BREAKING ECONOMIC APARTHEID ON INDIAN RESERVATIONS

During the Reagan Administration the issue of unresolved Indian Money Damage Claims surfaced once again regarding 17,000 Indian claims to an estimated 100 million acres of Indian property that is managed under a federal trust since the treaties were signed in the 1800's to protect the Indians from encroachment by border-whites and states. These are the Forced Fee Patents Cases on Indian Reservations of Indian property robbed in state courts by illegal liens and taxes on trust property of Indians with the complicity of the Secretary of the Interior issuing fee patents without any consent of the Indians required by federal statute. Congress passed Public Law 96-217, Section 2 which provides in full: Not later than June 30, 1981, the Secretary of the Interior, after consultation with the Attorney General, Shall submit to the Congress legislative proposals to resolve those Indian claims subject to the amendments made by the first section of this Act [extending the statute of limitations period] that the Secretary of the Interior or the Attorney General believes are not appropriate to resolve by litigation. Secretary of the Interior James Watt and President Reagan decided not to litigate the claims nor to send the claims to Congress for legislative resolutions in restoring the Indian lands and providing just compensation for a century of lost revenues of the Indian landowners. Senator Cohen, Chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee disagreed with President Reagan by stating in part, "I do not agree with the conclusion of the Department of the Interior, that legislation to address the "Old-Age Assistance" category of claims [county welfare officials forced old Indians to sell their trust property to whites as a prerequisite to receiving welfare] will bring the Government into substantial compliance with the requirements of P.L. 96-217, that the Department of the Interior in consultation with the Department of Justice submit to the Congress legislative proposals to resolve these outstanding Indian claims. I feel that dispositions made by the Interior Dept. and Justice Dept. falls far short of the intent of Congress in enacting P.L. 96-217." The plan of President Reagan was to will the Indian claims out of existence by letting the statute of limitations run out extinguishing Indian claims forever. However, the Covelo Indian Community filed a class action suit against Secretary of the Interior James Watt and Attorney General William French Smith in which a federal judge ruled on 11/17/82 that defendants motion to dismiss be, and the same hereby is, DENIED, and it is FURTHER ORDERED that defendants shall submit legislative proposals to Congress designed to resolve all those claims [17,000 claims] held by plaintiff class, that defendants will not litigate before December 31, 1982, and it is FURTHER ORDERED that said legislative submissions be made in due course, but in any event, not later than December 15, 1982, and it is FURTHER ORDERED  that if defendants cannot make the necessary legislative submissions by that date, they shall institute protective litigation to cover those claims not the subject of legislative submissions, and it is FURTHER ORDERED that, to the extent not already accomplished as evidenced in the record herein, defendants shall notify members of the plaintiff class, individual or tribal where appropriate, as to the current status of their claims and the nature of the forthcoming statutory deadline of December 31, 1982 for the institution of litigation." The response of President Reagan was to claim the "Executive branch's discretion as to whether or not to propose legislation can never be constitutionally limited in light of Article II, Section 3." The Judge ruled "By signing P.L. 96-217, the President authorized and approved the requirements of Section 2. If the Executive's discretion was thereby restricted, it was done by his own hand and is, therefore beyond a charge of constitutional infirmity." See-Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425, 441 (1977).
As a final argument for dismissal, that plaintiff's action is barred by laches, they claim that plaintiffs had enough knowledge concerning the decisions not to litigate and not to propose legislation, to institute a lawsuit much earlier in time. The argument lacks merit since defendants did not make public many of their final decisions until the Congressional Oversight hearings held September 16 and 23, 1982. Moreover, the Sampsel Report, was not submitted until October 21, 1982, making this case truly ripe at that time. If anyone has been guilty of foot dragging in pursuing this matter it has been defendants. Their equitable defense therefore must fail." I have spent 35 years of my life pursuing these claims for the Blackfeet Indians to no avail, and brought requests to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee duly passed by the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council. I am appealing to President Obama to send our claims to Congress per 96-217. I talked to the Assistant U.S. Attorney for Montana but they have no plans to prosecute our claims, so there it is, stonewalling. Bob Juneau Sr.

MODERN DAY APARTHEID ON INDIAN RESERVATIONS-THE "RESERVATION/COUNTY"

The "Sacred Buffalo Vision" is the story of attempted genocides of the Blackfeet Indians since 1860 when the Confederate soldiers were chased up the Missouri River by the Union Army to Blackfoot Confederacy lands held by the 1855 Treaty with the "United States of America" and commenced to massacre Blackfeet people and encroach upon Blackfeet Confederacy lands. The Montana confederates were joined by confederate "Texas Cattle Kings" arrival with massive cattle herds who encroached on Blackfeet grazing lands and killed off tribal buffalo herds bringing the Indians to famine by 1881 when 600 Blackfeet men, women and children were starved to death in sight of Texas cattle herds trespassing on the reservation. The Texans refused to sell the agent any beef to bring the Indians to survival and the Indians were forced to sell 17,000,000 acres to the United States for $1.5 million to be paid in cattle and equipment to develop a tribal cattle industry which was successful in bringing the Indians to self-support by 1890. By 1896 the Indians were broke once again by the Texas cattlemen rustling 25,000 cattle and trespassing on the Blackfeet reservation and forcing the sale of the mountain lands of the reservation for gold mining for the Montana "High Society" syndicate of the Governor of Montana, federal officials, senators, James J. Hill, railroad baron, the big meat trust Swift & Armor, and Joe Sherburne, the licensed Indian trader, who was a member of the "agency ring" a criminal conspiracy. By 1913 the border-whites had greedy eyes for the remaining reservation lands and set in motion a killing machine that murdered over 100 Indians in the winter of 1913, and once again murdered hundreds of Indian landowners in 1921 by mass starvation to force another land sale which was unsuccessful so they stole the land through county court frauds and taxes that once again broke the Indians. To cover-up the massive land frauds the border-whites encroached on the reservation by a white-apartheid county government called "Glacier County" and embarked on a campaign of "slow death measures" genocide that brought white rule to free treaty Indians. All of these land frauds are documented by Congress and many Blackfeet delegations traveled to Washington City to present their land claims since 1922 to no avail and in the modern day in 1983 President Ronald Reagan threw 200 years of treaties and Indian law into the trash can in complicity with the border-whites. The Blackfeet Indians still own 900,000 acres but live in abject poverty because of government corruption and border-whites thefts of Blackfeet oil & gas, water resources and dominate the reservation economy while the Indians die of slow death measures genocides of poverty, looting of Indian resources, and economic apartheid they cannot break due to complicity of the federal government. My hope is that this book will awaken the conscience of Americans who do not realize white apartheid is upon the land and bring justice to the Indians after all these atrocities in America. The book Sacred Buffalo Vision is available on Amazon.Com

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.41

For compliance of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs request for the "death sticks" body counts of dead Indians, Chief White Calf reported that out of his family of fifteen, four died last year, Running Crane's family of fourteen, six died, Little Bull lost three out of his family of nine, Skunk Cap lost three out of ten in his family, and Bear Chief lost one out of eight in his family and so on to over 600 deaths officially reported.  White Calf, who is principle chief, said he was grieved to see his people suffering, and wanted to know why they cannot get more food and why the Indians in Canadian Territory receive seeds and rations to live on, and he wants to be treated as they are.  Agent Allen reported "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 do so 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 ax, 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 application to that effect has been denied by the Indian Office on the score that there is no money disposable to pay the expenses of their trip.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.41

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.40-41

Full rations of beef would require 1,259,250 lbs. rather than 250,000 lbs estimated.  There are about sixty lodges around or near agency, including those of the principle chiefs, the rest of the Indians having scattered to various points in search of berries.  The Indians continue to make their complaints that they are hungry and their children were dying; their physical condition is that of a slowly starving people, all of the people being very guant and thin, and in some cases, shockingly emaciated.  Scrofula prevails to a great extent among them, aggravated by a lack of nourishment and an unmistakable large number seems to be suffering from consumption.  In fact, their systems are so impoverished, that very slight hurts develop into serious complications.  Of the births and deaths, nothing at all is known, and the Department of the Interior is today totally ignorant of the numbers of Indians it pretends to care for and feed.  Dr. Gillette not to be reappointed; Indians have no confidence in him, lax in duties, does not seem to make any effort to find the sick and supplant the native medicine man; he does not keep himself well informed as to the physical conditions of the Indians as he should, many of them dying in the immediate vicinity of the stockade without his knowledge.  Last month the agency carpenter built 17 coffins, while Dr. Gillete reported only 6 deaths.  Many of the Indians are buried without coffins and sometimes two corpses are placed in one coffin.  The Indian deaths are estimated by agency employees as averaging one per day.  The Indians still prefer to dispose of their bodies by tying them in trees or placing them in high places, and the hills and ridges around the agency, "ghost ridge" are dotted with these ghastly objects.  It is supposed that one half of the deaths are indirectly recorded at the agency through the application for boxes in which to place the corpses.  In May, 1884, the agency carpenter made sixteen rough coffins for this purpose, some of the coffins contained two bodies, and once he made six in one day."
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau    
pg.40-41

A CENTURY OF ECONOMIC-APARTHEID ON THE BLACKFEET RESERVATION

Glacier and Pondera Counties are economic-apartheid units of state government enacted on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation without any consent of the Indians, who were not allowed to vote in county elections, nor did the encroachment have the prior approval of Congress. In fact these two counties operate "extralegally" in a "distinct economic territory" of border-white illegal emigrants from the State of Montana. Both county seats are off-reservation with their tentacles of political slavery of the Indians covering every township on the reservation with border-whites making their homes on stolen Blackfeet land allotments under void patent-in-fee titles issued out of county government. One of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee staff told me in 1982 the fee patents weren't worth the paper they were written on, and dismissed them as worthless Department of the Interior Land Certificates. After 100 years of documented Indian land frauds of 100 million acres of allotted Indian lands leaving hundreds of thousands of "dispossessed Indian heirs" to original allottees in poverty and frustration with the United States treaty promises unfulfilled. The Secretary of the Interior pretends to struggle with "who owns what" on the Indian reservations although the Department of the Interior and Attorney General of the United States are defendants in the lawsuits for Indian Money Damage Claimants. There has been no official examination of the void Patent-in-Fee titles of border-whites living on stolen Indian land allotments held in a federal trusteeship based on sacred Indian treaties with the United States. The border-whites are allowed to hold property titles of treaty Indians within the exterior boundaries of an Indian reservation. I would hesitate to plant my teepee on white man's land, but he has no fear of Indian treaty rights. The result of a 100 years of encroachment of border-whites and states on Indian reservations is that Indians no longer have a clear system of property rights, and cannot get their land titles cleared by Congress, and suffer abject poverty not of their making, but instead have a system of government racketeering in state, county, and federal governments on the reservation. The underground economy of border-whites drains upwards of $850,000,000 from the Blackfeet Reservation economy owned by the Blackfeet Indians. Patent-in-fee lands of border-whites has grown to 529,000 acres, one-third of the reservation land base, and of course, the thieves took the oil wells, grazing lands, irrigated farm lands, water holes, and usurped the successful Blackfeet cattle industry and tribal sovereignty. It is a system of an underground economy operating extralegally without any normal legal title on the reservation. In my opinion, I don't see the difference between Putin pressuring Ukraine to join Russian with a nuke than the State of Montana and the United States slowly killing the Indians by fraud. Bob Juneau Sr.

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.39-40

"Agent Allen reported, "The rations last for two days barely, the rest of the week the people live on wild berries and air until Friday evening when they again flock to the stockade and receive the entrails of the beeves butchered for the next day's issue.  Every part of the refuse is eagerly sought and eaten except for the paunch and gall, which they give to their dogs.  Every killing day the Indians congregate at the stockade, and most disgusting contests occur for the possession of the entrails, etc.  If a slaughter house was erected the beef could be properly and cleanly dressed and everything conducted in an orderly manner.  My predecessors estimate of supplies for following year far from sufficient.  The full ration is little enough, for these Indians have nothing to eat except what is given to them by the government; there is no game, and the amount they produce by farming is positively not worth mentions.  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 imminent danger of losing their lives.  The appropriation for this agency should be largely increased at the present session of Congress else the consequences will be such as should make the people of this nation blush with shame.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau    pg.39-40

The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.39

Samples of the spoiled corn considered to be unfit to feed the soldiers horses that the agent had fed to the Indians were also requested to be sent for proof of the Indians suffering during the past three years, 1881-1884.  The Blackfeet Indians were wholly dependent on the government for every mouthful of food on government rations.  Agent Allen reported,"Their wretched appearance evidenced their suffering as well as the books of the agency rolls.  The adults were receiving two pounds of beef and flour per week, with their children receiving half that amount.  During the winter, the Indians that were strong enough, scoured the neighboring ranges and brought in quantities of the cattle that had died from exposure and disease, but with the approach of warmer weather, the cattle ceased to die and the meat they had secured became too putrid for use." T.C. Power, the Fort Benton contractor, sent flour that would have been rejected if the Indians condition were not so desperate, but as there was not another pound on hand at the agency, it had to be accepted and issued at once.  Agent Allen reported, "It is impossible to buy beef locally-I am sadly in want of beef and am killing from Gov't cattle herd to keep the Indians from suffering.  I earnestly request to be informed by telegram what course I am to pursue in this unlooked for emergency." Wm. H. DeWitt, Helena, United States District Attorney, reported, regarding 10,000-12,000 of I.G. Baker's cattle on reservation, near Sweet Grass Hills, "Will try to bring suit for depredations."
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.39