Chapter 12 excerpt from Blackfeet Sorrow The Robbing of Peter Tail Feathers

Chapter 12 The Robbing of Peter Tail Feathers

The meeting at the schoolhouse in Browning, on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, July 30,

1929 was called to order by Robert Hamilton at 10 a.m. with about sixty members of the

Blackfeet Tribe being present. Mr. Hamilton then enumerated the Indian's complaints, which

he urged the Subcommittee of the Committee on Indian Affairs of the United States Senate to

investigate. The Senate Committee investigator, Walter W. Liggitt, heard the Indian's

testimony concerning the right of the Government to issue patent fee deeds to Indians

when not requested by the Indians; also the right of the local county government to tax

such patent fee lands before the trust period of twenty-five years had expired, and the

right of the Government to assess Blackfeet Irrigation Project costs against Indian

allotments.

The Blackfeet Indians were allotted in 1912 against their will and against the treaty

guarantees in the 1896 Agreement/Article Five, exempting the Indians from Allotment,

due to their success in establishing a tribal cattle industry based on the common grazing

of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Senator Walsh of Montana was successful in

passing legislation in Congress in 1907 calling for allotment of the Blackfeet reservation lands

and taking the 156,000 acres of reclamation lands left over after allotment for white settlers.

Allotments were made of 320 acres to each Indian, and later under the Act of 1919, each

Indian was allotted an additional 80 acres, to be held as a perpetual homestead, and of the

total of 1,486,874 acres on the reservation, 1,440,000 acres have been allotted; with 2,364

acres set aside for school, agency, and township purposes; and 44,240 acres remain as

tribal timber and grazing reserves.

Investigator Liggitt reported that approximately 210,000 acres have passed into the

ownership of white men after the Indians were granted patents in fee on their allotments. He

reported that,"In this connection, it should be pointed out that a large portion 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; that furthermore scores of

patent fees were issued to Indians without the Indians having made application for the same in

clear defiance of the law. In other words, I charge that a conspiracy existed between Horace G.

Wilson, former superintendent, 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 principle

beneficiary of this deliberate conspiracy was J.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 effect that during the term of

Superintendent Horace G. Wilson-who later served a term in the federal penitentiary for

bigamy-they were compelled to accept patents in fee for which they had not applied.

Examination of the patents file 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, J.L. Sherburne [agency trader]

induced them to sign promissary notes, or to mortgage their land for bills incurred at his

general store. In some cases wives were induced to assume 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.

Many of the Indians who were given fee patents were ignorant, absolutely illiterate, and

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."

Peter Tail Feathers

Investigator Liggitt continued,"I refer to the case of Peter Tail Feathers. Peter Tail Feathers

was given a petent 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.

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 for $1,100, and of this amount

Peter Tail Feathers only received $300. 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 own sworn protectors.

Every step of this transaction was conceived in fraud and carried out by men who were

paid on the supposition they were guardians of this government ward. Probably the robbery

of Peter Tail Feathers is the most flagrant on the Blackfeet reservation-incidentally the Indian

Bureau has never questioned this deal-but many other instances can be brought forward where

ignorant old savages, unable to read or write or even to understand English, were given patent-

in-fees against their will and soon cajoled out of their property. And in every case it will be

found that the land in question had some particulare quality which made it especially

desirable, or the Indian had incurred a debt which some white man wished to satisfy by the

seizure of his land.

Most of these patents were issued from the period of 1918 until 1921, when F.C. Campbell,

Horace G. Wilson and T.C. Power acted as superintendents in rapid succession. Both Power

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 for the Competency Commission was dismissed from the Indian

Service in 1919. Competency Commission members were Wilson, Hazlett, Sherburne.

There is no 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 of these

cases where it is not possible to cancel the patent and restore the land to the Indians, that lieu

allotments be made. Senate Investigator Liggitt recorded Peter Tail Feathers as follows:

"He is thirtyone years old, 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 it with

the aid of several interpreters." He said,"Mr. Campbell, (Red Hair), forced me to accept a

patent in 1919. I had an allotment near Heart Butte Agency. I didn't want the patent, but they

forced me to take it."

Investigator Liggett continued,"Peter Tail Feathers said that he sold his land to Henry

Hagen, a mixed blood. He believed he was only selling two hundred acres and retaining eighty

acres for himself as a home, but it seems they took the whole tract. He was supposed to get

$1,100 for the land. He only got $300 cash and never got the rest of it. He had some papers,

(a promissory note) but it disappeared when his father died. He complained to the agency, but

got no relief. It developed from questioning of others present that the 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 29, 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

buying the land from the boy for $1,100-of which only $300 was paid-Hagen sold the land for

$1,700 to a Kalispell banker named Johnson.

One glance at Peter Tail Feathers is sufficient to reveal he is on the border of imbecility,

and the very fact 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. The boy is

not getting any rations and is now dependent upon the charity of his neighbors. The agency

officials had him taken off the agency ration rolls to complete the deception that he was a

competent Indian and able to handle his own affairs.