period of 25 years has expired; the right of the federal government to assess irrigation project costs against Blackfeet Indian allotments. The irrigated lands constructed by $897,000 of tribal land cession money benefitted only white farmers. The Indians had requested the purchase of cattle for Blackfeet ranchers to restock their cattle herds stolen by white ranchers and Indian Bureau officials. 2. The interference of Supt. F. C. Campbell in the election of the Tribal Council and his disregard of recommendations on leasing and other matters made by the tribal council. 3. The Indians desire to know the extent of the tribal fund, how it is derived, and how expended. 4. The Indians desire to know the extent of the tribal herd and have an accounting of funds accruing from its sale of cattle and steers.

REPORT OF WALTER W. LIGGETT ON BLACKFEET INDIAN RESERVATION

            The Blackfeet Indians were allotted in 1912. Allotments were made of 320 acres to each Indian. Later, under the Act of June 30, 1919, each Indian was given an additional allotment of 80 acres to be held as a perpetual homestead, practically all of this was on irrigated lands and allotment was also made to all children born since 1912. This made a total allotment of 400 acres to each Indian in addition to inherited lands. Of the total of 1,486,874 acres on the reservation, 1,440,000 acres have been allotted; 2,634 acres set aside for school, agency, and township purposes; and 44,240 acres remain as tribal timber and grazing reserves. Approximately 760,000 acres still held by living Indians under trust patents; 470,000 acres now consist of deceased Indian lands administered by the Indian Bureau; and approximately 210,000 acres of land formerly owned by Indians has passed into the possession of white men after the Indians were granted fee patents.

INDIANS DEFRAUDED BY DELIBERATED CONSPIRACY:

In this connection it should be pointed out that a large proportion of this patent fee land in question consists of the most valuable acreage in the Blackfeet Reservation; that it was sold to a clique of covetous whites at absurdly low figures; and that furthermore scores of patent fees were issued to Indians without the Indians having made application for the same in clear violation of the law. In other words, I charge that a conspiracy existed between Horace G. Wilson, former superintendant, Stuart Hazlett, former lease clerk, and certain land seeking white men, whereby it was arranged to give patent-in-fees to certain Indians, and afterwards the white land buyers speedily obtained the land by more or less devious means. The principal beneficiary of this deliberate conspiracy was

Joseph L. Sherburne of the Sherburne Mercantile Company of Browning, Montana, who has acquired some 40,000 acres of former Indian owned land since coming to the Blackfeet Reservation. Testimony by at least a dozen reputable Indians is to the affect that former superintendent Horace G. Wilson, who later served a term in the Federal Penitentiary for bigamy the Indians were compelled to accept patents in fee for which they had not applied. Examination of the patents files shows no applications had been made by the Indians and is complete verification of their allegations.

In several cases, as soon as the patents had been issued, the above mentioned J. L. Sherburne induced the Indians to sign promissory notes or to mortgage their land for bills incurred at his general store. In some cases wives were induced to assume the debts incurred by husbands, or minor children were persuaded that the only honorable course was to mortgage their land to discharge obligations of their parents. In other cases the land was purchased outright. Many of the Indians who were given fee patents were ignorant, absolutely illiterate, and wholly incompetent to conduct their own affairs. In at least two cases fee patents were arbitrarily issued to Indians who were known to be mentally deficient by the superintendent when he approved the patent.

THE ROBBING OF A MENTALLY DEFICIENT YOUTH BY JOE SHERBURNE   

I refer specifically to the case of Peter Tail Feathers who was given a patent on June 15, 1920. At that time there was on file in the office of Supt. Wilson a report signed by the agency physician which showed that Peter Tail Feathers was crippled in one hand, partly paralyzed, had tuberculosis, was a chronic sufferer from epilepsy, and was officially classified on the reservation as an imbecile [feebleness of body and mind].

This unfortunate youth had land which had been appraised at $3,200. Soon after his patent was issued, he sold this land which was believed to contain oil and was exceptionally good hay land. This whole deal smells to high heaven and steps should be taken to prosecute those responsible for defrauding this youth, or, if that is impossible, the deed to the land should be cancelled. Certainly, some restitution should be made to this feeble-minded boy who was robbed by his sworn protectors. Every step of this transaction was conceived in fraud and carried out deliberately by men who were paid on the supposition they were guardians of this government ward.  

Interview of Peter Tail Feathers by Mr. Walter W. Liggett,  (He is crippled, practically paralyzed, subject to epileptic fits, cannot read or write and quite obviously is mentally defective. His speech and answers were so confused it was almost impossible to get a verbatim report of his testimony, but I summarized his story as I got it with the aid of several interpreters.). Peter Tail Feathers statement, “Mr. Campbell (Red Hair) forced me to accept a patent fee in 1919. I had an allotment near Heart Butte agency. I didn’t want the patent but they forced me to take it. They told me I had to accept it.”

It developed from questioning of others present that the [Pondera] county attorney, Horace W. Judson, prepared the papers and handed $300 in cash to this feebleminded boy and got his mark on a deed of sale. Joe Tatsey was a witness. It also appears that the land in question is located in township 20, range 9 and is not only exceptionally good hay land but is almost in the center of the oil pool revealed by geological survey maps of the Blackfeet Reservation. After the land was sold it was then purchased by a Kalispell banker named Johnson. One glance at Peter Tail Feathers is sufficient to reveal that he is on the border of imbecility and the very fact that that this boy was given a patent soon after his majority is proof positive that responsible agency officials were party to the plot to defraud him of his land. Most of these patents were issued from the period of 1918-1921 when F.C. Campbell, Horace G. Wilson and Thomas Powers acted as superintendents in rapid succession. Both Powers and Wilson were later dismissed from the Indian Service. Mr. Campbell is now superintendent at the Blackfeet Reservation. Stuart Hazlett, the lease clerk who made up the list of Indians recommended for patents by “Competency Commission” members Joe Sherburne, agency trader and Glacier county attorney C. E. Frisbee was dismissed from the Indian service. There is not doubt at all that scores of these patents were issued illegally to Indians incompetent in fact as well as in the eyes of the law. In nearly every case, the issuance of the patent meant that the Indian was defrauded of his land. It would seem that in all these cases where it is not possible to cancel the patents, that lieu land allotments be made to the Indians.”

METHODOLOGY OF FORCED PATENTS APPROVAL CONSPIRACY

Commissioner of Indian Affairs J. Scattergood letter, to Hon. Lynn Frazier, Chairman, Senate Committee to Investigate Indian Affairs, United States Senate, October 11, 1929:

My dear Senator:

            The receipt is acknowledged of your letter of October 5, 1929, asking that you be furnished with the names of the Supervisor and other officers who were responsible for the issuance of a patent in fee to Peter Tail Feathers, allottee No. 367 of the Blackfeet Reservation. Our records show that the report on the application of Peter Tail Feathers, recommending the issuance of the patent in fee to him was signed by H. G. Wilson, Supervisor in charge of the Blackfeet agency; that the papers in the case were forwarded to the Secretary of the Interior, with the recommendation that the application be approved, over the signature of C. F. Hauke, Chief Clerk of the Indian Service; and that the application was approved and the matter referred to the Commissioner of the General Land Office for issuance of patent in fee by S. G. Hopkins, Assistant Secretary of the Interior. Sincerely yours, J. Scattergood, Assistant Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

ROBBERY OF A BLACKFEET DEAD MAN BY PONDERA COUNTY AND BIA,

SECRETARIAL SALE OF LAND OF RICHARD AND ROSE GRANT’S SON, PATENT NO. 810 ½, PERRY GRANT, DECEASED BLACKFEET ALLOTTEE:

Blackfeet Agency, Browning, Montana, May 22, 1928,

Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Washington D.C.

Dear Sir: I desire to refer to patent No. 723579, issued December 11, 1919, to Richard and Rose Grant, covering the lands of Perry Grant, allottee No. 810 ½. The Office is advised that Richard and Rose Grant are the parents of Perry Grant, and each inherited a one-half interest in this estate. The records do not show the history of why this fee patent was issued to Richard and Rose Grant. No copy of an application filed by them appears in the records of either of these people, and Mr. Grant states that he did not make application for a fee patent to these lands. However, in this connection, I desire to call to the attention of the Commissioner, to a letter that was issued by the Indian Office under date of August 29, 1919, file reference L-S 64636-19 E.S.S., addressed to Superintendent Wilson, who was in charge of this reservation and which communication reads in part as follows, “This refers to your report on the application of Richard Grant, Blackfeet Reservation for a patent in fee covering the allotment of Perry Grant, deceased.” As stated above, I do not find a record which would show that Mr. Grant ever applied for a patent in fee, and do not find a copy of any report made by Supervisor Wilson. What makes these matters important at this time is the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Grant have never mortgaged these lands, have never sold them, or received any benefit from them whatsoever. They have failed, however, to pay taxes that are due, and the County Attorney is now asking for a tax deed. If the Office will kindly furnish me the information requested above as to whether or not the Office Records show any history of an application having been made, it will then be our plan to submit affidavits and other information necessary with the purpose in mind of obtaining the cancellation of this fee patent and the restoration of the land to a trust status. In the event that an application is found in the records, it is requested that the Indian Office furnish us with a photostatic copy of such application. Very respectfully, Forrest Stone, Acting Superintendent, Blackfeet Agency.

CUT BANK WHITES AND BIA STARVE 200 TRUST LANDOWNERS 1913-1922

Senator Lane of Oregon testified in 1915 to the Joint Commission to Investigate Indian Affairs, that, “with me it has been merely a matter of securing justice for a class of people whose affairs were, in a measure, intrusted to me to take care of for them. A while ago, Senator Walsh of Montana implied that the effort on the part of senators from other states to correct this injustice was intended as a personal affront to him. The lands of the Seville Unit are no doubt the most valuable on the reservation and could be made the basis for the self-support of many Blackfeet Indians for a long time to come if properly and wisely managed with that sole object in view. As it is now is, however, the Indians cannot use them and they do them no good, and because they do not use them, their non-use is used as an argument by whites to secure the consent of Congress to sell them to white people. There has been expended up to October 31, 1904, the sum of $942,413.58 on the Blackfeet irrigation project out of tribal funds, and it has been estimated by the Reclamation Service that $2,000,000 additional funds will be required to complete this irrigation project. The benefits derived to the Indians from this large expenditure of tribal money have been practically nil. The Indians asked me if I would protest against passage of this surplus land sale bill of Senator Walsh and the Commercial Clubs surrounding the reservation. They said if their lands had to be sold to keep them from starving, rather than starve to death, they would sell their lands, but they would prefer not to sell their lands if they could hold onto them. They were starving and were eating prairie dogs and skunks, if you please. Did you ever eat a skunk? It will keep you alive, but it is not good to eat. I said I would object to the bill for them, and that I would do so without prejudice to Senator Walsh of Montana. I would be a dog if I did not voice the objections of these poor folk. The senator from Montana had been on the reservation but a short time before I was there, but he did not go into the Indians homes, look into their grub boxes, or see how they lived. I did and that is the different point from which we view the subject. He has said that I hurt his feelings that I reported the awful conditions and that I objected to his bill; and the fact that I deemed it my duty to report the awful conditions of these Indians. These Indians are human beings. The white man might take a lesson in kindness from the Blackfeet Indians, he is a man who divides his food with you to the last bite and does it with no hope of reward. That is what has become of the cattle of the Blackfeet Indians. They are eating one another’s cattle and are now poor because they have been feeding their starving friends. Helen Clark, the well known Blackfoot woman, well educated, one of the finest women anywhere, told me that she had about forty head of cattle left and was feeding her fellow tribesmen who were starving. She could not bear to see them go that way while she had a hoof left. It takes a good woman to do that. What an example for us! The Indians held a council-Indians who were cold and destitute-and they objected to this bill. They asked that this bill not be allowed to pass. The effects of a starvation diet upon these Indians and the fact that they have been starved in the past and are still being starved has been called to the attention of this commission and the Indian Commissioner many times and that starvation is the primary though indirect cause of many deaths among them. Many little children are wearing old and worn out shoes, their bare feet seen through holes in the soles in the snow. The Indians fear they will be subjected to cruel treatment if they dare to make such complaints. The agency police threatened the Indians who testify on the conditions. They claim that afterwards they are blacklisted and discriminated against by government officials if they do so. All these poor fellows are trying to do is to make Congress understand their poor pitiable conditions.”  

ROBERT HAMILTON, WOLF PLUME, AND YOUNG MAN CHIEF ARRESTED

            Robert Hamilton, tribal interpreter and lawyer, testified to the Joint Commission to Investigate Indian Affairs. “On the 28^th of January, 1913, Oliver Sanderville, Young Man Chief, Wolf Plume and I were at the train station at Browning, which is on the reservation, ready to take the train to Washington D.C. when the agency police came and told us we could not go; that we were under arrest. I then stepped to the phone and asked Supt. McFatridge what he meant, and if we were under arrest by the agency police he had sent. He said we were under arrest. We were held at the agency office by McFatridge and his agency police until after the eastbound train had passed Browning. He told us repeatedly, “You fellows can’t go; I won’t let you go!” Once again, on January 30, 1913, Superintendent McFatridge had me arrested and returned to the reservation along with interpreter Oliver Sanderville, Chief Wolf Plume and Young Man Chief, upon the telegraphic order of Arthur E. McFatridge, at Cut Bank, a railroad town off the reservation. We were arrested by Deputy Sheriff Richards and agency employee Joseph W.  Brown; that this occurred on the night of January 30, 1913; that the Sheriff stopped us from boarding the eastbound train to Washington D.C. and told us we could not go any further and held us in jail overnight. The next morning McFatridge with the agency police and Joe Brown, took Blackfeet Chiefs Wolf Plume and Young Man Chief back to the agency, where he held them in custody in the agency jail and under the guard of the agency police; and that Oliver Sanderville and I were left to the deputy sheriff who did not bother us any longer. Wolf Plume, who is the Blackfeet Chief, sold his cattle and provided credit at the stores to meet their necessities. He wished to go to Washington to tell of the condition of his people; how poor they were, and what their necessities were and how he would, in a time, be poor also if his people were not given an opportunity for something. This man has given of his means for the care of his people and wished at his own expense to tell the Congress what their condition was. Wolf Plume will tell this Commission to Investigate Indian Affairs, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and the President, that his people are getting worse off each year and have been since McFatridge became superintendent; that he is mean, untruthful, immoral, dishonest, and brutal; and that he does not wish any Indians who are independent of him to come to Washington. The Blackfeet people are in a starving condition and many will starve this winter if no changes are made in the administration of the Blackfeet agency under McFatridge.”

PARTIAL LIST OF BLACKFEET INDIANS WHO DIED DURING WINTER OF 1913

 John Calf Tail’s son, Morning Eagle, Tearing Lodge, Spotted Eagle, Louis Champine, Joseph Everes, Mrs. Bear Leggings, Big Crow, Charles Iron Breast’s little girl, Big Crow’s son, Mrs. Head Carrier, Bad Old Man, Medicine Singer, Mrs. Peter Champine’s two children, Gambler, Coat, his wife and child, all died within a week, James White Calf’s son, Peter After Buffalo’s four children and mother-in-law, Night Shoot’s two children, Orrie Sheriff’s child, Big Woman, Bad Marriage’s little child, Antoine Big Brave’s daughter, Three Calve’s little daughter, Running Back’s daughter, Henry No Bear’s daughter, Blackfoot’s child, Bear Paw’s son, Mrs. Paul Double Runner, Louis Champine, Bad Marriage, Joe Shorty White Grass, George Pablo, Dog Ears, Sam Middle Calf, John Kicking Woman, John Croft, Johnny Morgan, Lazy Boy, Day Rider, Mike Day Rider, Elmer Butterfly, Albert Wolf Robe, William Bear’s child, Come in the Night, John Ear Rings, Phillip Arrow Top Knot, Silas Arrow Top Knot, George Bull Child, Eddy Double Runner, New Breast, Black Bear, Tom Jackson, Many Tail Feathers, Boss Ribs, Lodge Pole, John Head Carrier, Richard Calf Robe, Iron Eater, Flint Smoking, Moves Out, Big Wolf Medicine, Many Guns, Tom Vielle, Pete Vielle, Charley Dust Bull, Thomas Bear, James Pambrun, Black Sarcee, Louis Ell, Mrs. Richard Rutherford, William Croff, Weasel Head, Double Runner, War Bonnet, Mike Little Dog, Stabs by Mistake, Joe Head Carry, George West Wolf, Richard Roundine, Fish Wolf Robe, Arrow Top Knot, Perry Bull Child, Eagle’s child, Fred Big Top, Blackfoot’s child, James Spotted Eagle, Edgar Many Guns, Eagle, Nicodemus Green, Paul Boss Ribs, Aims Back, Calf Look In, Turtle, Jim Kidney, James Bad Marriage, John Shorty, Red Fox, Charles New Breast, William Buffalo Hide, Henry No Bear, Running Rabbit, Ground, Iron Little Plume, Frank Monroe, Big Plume, Mrs. West Wolf, Antoine Mountain Chief, Yellow Wolf, Mrs. Bear Skin, Mrs. Iron, John Ground, Steve Mad Man, Mud Head, Sam Scabby Robe, Levi Rider, Peter Grant, Peter Weasel Head, Stabs Down, Bear Head, John Black Bear, James Ground, Wolf Chief, Lone Mouse, Thomas Little Bear, Buffalo Hide, Tallow Ashley, Alex Guardipee, Cree Medicine, James Eagle Head, Medicine Stab, Heavy Gun, Mike Bad Old Man, Shorty White Grass, Under Bear, Joe Bear Paw, Wolf Eagle, Sam Rondin, Fine Bull, Fox Old Man, Mrs. Weasel Fat, Mrs. Turn Lodge, Mrs. Catch on Top Gambler, Two Bear Woman, Henry Hungry, Charles Weasel Head, Mike Berry’s child, Oscar Boyd, Shoot First, Charley White Swan, Paul White Grass, The Boy, Lewis Monroe, Baptiste West Wolf, John Running Crane, Myles Running Wolf, New Breast, Theodore Last Star, Tim No Runner, Dan Lone Chief, Many Tail Feather’s daughter, Victoria Kicking Woman, Mrs. Yellow Wolf’s daughter, Joe Bull Child’s daughter. The list of semi-self-supporting full blood Indian population of the reservation, who are feeding their cattle to the poor and destitute and will soon be in destitute circumstances are Chief Wolf Plume, Young Man Chief, Black Weasel, Big Spring, Dog Taking Gun, E. Rattler, John White Man, John White Calf, John Night Gun, Wolf Plume, Running Fisher, Joe Bull Shoe, Owl Child, Heavy Runner, Black Weasel, John Kipp.

The Indians have no more horses or cattle to sell and are in destitute circumstances and almost the whole population of full blooded Indians are suffering the pangs of hunger and an effort has been made by the superintendent to discredit our complaints and his reports convey the idea that we are not in a starving condition, but prosperous.”

Robert J. Hamilton, tribal interpreter for the Blackfeet Chiefs, Washington D.C., Before the Joint Commission of Congress to Investigate Indian Affairs, 1913.

BLACKFEET VETERANS “DOUGHBOYS” STARVED TO DEATH IN 1921

            The National American Indian Memorial Association, Harbor of New York, December 10, 1921, Secretary Joseph K. Dixon wrote General John J. Pershing, General of the Armies, Washington D.C.; that a letter from Mr. A. Hecksher, 50 East 42^nd St. New York in which he states that, “150 Indians from the Blackfeet Reservation fought on the fields of France, and that only about 20 of them came back, not one of them sound and many of them wounded; that these Indians are now dying by the roadside, and so are many of their other tribal members, from sheer hunger; that the tribe is being decimated by the pangs of hunger; that their hunting grounds have been pre-empted and their land filched.” He states all this in his appeal to you that he may make drafts upon your sympathy and influence to seek an early remedy for this deplorable condition. You were kind enough to ask me to give you a line upon the subject. In the first place, all that Lone Wolf says in his interview in the New York Evening Post, November 17, 1921, is true, pathetically true. When Mr. Rodman Wanamaker had his Indian Exhibit in the Palace of Education and Social Economy at the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition in 1915, a little leaflet was circulated with the title: “Do You Know?” One of the paragraphs in that circular reads: “DO YOU KNOW THAT THE FAMOUS OLD BLACKFEET TRIBE IN MONTANA IS IN DIRE STRAITS THROUGH THE FAILURE OF CROPS AND PILLAGE BY GRAFTERS? THAT MANY OF THEM LITERALLY STARVED TO DEATH LAST WINTER, 1913-1914, AND THAT HUNDREDS OF THEM WILL BE IN SERIOUS WANT AGAIN THIS YEAR?”

            That statement reached the eye of Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, he immediately protested, going so far as to send a special messenger to Mr. Rodman Wanamaker in New York stating, I was “abusing the United States Government.”

            Not many weeks following, the California Women’s Club of San Francisco wrote a letter to Senator W.P. Dillingham of Vermont-a personal friend of the president of the club—detailing the awful conditions obtaining on the Blackfeet Reservation. Senator Dillingham sent the letter to Cato Sells, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and the reply of Mr. Sells to Mr. Dillingham states as follows: “NO REPORTS HAVE BEEN RECEIVED BY ME OF INDIANS STARVING TO DEATH.” That statement was made in the face of the fact that a Joint Commission of Congress to Investigate Indian Affairs had reported on the Blackfeet Indians by Senator Harry Lane, of Oregon. This report was given to Mr. Sells, on every page of it will find hunger, and neglect, and, oppression and failure, and injustice, and horror personified. Cato Sells had that report in his possession at that very moment when he wrote that letter to Senator Dillingham. This letter describes a shack where full blood Indians live by Senator Lane: At this time I found that a mother of a family of six  children had given birth to a baby the day before and was up and around, but she fled to her bed of old rags on the floor on our arrival; there was no food in this house, and how the family sustained itself I do not know. Two of the small children from 4 to 6 years of age were almost entirely without clothing, one little boy had nothing but man’s sack coat. There is no game in this country to afford subsistence and I was informed that to keep from starving they had killed and eaten all the prairie dogs and had resorted to eating skunks. The Indians said they are being starved by whites in order to compel them from necessity to consent to the sale of their irrigable lands.”

James Willard Schultz wrote, “When I was on the reservation last summer the trader at Browning, Joe Sherburne had 212 patents of Blackfeet allotted lands. It serves well the interests of the big meat trust, Swift & Co., operating through its subsidiary the Portland Land & Cattle Company, who are after this big grass country of the Blackfeet Reservation and the interests of the Great Northern Railway through its subsidiary the Park Saddle Horse Company, who leased the entire St. Mary Valley from the Indian Bureau for ten cents an acre, removing Blackfeet cattlemen to the eastern portion of the reservation. James J. Hill is operating tourist hotels at East Glacier Park and St. Mary Village for Glacier Park tourists hotels located on the Reservation.”

Joe Sherburne robbed teenage Monroe sisters of their allotments located at St. Mary that make up the town site of St. Mary Village, and provide a right-of-way from the highway to the eastern entrance to Glacier Park without crossing tribal land. James J. Hill got a bill in Congress to take the land in East Glacier for his hotel and paid $150 for the land. Robert Hamilton, upon the request of the Blackfeet chiefs, filed a lawsuit to recover the land since there was no consent of the tribe. These tribal claims are extinguished in the water compact settlement approved by the Blackfeet tribal council in 2009.  

                 

BLACKFEET COUNCIL EXTINGUISHES ALL BLACKFEET ALLOTTED CLAIMS

The major categories of Blackfeet claims set to be extinguished in the water compact if Blackfeet voters approve the tribal referendum are 605 “Forced Fee Patents Cases on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.” The trust titles of Blackfeet allottees were scheduled to be restored to the heirs by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in 1980 with just compensation estimated at $300 million to be paid to legal heirs of the 605 forced patents allottees. Chairman Earl Old Person refused to allow the senate committee to hold hearings on the reservation, and he has delayed our claims up until today, despite tribal resolution #224-2001 passed unanimously requesting a senate investigation of our claims.

 Old Age Assistance claims of Blackfeet elders cover Glacier and Pondera county government officials prerequisite for serving elderly Blackfeet welfare recipients; forced sale of their trust property to white men in order to receive county welfare assistance in complicity with Bureau of Indian Affairs officials, taking advantage of our tribal elders.

Secretarial Sales of deceased allottees lands to white men without consent of the heirs, such as Perry Grant’s parents cover hundreds of Blackfeet allotted land claims.

There are unresolved water rights claims, oil & gas claims, rights-of-way and trespass environmental damages claims against Glacier and Pondera counties.

Jurisdictional issues involve “disclaimers” in the state constitution disclaiming any jurisdiction over any Indian or Indian land as a condition of obtaining statehood.  

TRIBAL COUNCIL AND BIA GUILTY OF COLLUSION IN LAND LEASE POLICY

            Subordination is “The act or process by which a person’s rights or claims are ranked below those of others, placed in a lower order, class or rank; occupying a lower position, inferior in order, nature, dignity, power, importance; having a lower position in a recognized scale.” The Blackfeet Water Compact Settlement Act places individual allotted water rights under a “communistic style” tribal water right effectively awarding the tribal council discretion and authority to do as they please with trust landowners water supplies on the reservation. It extinguishes Blackfeet trust landowners treaty rights to use the reserved tribal grazing lands and water supplies for the “exclusive use and occupancy” of Blackfeet cattle ranchers and trust landowners contained in the 1896 Agreement/Article 5. The United States Congress agreed to “guarantee” the continued success of the Blackfeet cattle ranchers and to end the leasing of tribal lands to whites and to fence the reservation to keep out white ranchers cattle herds trespassing on the reservation. Chief White Calf testified to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs that the Indian Bureau had turned the Blackfeet Reservation into “a white man’s cow pasture.”  

            Today, the lease policy of the tribal council and BIA turned the reservation into an exclusive reserve for third-party Blackfeet lease holders who sub-lease to white cattle ranchers criminally violating treaty guarantees in the 1896 Agreement/Article 5.

The tribal council and BIA “colluding” in sub-leases to white cattlemen through third-party Blackfeet leaseholders created criminal acts that include holding down the market price of allotted and tribal land leases to $5 per acre for the best grazing lands in Montana. Third-party Blackfeet leaseholders get the cash from leasing tribal and allotted lands and sub-leasing to white cattlemen who in turn profit $67,000,000 on the reservation from sales of cows and crops. There are over 500 white ranchers and farmers in Glacier county but very few Blackfeet cattle ranchers on the Blackfeet Reservation for whom the reservation was created as well as allotted trust landowners.

Collusion means a lease policy executed between tribal and federal governments designed to economically exploit Blackfeet trust landowners and tribal land enacted by the tribal council and BIA lease policy “colluding” to hold down the market price of the best grazing lands in Montana. Collusion is “an agreement between two or more parties to defraud a person of his rights by the forms of law. It implies the existence of fraud of some kind, by the employment of fraudulent means, or of unlawful means for the accomplishment of an unlawful purpose, a secret combination, conspiracy, or concert of action between two or more persons for fraudulent or deceitful purpose.”

The irony of it is that this criminal conspiracy is totally controlled by the Blackfeet Agency Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council. It is a federal crime to steal from a tribal government organization or to steal trust property or Individual Indian Money owned by treaty Indians under the federal trusteeship.

The Trump administration is an Indian hating republican controlled federal executive branch of the federal government. Donald Trump has no use for Indians since Indian casinos put his casino out of business using tribal sovereignty. I wrote to the Trump administration and asked them to come to the Blackfeet Reservation and stop the conspiracy robbing Blackfeet trust landowners by the tribal council and BIA lease policy.

The federal government provides $192,000,000 to the tribal government, BIA, IHS, Public Schools, tribal college and we are getting poorer. A Republican United States Attorney will bring to federal trial dozens of defendants who are elected tribal council members, federal employees, and documentation filling an office full of filing cabinets. Every member of the conspiracy to defraud the Blackfeet trust landowners and Blackfeet Tribe of  individual Indian lease money stolen by the collusion/conspiracy of the tribal council and BIA lease policy will be prosecuted and brought to trial in federal court. A century after the meeting at the schoolhouse of Blackfeet Chiefs, Robert Hamilton and 300 Blackfeet justice may be near for the Blackfeet Indians. I pray to our creator it is so.

                 

             

THE SACRED BUFFALO VISION, “SLOW-DEATH” OF INDIANS IN AMERICA

THE SACRED BUFFALO VISION, “SLOW-DEATH” OF INDIANS IN AMERICA

“Slow-Death Measures” Genocide was defined by the United Nations Genocide Convention in 1944: “Any policy undertaken with the intent of bringing about the dissolution and ultimate disappearance of a targeted human group, as such, as well as subjecting a people to conditions of life which, owing to lack of proper housing, clothing, food, hygiene, medical care, excessive work, or physical exertion are likely to result in the debilitation [and] death of individuals; or mutilations and biological experiments imposed for other than curative purposes; deprivation of the means of livelihood by confiscation, looting, curtailment of work, and denial of housing and of supplies otherwise available to the other inhabitants of the territory concerned and to protect any racial, national, linguistic, religious, and political groups threatened by policies aimed at destroying such groups or preventing their preservation and development”

 Author Helen Hunt Jackson wrote “A Century of Dishonor” in 1895 documenting massacres of Indian tribes by the United States Government. Author Angie DeBoo wrote “And Still the Waters Run” to document thousands of murders of Indian landowners for oil rights in the 1930’s, who were mass-murdered by border-whites, the state of Oklahoma, Secretary of the Interior, and major oil corporations.

The Sacred Buffalo Vision is a political-economic history of systematic Blackfeet genocide by the United States Government, corporations and state of Montana physical genocides of Blackfeet people causing tribal populations to drop from 7,800 Blackfeet alive in 1863 at white contact to just 1,811 endangered Blackfeet left alive by 1890.

United States Government Reports say Indian deaths were caused by border-whites massacres of Blackfeet Indian women, children and old age people, small-pox epidemics, the whiskey trade, tribal famine and many removals to smaller reservations.

In the modern era from 1913-1922 hundreds of Blackfeet landowners were starved to death by Montana border-whites, corporations and United States Government Indian Service officials and members of Congress to steal Blackfeet allotted lands, oil, water, timber and minerals. The massive Blackfeet land frauds are called “Forced Fee Patents Cases on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation” and remain unresolved despite treaty, laws, and Indian land claims preserved by Public Law 96-217, Section 2; enacted by Congress in 1982 to provide justice for 17,000 individual Indian land claimants to 100 million acres of allotted Indian lands within reservation boundaries held by treaty and managed under a federal trusteeship. Border-whites own Patent-in-Fee lands stolen from the Indian landowners and live on “reservation/county” white-apartheid state lands on Indian reservations. The unresolved forced patent claims of 17,000 Indian claimants represent white-apartheid on Indian reservations within the United States of America.  

AFRICAN-SLAVERY MORPHS TO CORPORATE SLAVERY FOR ALL AMERICANS

Author Ruth Shinsel’s Article in Mankind Magazine: “John Wilkes Booth: Man To Murderer; The Knights of the Golden Circle had, at first, been organized to uphold the ideal of a great golden empire. An aristocracy, a circle of noblemen, would hold permanent titles to large plantations and numerous slaves. An expanding sphere reaching from the Demerara and the Amazon throughout all the torrid and the more temperate zones of the Americas would be exploited. In the eyes of these feudal-minded knights, all laborers, black, brown, red, yellow, and white; were considered mudsills of society. Improvident, poverty-stricken and vicious, laborers the world over would be immeasurably better off, they contended, and far less vicious if tenderly cared for and forced to labor by kind, wise, and benevolent masters. Considering free society a failure, they called all slavery a “positive good.” President Lincoln expressed a different view, “Most governments have been based on the denial of equal rights of men…ours began by affirming those rights. They said [slave owners] some men are too ignorant and vicious to share in government. Possibly so, said we; and, by your system, you would always keep them ignorant and vicious. We proposed to give all a chance; and we expected the weak to grow stronger, the ignorant to grow wiser; and all better and happier together. We made the experiment; and the fruit is before us. Free labor has the inspiration of hopes; pure slavery has no hope. The power of hope upon human exertion and happiness is wonderful. The slave master himself has a conception of it; and hence the system of tasks among the slaves. The slave whom you cannot drive with the lash to break seventy-five pounds of hemp in a day, if you will task him to break a hundred and promise him pay for all he does over; he will break you a hundred and fifty. You have substituted hope for the rod. And, yet perhaps it does not occur to you, that to the extent of your gain in the case, you have given up the slave system and adopted the free system of labor. When we were the political slaves of King George and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that ‘all men are created equal’ a self-evident truth; but now that we have grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim, a self-evident lie.”

Immigrant slaves and corporate plantations transplanted upon your town, U.S.A.

‘Methland’ is a book by Nick Reding: “Within the population of illegals [immigrants] streaming across the border to work in the meatpacking plants throughout the Great Plains, in the fields of the California Central Valley, and in the orchards and orange groves of the Southeast, there was unlimited potential for a narcotic retail and distribution force. It was nationwide, mobile, undocumented, and protean, was almost impossible to track by law enforcement. Five Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations [D.T.O.’s] controlled the manufacture of meth by following the practice of importing precursors into Mexico, thereby achieving business’s holy trinity; dominance of the entire value chain. In one fell swoop, the Mexican drug traffickers directed every aspect of what was now a major international narcotics phenomenon-in the same way that Cargill, Tyson, and ADM were taking control of the food business “from plow to plate” as the marketing slogan went. The link between the agriculture business and meatpacking, and illegal immigration would appear to be self-evident in the connection between meth, immigration and the food & drug industry lobby. Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wanted proof from the DEA that pseudoephedrine was used to make meth. The bill to banish pseudoephedrine imported from China languished in Hatch’s committee for over a year-while the Mexican D.T.O.’s production of crystal meth from pseudoephedrine went unhampered. One-half of the ingredients needed to manufacture pseudoephedrine for cold medicines is imported from China and used by Mexican D.T.O.’s for production of meth. A government study found that 40% of agricultural workers in the United States are here illegally. Immigration and Naturalization Services estimate that one in four meatpacking workers in the Midwest is illegal. As meatpacking plants and big-agriculture employed illegals at abysmally low wages, [$5 per hour], the economies of towns like Ottumwa, Iowa suffered still more. Meantime, DEA had a continued lack of success fighting the meth industry thanks to the powerful Pharmaceutical lobby allowing pseudoephedrine imports from China, a precursor to meth distribution, by allowing illegal Mexican immigrants packing meth into the country for the D.T.O.’s. Illegals take [low-wage] agricultural jobs while distributing meth to immigrant workers and local meth heads. But there is a more subtle connection between meth, immigration, and the food & drug industry. That relationship is driven by the conceit that drugs, like viruses, attack weak hosts. Or, to put it another way, narcotics and poverty-along with the loss of hope and place-mutually reinforce one another. Consider what used to happen in Oelwein, Iowa, before the largest consolidation in the 1980’s and 90’s of almost every niche of the food-production chain. Corn farmers would have bought seed from the local seed company. Once harvested, that corn would be shipped to a small feedlot in order to fatten cattle raised in Nebraska, Wyoming, Florida, or Arizona; or perhaps it would go to a dairy in northern Missouri, a chicken farm in Indiana, or a pork outfit in Kansas. The variables were infinite, and the market was dynamic. The barge, truck, or railroad car that carried the grain was likely independently owned too, as would have been the cows, pigs, and chickens it fed. A few companies would come to control most of the food business. The ability to [politically] influence the governmental decision-making process is something the U.S. food and pharmaceutical corporations share with the five Mexican D.T.O.’s. Unfortunately, the same American illegal immigration policy that provides a low-wage workforce ideal for the meat-packers, food industry, and big-agriculture is what keeps the Mexican D.T.O.’s in business. The [economic] interests of the Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations are aligned with the likes of the Pharmaceutical Industry, Cargill and ADM and all are served by illegal immigration, and unrestricted free trade agreements with China and Mexico.”

Cattle ranchers and cowboys no longer the symbol of freedom and independence

            The book “Fast Food Nation” by Eric Schlosser documents the demise of the family ranch economy, once the symbol of American independence; “Ranchers and cowboys have long been the central icons of the American West. Traditionalists have revered them as symbols of freedom and self-reliance. Revisionists have condemned them as racists, economic parasites, and despoilers of the land. The powerful feelings evoked by cattlemen reflect opposing views of our national identity, attempts to sustain old myths or create new ones. There is one indisputable fact, however, about American ranchers; they are rapidly disappearing. Over the last twenty years, about a half million ranchers sold off their cattle and quit the business. Many of the nation’s remaining eight hundred thousand ranchers are faring poorly. They’re taking second jobs. They’re selling cattle at break-even prices or at a loss. The ranchers who are faring the worst run two to three hundred head of cattle, manage the ranch themselves, and live solely on the proceeds. America’s independent cattlemen have truly become an endangered species. The Reagan administration allowed the four largest meatpackers to gain control of the local cattle market. ConAgra, I.B.P., Excel, and National Beef-slaughter about 84% of the nations cattle. Market concentration in the beef industry is now at the highest level since record keeping began in the early twentieth century. ConAgra and Excel operate their own gigantic feedlots, while IBP has private arrangements with some of the biggest ranchers and feeders. Independent ranchers and feedlots now have a hard time figuring out what their cattle are actually worth, let alone finding a buyer for their cattle at the right price. Meatpacking was a trailblazer in recruiting migrant labor. IBP was among the first to recognize that recent migrants would work for lower wages than American citizens-and would be more reluctant to join unions. To sustain the flow of new workers into IBP slaughterhouses, the company has for years dispatched recruiting teams to poor communities throughout the United States. It has recruited refugees and asylum-seekers from Laos and Bosnia. It recruited homeless people living at shelters in New York, New Jersey, California, North Carolina, and Rhode Island. It has hired buses to import these workers from thousands of miles away. IBP runs ads on Mexican radio stations offering jobs in the United States and operates a bus service from rural Mexico to the heartland of America. The Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates one-quarter of all meatpacking workers in Iowa and Nebraska are illegal immigrants. Poor workers without health insurance drive up local medical costs, drug dealers prey on recent immigrants, and the large transient population brings more crime. McDonalds, a fast food corporation, relies on dairy cattle for its hamburger supplies, but worn-out dairy cattle are the animals most likely to be diseased and riddled with antibiotic residues. The Reagan and Bush administrations cut spending on public health measures and staffed the U.S. Department of Agriculture with officials more interested in government deregulation than in food safety. President Reagan’s first Secretary of Agriculture was in the hog business, and his second was President of the American Meat Packers Association. Poorly trained meat inspectors were allowing the shipment of beef contaminated with fecal material, hair, insects, metal shavings, urine and vomit. Cutbacks in federal inspection seemed difficult to justify when hundreds of schoolchildren were made seriously ill by tainted hamburgers in school lunch programs. The cheapest ground beef was not only the most likely to be contaminated with pathogens, but also likely to contain pieces of spinal cord, bone, and gristle left behind by the contraptions that squeeze the last shreds of meat off bones. An NBC news report said the Cattle King Packing Company-the United States Department of Agriculture’s largest supplier of ground beef for school lunches, and also a supplier to Wendy’s fast food corporation-routinely processed cattle that were already dead before arriving at the plant, hid diseased cattle from inspectors and mixed rotten meat that had been returned from customers into packages of hamburger meat, and its facilities were infested with rats and cockroaches. An eleven year old boy became seriously ill after eating a hamburger at his elementary school, as tests confirmed the presence of E. coli. Nevertheless U.S.D.A. Food Programs continued to purchase meat from ConAgra.”         

Teddy Roosevelt unsuccessful in breaking up trusts that enslave modern Americans      

The book ‘The Titanic’ by Wyn Craig Wade documents the sinking of the “unsinkable ship” Titanic, and the aftermath written up in an article in the newspaper, Philadelphia North American, pointing to special privilege ruling over the common man. “Human rights came into conflict with vested property rights on the decks of the Titanic during those hours of darkness and final parting. And the price was paid that wlll ever be paid until the will of nations forbids special privilege from using bodies of men and women as counters in its private profit game. For that and no other is the silent message that seems to us comes from those men and women who lie murdered in the ocean depths.” Author Wyn Craig Wade writes, “The pleasures of the Gilded Age existed for the very few. They rested top heavy on a social structure ready to crumble. Luxury and excess were justified on assumption of limitlessness, both in fuel and in human suffering. This wasn’t fulfillment, but the illusion of fulfillment wrought by the oppression of the lower echelons of society whose labor materialized it. Nostalgic glorifications of this Age of Security and Splendor automatically condone its grave social injustices; and responsibility for these conditions has yet to be owned completely by Anglo-Americans in the late twentieth century. Although the organization of society is beginning to look more equitable, what we have truly managed to redress is only the tip of the iceberg.”

Blackfeet cattle industry destroyed by big-corporations conspiracy with big-government  

The big-meat corporations need pure water and natural grass to fatten cattle since American consumers may no longer eat hamburgers made of ground up cow patties and cow parts in their burgers processed by Cargill, and sold by fast-food corporations like Wendy’s and McDonalds. The additives of antibiotics and hormones, to counter infection of cattle standing ankle deep in cow piss and shit for weeks while awaiting their final demise in the Cargill beef processing plants, until ready to be butchered by meth addicted low-wage locals and illegal immigrants working two eight hour shifts enabled by the 12 hour meth high to withstand freezing, horrid working conditions; sometimes cutting off fingers, and getting stabbed on the production line, or breaking backs for $5.00 per hour. That is an economic system of slow-death corporate slavery.

In contrast, the Indian reservations are mostly unpolluted with clean water supplies and contain rich buffalo grasses to fatten cattle naturally on free-range, grass-fed grazing lands for beef production by Indian cattle ranchers. The Blackfeet Indians were self-reliant cattle ranchers by 1893 with 500 tribal brands, 25,000 cattle, 1.5 million acres of grazing lands, pure water supplies and cash for all needful things.

The Texas Cattle Kings came into Blackfoot Country by 1863 and commenced to murder the Indians and force land cessions that cover the state of Montana, Glacier Park and the Lewis & Clark National Forest; but even that was not enough land to satisfy the greed of the Montana cattlemen, Swift & Armor meat trust, Great Northern Railway and Montana cattle ranchers who bankrupted the Blackfeet Indian ranchers by 1904. Even Chicago Crime boss Al Capone came to the reservation and set up his own bank to join the officials of the government in robbing the Indians. How appropriate! 

The loss of 350,250 acres of reservation lands to border-whites in the forced patents land frauds collapsed the self-reliant Blackfeet cattle industry, just as the white ranchers are getting crushed by the political and economic power of Cargill and other food corporations taking over the cattle industry they built over the past century.

The Sacred Buffalo Vision is to point to the separation of corporations from the powers of government as much more an important issue than separation of church and state in the constitution. President Lincoln pointed to “money power” as the next threat to the unity of the American nation as a kind of corporate slavery envisioned by the Knights of the Golden Circle, to enslave laborers of all races, white, black, red, yellow and brown. In my opinion, they have done it and we are an enslaved corporate nation! 

 Please read ‘The Sacred Buffalo Vision’ a century of slow-death genocides of the Blackfeet Treaty Indians, 1863-2016, murdered for land and resources by the United States Government politicians in complicity with food and oil corporations and border-whites. Now available for purchase;  @Amazon.Com.

Bob Juneau Sr. A Blackfeet Patriot and Vietnam Agent Orange Veteran.    

         

   

           

THANKSGIVING FOR 150 YEARS OF STARVATION OF INDIAN PEOPLE?

The "death sticks" was a body count of Blackfeet people starved to death during the famine of 1881-1887 requested by Congress to survey the progress of the campaign to force another land cession of 17 million acres of Blackfoot Confederacy lands held by the 1855 Treaty with the United States, a treaty of peace, friendship, and amity duly ratified by Congress. Chief White Calf, Principal Chief of the Blackfeet Tribe was aggrieved to see his people suffering and wanted to know why his people could not get more food promised by the treaty, and why the Indians in Canada receive seeds and rations to live on, and he wants to be treated as the tribes in Canada. United States Indian Agent Allen reported the conditions of the Blackfeet people in 1884, three years into the tribal famine, "The Indians offer themselves to work for food, and where ten are called for fifty will appear, but while there are many ways where the agent could employ them, he is unable to because they must be paid in rations and there are none to spare. The Indians try to plant. For example, a patch of ground was seen where they had cut the ground with an axe, and scratched the ground with their fingers in order to plant some potatoes. None of their ponies are strong enough to break the soil, and what seeds and potatoes were furnished, they immediately ate. Everything about them indicates their poverty. They have not a fur or skins for moccasins and there is nothing in their lodges except for the people themselves. The Chiefs are very desirous that some of them should be allowed to go to Washington to represent their hardships to the Great Father, but their applications to that effect has been denied by the Indian Office on the score there is no money to pay the expenses of their trip. At present there is an abundance of berries, but they will soon be gone, and there will be nothing but meat and flour. In May and June there were times they stripped the trees and ate the inner bark to keep their souls and bodies together. In a very short time the carpenter will be kept busy making burial boxes. The Indians vital forces are so weakened by the famine of the past three years that the winter now approaching will find them unable to endure its severity, and still more dreadful suffering will occur. The Piegans are slowly starving to death, but in order to convince the government that an unnatural and inhuman state of affairs exists here, it would seem necessary that these Indians should break out in open revolt and all die at once. The Texas cattlemen refuse to sell any beef to the agency and provoke the Indians to start a range war. The conduct of affairs here is exceedingly unpleasant and unless matters can be remedied there will probably be bloodshed. The dissatisfaction is constantly on the increase and unless something can be done to alleviate the suffering of these people the employees at the agency will be in danger of losing their lives. Their physical condition is that of a slowly starving people, all of the people being very gaunt and thin, and shockingly emaciated. Scrofula prevails to a great extent among them, aggravated by lack of nourishment and a large number are suffering from consumption. Their systems are so impoverished that very slight hurts develop into serious complications. Of the births and deaths nothing is known by the Department of the Interior who are totally ignorant of the numbers of Indians it pretends to care for and feed. Last month the agency carpenter built 17 coffins while doctor Gillette reported only 6 deaths. Many Indians are buried without coffins and sometimes two Indians are placed in one coffin. The Indians prefer to bury their own dead by tying them in trees or placing them in high hills and the ridges and hills around the agency are dotted with these ghastly objects." In 1881 Father Prando wrote, "The injustice of the white man is the cause of suffering among the Indians. The Blackfeet are sunk in want and misery and in my opinion, they will have trouble getting through the winter without dying of hunger." In 1884 he wrote, " There was so much talk and so much noise in the newspapers about the deplorable conditions of these poor creatures, but till now they received no help. And, this year the effects of the famine are making themselves felt so horribly and the savages are dying rapidly. Each day there is someone dead. Indeed, we can say two-thirds of the tribe are diseased now. What a pity it is to see little boys and girls, with their small faces pale and emaciated, with languid eyes, and at an age when they should be happy, experiencing sorrow and consumption." In the middle of winter the United States Treaty Commissioners arrived in Blackfoot Country, in forty degree below zero weather, stayed a week, and completed a land cession of 17,000,000 acres of Blackfeet Treaty Lands for $1.5 million to be paid in ten annual installments for the purchase of cattle, equipment, supplies, rations, and improvements to their cattle ranches. By 1893 the Blackfeet cattle ranchers had built a self-reliant cattle industry of 500 tribal brands, 25,000 cattle, shipping steers to Chicago Stockyards, building ranch homes, fences, barns, vegetable gardens, and cash for all needful things. By 1904 the Montana border-whites and Blackfeet Agent George Steel robbed the entire Blackfeet cattle herd to build up their herds off the reservation. It is a history of border-whites robbing the Indians in complicity with the United States Government. Today the final blow of permanent poverty is contained in the water compacts awarding the border-whites stolen property and water rights within the reservation boundaries. Psychologist Edwardo Duran wrote, "Most Indians deal with issues of injustice, conquest, dishonored treaties, land thefts, and a common thread that weaves across much of the pain and suffering found in Indian communities in the United States and much of the Western Hemisphere. The common thread image is the concept termed the "soul wound." He states, "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 one which is at the core of so much of the suffering of the Indigenous peoples have undergone for centuries." Anthropologist Ruth Hill Useem stated regarding the Indian people's relation with the American Government; (1) That over the years the Indian people can expect no consistency in policies regarding him; (2) That the interests of the dominant society will take precedence over the interests of Indians in any policy decision; (3) That the Indian can do little to affect decisions concerning Indians; (4) That whatever the policy enacted the Indian will be told that such policy is in his best interest; (5) That the stated goals of a policy may be and usually are quite different from the consequences with the goals being more favorable to the Indians than the consequences." Robert J. Hamilton, the great Blackfoot lawyer and interpreter for Blackfeet Chiefs testified before Congress; "In view of the principles enunciated and adopted by your highest judicial tribunals, the fact can not be controverted or questioned that the Blackfeet Indians have been unconstitutionally and unconscionably deprived of their vested rights under the 1855 Treaty by Executive Orders and acts of Congress of 1873 and 1874, and that the Government of the United States is answerable therefor. 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 which upon grounds of good faith and fair dealing can not be defended. Horatio Seymour, a great apostle of democracy, in regard to the treatment of Indians, once said, "Every human being born upon our continent, or who comes here 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 laws and courts for their rights of person and property, all save but our native Indians, who, above all, should be protected from Wrong." Robert Hamilton testified to Congress that "We strongly protest the opening of any part of our reservation because we know it would be a mistake, therefore we ask the Blackfeet be permitted to hold our lands intact." Chairman Cohen of the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs stated in 1983, " On the one hand the Indian claims were originally founded in a breach of contract and a title claim, but the fact that the state has been in wrongful possession of Indian lands for the past 112 years in a trespass against the Indian's interest and therefore lies in tort rather than contract, and is not precluded by the statute of limitations. There are countless Indian people and Indian tribes whose potential claims have not yet been given a fair opportunity to be reviewed in terms of their validity. The remaining question that both Congress and the Executive Branch must face is whether there is continuing exposure to the United States Government in the unresolved Indian claims and violations of tribal sovereignty and the loss of Indian property." The white ranchers are living our lives on our reservations on white-apartheid territories called "reservation/counties" enacted by state legislatures to provide void patent-in-fee titles to border-whites sanctioned by the secretary of the Interior and General Land Office of the United States in approving the fee patents of Indian property. President Reagan rejected two centuries of Indian treaty-making begun with President George Washington and founder Thomas Jefferson. That is why I have spent 35 years fighting for my great-grandmothers lands stolen by white men and the 17,000 individual Indian landowners cited in the Class Action Suit filed in the Covelo Indian Community v. James Watt, Secretary of the Interior, Defendant, who lost in federal court. The Reagan dictatorship stonewalled the Indian claims, still unresolved, but soon to end in the water compact settlements. None of the 17,000 Indian landowners heirs were allowed to testify or to object to the water compacts. The Bureau of Indian Affairs that starved the Indians has completed the genocides by approving neocolonialism and white apartheid on Indian reservations. I no longer believe justice is available for Indians in the United States. That is why I need a sponsor to the United Nations Genocide Convention and to petition the World Criminal Court for justice outside of the United States. The State of Montana is in an illegal trespass and possession of Blackfeet property since 1919. I have all of the evidence needed to win if I can find a lawyer for billions in torts and  claims for 17,000 individual Indian land claims to 100 million acres of stolen Indian property.
   Bob Juneau Sr. Blackfeet patriot.

AMERICAN APARTHEID IS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

The United Nations Security Council unanimously accepted that "Apartheid is a crime against the conscience and dignity of mankind," refers to genocide and institutionalized discrimination on racial, ethnic, or religious grounds. In South Africa President DeClerk apologized for apartheid after the rebellion of Africans stating, "Apartheid was wrong. I apologize to the millions of South Africans who suffered the unending disruption of forced removals in respect to their homes, businesses, and land and prevented from exercising their full democratic rights in the land of their birth." But, the whites and corporations were allowed to keep their ill gotten gains produced from the stolen lands of the victims and the Africans are in an economic depression once again.
        In the United States there are exclusive white territories planted on Indian reservations called "reservation/counties" enacted by state legislatures to give the border-whites a void title called patent-in-fees on stolen Indian land allotments within reservation boundaries without any consent of the Indians or the prior approval of Congress as required by treaties. The United States Government is complicit in the massive unresolved land frauds of 17,000 individual Indian land allotments covering 100 million acres. The Organic Acts of states all contain "disclaimers" any right or title to any Indian land or jurisdiction over any treaty Indians. Public Law 96-217, section 2 was passed by Congress in 1982 to provide justice for a century of unresolved Indian land claims, but President Reagan refused to follow the rule of law and cancelled the Indian claims.
        South African and Soviet Union leaders taunted President Reagan by stating the United States maintained white apartheid territories on Indian reservations. Imagine that! In the past 35 years I have used my efforts to bring a measure of justice for both of my great-grandmothers robbed by the border-whites on the Blackfeet Reservation who established Glacier and Pondera Counties on stolen Blackfeet lands. I found records of government complicity in the forced fee patents claims and evidence of genocides of hundreds of Blackfeet landowners frozen in the agency jail when they refused to sign the forced patents to sell their lands. while the county officials and whites filed liens on the Indian lands in county courts where the Indians could not defend their property. People think the Indians were backward as President Reagan called Indians in Moscow when Russian students asked about his ill treatment of Indians, but he did not mention the pending Indian land claims. Nobody in the world is fooled by the empty rhetoric of the United States, but who is going to confront the bully of the world. There are treaty protests of the Blackfeet Indians to Congress beginning in 1870 when the Indian women and children were massacred by the United States army instigated by lies of Montana border-whites to force Indian land cessions. We can back up no further with our backs to the Rocky Mountains and Canada on the north, Montana on the south and east, where do we go from here. The United States is in violation of the United Nations Security Council Genocide Convention and the International Criminal Court but we, the Indian victims, cannot reach the United Nations Justice. There are 17,000 original forced patents cases robbing 100 million acres of Indian land by the border-whites and their white apartheid territories called "reservation/counties" on Indian reservations. Congress passed legislation forcing Indian tribes into state courts to settle water rights, and to extinguish all past, present, and future Indian claims, forever in the water compacts. In this way apartheid will be a permanent parasite on the Indians, forever. I welcome any legal assistance to prepare a human rights case to present to the United Nations Genocide Court and the International Criminal Court to prosecute the border-whites and states and corporations who got away with genocide in America. I have the documented evidence, I need the legal help to proceed to international courts since we won in federal courts and in Congress but Reagan struck us down and the water compacts extinguish all of our century old claims. Please read, THE SACRED BUFFALO VISION, available on Amazon.Com a history of genocide of the Blackfeet people. Bob Juneau Sr.